Gene Tunney's heavyweight resume

A few people on this forum, have argued that Gene Tunney get's over rated on all time heavyweight, lists including myself.

The principle criticism is his thin resume at heavyweight, and there is some justification in this.

So let's take a closer look.

He won the heavyweight title from Jack Dempsey, who he defeated twice. While Jack Dempsey was undoubtedly past his prime in both these fights, he did defeat Jack Sharkey between the two fights, and Sharkey was unequivocally the best heavyweight in the world apart from Tunney and Dempsey. Given the manner in which Tunney dominated Dempsey, the win's are still very impressive.

So how many contenders did Tunney beat? Ring Magazine only started their rankings in the middle of Tunney's career, but Ermino Spalla, Tommy Gibbons, Johny Risko and Tom Heeney were all ranked when Tunney beat them, or after he beat them. That is six wins over ranked contenders. Tunney also defeated Jack Renault, and Charley Weinert twice, in the two years before Ring Magazine's first end of year rankings in 1924, and both had places in the 1924 rankings. This means that Tunney might have defeated nine ranked heavyweight contenders, if the rankings had started a couple of years earlier.

It is also only fair to note that the same people who refuse to give Tunney credit for defeating Harry Greb, often tar and feather Jack Dempsey for failing to defend his heavyweight title against Greb. You can't in fairness have it both ways.

My conclusion is that while his heavyweight ranking does not justify the lofty ranking accorded to him by some, it is not as bad as his worst detractors claim.

 

Taking your points in turn:

He drew the color line-
How much this impact's a fighter's resume, depends upon how many good black fighters there were at the time, and how many of them were in a strong position at the time. In Tunney's case I don't think that it has a huge impact (I can expand upon my reasoning if you want).

He retired early-
This is what probably undoes him. He retired at his absolute peak, when he was probably capable of beating anybody. A few more title defenses, could have made a big difference.

His opponents were small by today's standards-
This I submit is supremely irrelevant. The heavyweight division started at 175lbs in his era, and it would not be fair to measure his opponents against a weight limit that did not exist, and had no meaning at the time.

One criticism that I would add, is that he was a bit of a cherry picker, who went for low risk high reward fights. If there were two contenders barring his path, he seems to have targeted the less dangerous of the two.

 

There were some very capable black contenders during Tunney's career, but he seems to have peaked in a bit of a trough between them. Kid Norfolk was very highly rated at light heavyweight and heavyweight, but he lost to Tommy Gibbons, shortly before Tunney beat Gibbons. Harry Wills was the #1 heavyweight contender when Tunney was on the way up, and there was talk of matching them for a shot at Dempsey, but neither of them seem to have wanted it. In the end Sharkey beat Wills, Dempsey beat Sharkey, and Tunney beat Dempsey (again). Now George Godfrey was a dangerous and highly avoided heavyweight contender, but his ranking peaked just after Tunney retired. What he should have got, more than anything else, was a place in the tournament to replace Tunney.

You have answered your own question.

You can't!

In fairness to Tunney, a lot of the top ten back then were not huge guys, and the men who were the most dangerous, were not always huge guys.

Men like Risko and Gibbons were very dangerous, and rightly feared.

It was a lot like that!

 

I am not claiming it, I am making an estimate.

In this case the highest realistic estimate, that would exclude people slipping in and out, at the coat tails of the rankings!