Gene Tunney, A Great Fighter

He sure could beat up some white folks.

 

Gene Tunney, along with Carlos Monzon,...the two most hated great fighters.

 

Why should I waste my time with you? You'll never change your mind anyway, if all you see watching Tunney is one of "two guys posturing, then one would leap in with a telegraphed punch and the other would try to counter and then they hold until the ref gets them apart" then I can't help you. If you can't see that fighters back then actually fought in clinches, not just holding, then I can't help you.

I don't know anything about Bert Sugar to be honest. I don't care about boxing historics, I just like watching oldschool boxing. It's that simple, I don't have to be biased to like some old fighters.

Tunney looks great in fights we have. He's fast, he shows excellent jab, he's extremely well conditioned, he mixed up body punching with head punching really well, his footwork is outstanding...

But I know that when fighter is filmed by B&W camera and keeps his hands low, he can't be good. Willie Driver would teach him a thing or two in sparring.

 

I take it you don't like Tunney...

 

I'd definitely suggest watching the Gibbons fight.

Carpentier was all right, but had a pretty unorthadox and pretty flawed style, largely based around landing a massive right. Gibbons was more conventional and just flat out better.

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There's a lot to like with Tunney, loads of angular movement, feints, slips, his punching technique is a bit odd, rarely using his full weight, but his punches are still snappy, he also puts his body into punches at times, and could be a solid puncher, his backward movement also helped get his opponents to walk onto shots (no one else stopped Gibbons, though this was his last fight). He has a very good work rate with a lot of quick snappy combos.

 

I'll give you an answer.

It's was Tunney's boxing brain that set him apart IMO against these fighters. He was a good boxer, but I wouldn't say he was better than Jim Driscoll, for example, who came from an earlier era and looks great on film, or Archie Moore who came after him (though I picked him against Moore, but I'm changing my mind).

Tunney used his ring IQ to adapt specific strategys and shot picking against opponents. That's why he's a great. The fact he drew the color line is a big thing though IMO.

 

Sorry, but I think Pat M is right here.

If you're gonna rave about how good Tunney was, you should be able to explain why he was so good.

 

Which black fighters do you think he needed to fight?

Wills was basically finished by this point anyway, Gibbons had recently beaten Norfolk. I'm not sure Gains and Godfrey really demanded a shot in terms of what they did.

Is there someone I'm forgetting?

I think the biggest mark against him is his best opponents were all pretty past it, though they were still top fighters.

 

To be honest, I'm not a Tunney expert. From what little I've read it sounded bad, especially when Greb was fighting Tiger Flowers etc, but if they weren't the top opposition, then I'll redact it.

Rest of my post still stands though.

 

This is how I have seen it for years, in addition, I might add Tunney had a top chin ( only down once in 85 fights ) and could really body punch well when he wanted too. One of the smartest fighters I ever saw and one who could box and for a full 15 rounds with taking rounds off or resting on the topes. Tough as nails too.

I think he would beat either Louis or Marciano.

I have some of his older films, Tunney improved significantly as his career when one. Too bad he retired on top, he had quite a few more heavyweight fights in him.

 

Tunney offered to fight Wills. Wills refused.

 

The quality of the film is important. Why point to the worst quality hardest to follow film of Tunney?

The entire second bout with Dempsey is available as is the first.
Tunn

 

Tunney had marvelous footwork, stance, jab, right cross, defense and could counter well to an opponents body especially with his left hook. He did not dance about the ring but when hurt as he was in the 7th round vs Dempsey in 1927 he avoided a KO blow by going on his bicycle. Add to this great speed, perfect conditioning and an iron chin.

 

No, I don't have anything against Tunney, I just wanted to test the boxing knowledge of some of the posters who seemed to be the most impressed by Tunney. I suspected that those posters had no idea if Tunney (or any other boxer) is good, bad, or in between. That's why I asked some of them (who gushed about how wonderful Tunney was) for specifics about what Tunney was doing that was so impressive. I didn't get one specific answer.

Some of the posters are like Pavlov's dog, when certain names are mentioned, Tunney, Greb, SRR, (and many more), they write a post saying the guy was great and would easily beat _______(fill in the blank with any modern fighter's name).

If they are challenged about how an old fighter looks on video, they blame it on the black and white film. Some fighters look extremely good on b&w, Gil Turner, Llloyd Marshall, George Benton, Ruben Carter, Ali vs. Don Logan, Benny Leonard, etc. The film has NOTHING to do with it. The fighters are either good or they are not. Then somebody posted a video of Tunney vs. Gibbons.... the video had "Rocky" film sound effects, like a bat hitting a cushion when a punch landed. Sometimes I wonder if the sound effects are impressive to the trained dog crowd? Maybe they think the sounds are real?

Nothing at all against Tunney, he looks better than most for his era, my posts were made to test the knowledge of some of the people who were gushing over Tunney.

 

Great to hear master, who did pass this test?