Holyfield vs. Tunney

I’m not saying this to be cruel but keep learning don’t hold onto this sort of gibberish.

 

I actually considered this as a caveat to my point, because it’s a fair to raise counter. But he was sucking wind vs Bert Cooper at one point, & this was prime Holyfield. He even dropped off in output in the latter rounds against Holmes, a bigger man than Tunney yes, but not exactly a bruiser.

In any case though, I think it’s a great match up.

 

He also pursued a fight w/ Wills when he was campaigning for a shot at Dempsey, & it was Wills who turned it down.

 

I can't believe a man who never fought a black fighter nor had a black sparring partner can be considered to have not upheld the color line because "he offered to fight Wills" which may have been a completely bull**** deal. The articles I've seen are so vague. Tunney said he wanted to fight him in his autobiography. OK. Then I saw another article in the New York Times (9/10/1925) that says Wills wants the fight and is ready to sign. So what happened? Wills didn't duck ****. And that's not enough for me to substantiate that Tunney would have actually done it.

Tunney is below Holyfield in greatness obviously because he was worse at fighting, did less, and fought in a worse era. This matchup isn't close and Tunney is better contained to his best weight (175) because he wasn't a true heavyweight nor did he have a truly modern skillset. Dempsey's legs were gone and he was busy in New York being a socialite when he fought Tunney. And that's what made this man's whole reputation at heavyweight: beating the most inactive champ ever. It's an insult to Holyfield to compare them at anything more than 175 because they're different classes of fighter at heavyweight.

Be real, Tunney serves as political chess piece here. He bolsters both Dempsey and Greb, who are both sentimental favorites of the newspaper decision crowd. That's fine, but he wouldn't beat Holyfield on his worst day.

 

You're a good poster. Cruelty indicates a cause of pain and suffering. Don't worry about that.

 

I'll have to disagree with that, Tunney was an excellent boxer and better than Holyfield., Uh, in my opinion. I think Tunney could outpoint the cruiser version of Holyfield in a great fight but the juiced version of Evander would probably be too much for him.,,unless we juice Gene Tunney up to about 210 pounds.

 

Very perceptive observation!

 

As much as Holyfield is only really thought of as an "ok" or "average" puncher amongst the heavyweight division of the 90s, he still ended up being in the top 10 punchers when I did a list a couple months ago going off of spoken word statements from fighters at the time. He was just slightly behind Mercer, I if I remember correctly.

 

Cruiserweight Holyfield would send him flying, like he did to Qawi (II).