A new perspective Tunney vs Ali, who wins?

People are right to make Ali the favourite, but this is not a gimee fight by any means, and those saying that Ali would win easily are frankly being a bit silly.

Tunney was as cerebral and analytical fighter as you will find in any era. He would study Ali's style to formulate a fight plan to beat him, and I am prepared to predict exactly what he would pick up on.

1. He would notice that Ali did not work as well on the forefoot when forced to be the agressor. He would formulate various strategies for leading him round the ring to thrtow him off his game plan. He would be quite varied in his aproach to doing this if necesary.

2. He would look at how Ali pulled back to avoid punches, and could not fail to observe that he was vulnerable to a number of combinations. Such fighters are always vulnerable to hooks and uppercuts, and Ken Norton was always able to tag Ali with the jab. What I suspect that Tunney would do is throw feints when Ali was going backwards and then come in with some combinations that hit him where it hurt.

Tunney was a guy who would never fail to observe these kinds of weakneses and would never fail to exploit them.

I don't think that Ali would have had an easy time with Tommy Loughran either.

 

I imagine Tunney coming forward a lot, and not getting Ali to come forward.
i dont think Ali was particularly uncomfortable standing his ground and coming forward. He even did it against Liston when Liston stopped coming at him. Ali was aggressive.

I think Tunney was a great body puncher and a great all-round boxer. He'd be aggressive, come forward, counter-puncher, be versatile.
He'd box Ali like Doug Jones boxed Clay.

 

No, my reason is that he's lopsidedly outclassed in all of the physical aspects of the game, and I've been very clear about that.

 

Is technique a physical aspect?

 

Fair enough. I must just disagree on the specifics then.
He's a similar size to some of the men who gave Ali trouble.
And I dont agree that he's lopsidedly slower, nor do i agree that Ali had better footwork.

 

That's just not how I imagine it.
You dont win fights by being that negative. Not against a fit Ali.

I dont see why Tunney would try to use "Ali tactics". And I dont see why Ali would be the one being made to do anything.
Ali was as clever as Tunney.

I dont imagine it like that. They'd box each other, mid-ring for the most part, neither of them being fully the chaser or the chased, they'd just box. If anything the onus would be on Tunney to come forward more often because he'd be the one with less reach, but I think he'd navigate that quite well and jab a lot to the body and use angles and not overreach by trying to get Ali's head all the time.

Tunney's not about the stink the place out like Jimmy Young or Joe Bugner. Tunney comes to box and fight, not just "steal it".

 

I was not implying that Tunney would be negative.

Far from it.

I do think however that he would preffer to keep Ali on the front foot where he could and use Ali's to set up his counters.

Above all he would be trying to break up what he perceived to be Ali's preffered strategy and make him fight a different fight.

 

I think some here are saying that Tunney can't compete with Ali because there is no modern-like, colored footage of Gene available. I, too, believe Ali would win this fight, but there is no way he would have an easy time with Mr. Gene Tunney!

 

It's a blurry distinction, like most. (What constitutes "skill"? Is chin a "skill"? Power?) By "physical aspects" I meant speed and size mostly.

 

Smaller men did give Ali trouble in a sense, I suppose, and Ali was always vulnerable to guys who bulled inside, whatever their size. (Even Juergen Blin managed it for a few rounds!) Without excuses, though, Ali often spent most of his time clowning those kind of opponents, and when it really came down to it he didn't have much trouble getting rid of them. Against a prime, focused version of Ali, only the very best "bulls" (e.g. Frazier) would be successful. There's also the question of whether Tunney could imitate that kind of style or not. He may have been clever to realise Ali's vulnerabilities, but could he really turn himself overnight into somebody with the chin, work-rate and strength to continually close the gap and out-score Ali? I don't think so.

Ali certainly has the faster feet, which is a problem for a guy whose style isn't really manufactured around getting inside. (In fact, Tunney often punches short against Dempsey.)

 

Okay. Gene was 6'0", 190 pounds. To those who think Gene has no chance in this: Pretend for a moment that Gene was 6'3", 215 pounds...with the same exact opponents, same record, same exact outcomes, etcetera. What are his chances against Ali now?

 

I think Tunney could make it tricky for Ali. This would be a fight for the connesseurs, I think.

What I don't agree with is that Tunney's power was equal to Ali's. It wasn't.