Tunney's relatively unproven at HW, outside of beating shot Dempsey and Tom Heeney. Who's the best guy you can see him beating?
It seems to me that he might have a boxers chance against almost anybody. If a fighter is not a prohibitively bad stylistic match for him, then he is going to have something to work with.
I can agree with that. He could have a shot against some of the sluggers. If Jimmy Braddock could beat Max Baer, then Tunney would certainly have a good chance of pulling that off. I think George Foreman and Sonny Liston would have been too much for him, even with Gene's stylistic advantages. I do think he could have beaten Hasim Rahman most times. I do not like his chances against most Swarmer/Pressure type fighters like Marciano or Frazier, although he may have been able to beat Tommy Burns. Against other boxers, I agree he would have a chance against some of them. I think he probably could have beaten Jack Sharkey, but not Max Schmeling (who was not a pure boxer anyway, but had some other characteristics, which may even have hurt him against Max Baer). Oleksandr Usyk would have been an interesting fight for Gene Tunney. I do not like him against most Boxer-Punchers, although I think he would have had a chance against Bob Fitzsimmons. I do NOT believe he would have beaten a Prime Jack Dempsey. And I think he would have had very little chance against Joe Louis or Evander Holyfield or Lennox Lewis. For the record, my Grandfather did not like Gene at all, and picked him to lose against the majority of the fighters I thought Gene could probably beat.