Gene Tunney's decision to fight Heeney instead of Sharkey in finale

Godfrey lost to Carnera and we have the footage, it doesn't look suspicious. If you are so low on Carnera, you shouldn't turn Godfrey into some kind of monster.

Of course you will say that this fight was also fixed, because you really don't care about the truth, but more about your narrative.

 

Gains beat a teenage Light Heavyweight Schemling, who hadn't done anything yet, and wouldn't for years.
Gains also won a contested decision against a Primo Carnera wearing ridiculously large gloves.
Otther notable parts of his career include losing to Len Harvey, Jack Peterson, and Walter Neusal. He was a good boxer, but not a great one, and not better than a load of other contenders. Still was way more acomplished and had a way better career than Godfrey. He also hadn't won any notable fights when Godfrey beat him, and beat Godfrey in their rematch, after losing the early rounds and doing a lot of clinching.

So you're now just posting people's unbacked up opinions from decades after the fact, claiming Godfrey threw fights. Based on? What's the evidence. I don't care what a bunch of people said way after the fact.

Godfrey's record against black men is consistant with his record against white men and isn't the record of a world beater. It includes losses to:
completely shot Sam Langford twice
Jack Townsend
Al Walker
Long Tom Hawkins
Larry Gains
Obie Walker


And the only halfway decent win is a very green Larry Gains..

This isn't the record of someone you'd be surpised at losing to Sharkey, Carnera and Risko. This isn't the record of someone who there's anything out o the ordinary about him losing to Chuck Wiggins, Jack Renault and Tom Cowler.

It's not a tantrum, it's just facts, presented with every bit as much evidence as you have backed up your claimed.

Marciano only fought black men who were old as dirt or shot to bits, with the exception of undersized journeyman Ted Lowry, who he should have lost to. Marciano was a fraud built on the mob fixing fights, and cherry picked opponents, who retied as soon as he saw dangerous challengers on the horizon.

 

But again, you are taking that quote out of context and placing emphasis on the part that was an after thought. This quote, which was part of a much longer speech, came after Tunney had listed several other reasons for retiring. His emphasis was on the fact that there were no challengers that captured the publics imagination at the box office. Yes, he equated that to how dangerous they were, but the point was that box office numbers were lagging and that Rickard had publicly made it known he was no longer going to be offering the monster purses he had in the past after the bath he took on the Heeney fight. Rickard made it publicly known that he blamed that, in large part, on Tunney's inability to connect with the press and fans. Thus Tunney needed a marquee opponent to sell. If you cant agree that a marquee opponent wasnt on the horizon in 1928 then there is no point in continuing to discuss this. As illustrated both Rickard and Tunney were correct, the box office numbers prove that. Furthermore, Sharkey being good when he actually showed up with his A game doesnt change the fact that he well known to be an erratic headcase of a fighter. Godfrey simply being big and claiming he was better than everyone else because, by his word, he was throwing his biggest fights just holds zero water with me. You yourself admit he never proved himself so the argument seems to be "I would be intrigued by a Tunney-Godfrey fight, why didnt it happen?" The answer to that is that you werent a promoter in 1928 willing to put up 1mil of your own money to make the fight happen. And thats the point. Tunney wasnt a promoter. Promoters pick the fights they think will sell the most tickets and then its for the fighters to accept them or veto them. Tunney could say "I really really really want to fight Godfrey. Who will pay me the $525,000 I got for fighting Heeney?" And until someone does so its a non starter. If you dont think Tunney deserves or could have gotten $525,000 to fight Godfrey then youve just answered your own question as to why Heeney got the title shot.

 

This is a well-reasoned and argued post on Godfrey, and then it goes off the rails about Marciano. What exactly does Marciano have to do with Tunney or Godfrey?

"old as dirt"

What is he supposed to do if not fight the incumbent champion, as Dempsey did old Willard or Jeff old Fitz? Charles was the same age almost to the month as Ali when Ali beat Foreman and went on to be champion for years.

"shot to bits"

Who exactly? Louis, Walcott, Charles, and Moore were still at the top and winning fights. It is one thing to argue they had slipped, or how much they had slipped, but shot to bits?

"cherry picked opponents" "retired as soon as he saw dangerous opponents on the horizon"

Tunney is at least as vulnerable to the first charge and some would say to the second.

"Ted Lowry, who he should have lost to"

As Klompton2 has said about other fights, you have a unbending opinion about a fight you didn't see.

"Marciano was a fraud built on the mob fixing fights."

After a well-reasoned post against assuming fixed fights on scanty or unreliable evidence, we get another nutty fixed fights conspiracy theory but this one about Marciano.

 

While I basically agree with your take on Godfrey, his being big would have made him an interesting opponent for Tunney. As far as I can tell, Tunney never fought a man who was both at least 6' tall and at least 195 lbs. The 6' 3" and 230 or so Godfrey would certainly have taken Tunney into territory he never touched at heavyweight. And only Dempsey of Tunney's opponents was in Godfrey's class as a puncher.

 

How many of those guys were around at the time? Not many. And very few who were in the upper echelon when Tunney moved up to HW.

 

Sharkey, Maloney, Wills, Godfrey to begin with.

Let's give Tunney a pass on there being no way he could fight bigger men. He still stands out as a heavyweight champion who never beat even moderately large heavyweights who were at least 6' tall and 195 lbs. I can't name anyone else this could be said about, and certainly not one put high in ATG heavyweight ratings. Even pre-1960 rankings. Just a fact to consider.

 

On Marciano it's to make the point about hpw easy it is to assert a superficially plausible narrative to dismiss a fighter, when there's no requirement to back it with anything. In my head that seemed obvious, but I guess it mustn't have been.

He keeps talking about Godfrey being forced to throw fights against white fighters, but hasn't provided one bit of evidence from the time, nor explained why he kept losing to mediocre black fighters. All the while acting smug dispite his clear lack of any real research.

 

I totally get it. You're just making **** up, or just blindly believing stuff you've seen others say, and haven't done any good research at all. If you had you would have the evidence from the time to back up your claim. I've asked repeatedly and you clearly have none, which is why you are posting quotes from years later that if you squint and bang your head off the table hard enough you can pretend are saying what you are saying, and some quotes from decades later. Frankly there's tons of crap research in boxing history, and stories that get passed down that fall apart when researched later, that a guy decades later said it, is worthless.

 

You do know there's footage of Larry Gains in multiple fights freely avlaible? He looks about as good as you'd expect for his record.

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Despite your condescension its clear you have nothing, and know nothing, because you've presented nothing. You have no evidence, just a narrative and bull****. If you think anything you have presented is good evidence you have no clue how to do research because that is complete crap.

That you seemingly can't be asked for evidence without taking it as an affront says a lot about how much value you place on the truth (none).

I wonder if Benny Leonard was a boxrec warrior too. Here's his opinion of Godfrey from 1927

"Godfrey is now being hailed as the successor to Harry Wills as the best of the Negro heavyweights. And in the connection I might point out the sudden dearth of good fighting material among the Negros in the ring today.
"With the sudden and total collapse of the Wills' bubble one finds only Godfrey and the two Flowers, Tiger, the middleweight, and Bruce, the lightweight, commanding any more than passing attention. None of the trio is regarded as a real 'menace' to the title in his particular class."