How does it sit with you win people rate Tunney high at heavy???

Tunney has no more business in the top15 than Ike Ibeabuchi.

 

Yet with the possible exception of Langford ,I would pick Tunney to beat them .

 

I don't know who was impressed, but Dempsey's change of style, and severe loss of effectiveness as the result of that change, was reported some time before the 1st fight.

 

If Michael Spinks had never fought Tyson you'd have a modern equivalent with a resume as good as Tunney's.

Shows you what one loss can do for a legacy, eh?

 

I don't know if it was re-printed in other newspapers as well, but 1926-09-12 The Charleston Gazette has an almost full-page high column entitled:

DEMPSEY EARLY TARGET PRACTICE NOT IMPRESSIVE
---
Has Some Old Punching Power But Lacks Old Art of Concentration and Murderous Instinct That Wins
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DEMPSEY OF TODAY
MAN HE WAS IN 1923
---
BY FRANK G. MENKE

 

It is as if Menke is a prophet. Read the article, then watch the fight, it all goes exactly the way the author describes.


DEMPSEY EARLY TARGET PRACTICE NOT IMPRESSIVE
------
Has Some Old Punching Power But Lacks Old Art of Concentration and Murderous Instinct That Wins
------
DEMPSEY OF TODAY
MAN HE WAS IN 1923
------
BY FRANK G. MENKE
Jack Dempsey's target practice during his first week in Atlantic City was not impressive. The likelihood is that he will improve tremendously before the 23rd of this particular month. But if he doesn't--well, he's no 2 to 1 shot in any fight.
Dempsey has the same old punching power, but just now he lacks the old art of concentration. The murderous fighting instict that was Dempsey's of yore, and that whipped men even as they saw it flame, is not conflagrating so brilliantly; Dempsey is easier to hit than was once the case, when he was weaving, shifting, ducking, bobbing, instead of attempting the orthodox ring defense.
Of course, all these things are happenings in his opposition to sparring partners. He naturally would show a bit indifferent against them, for the simple reason that he must go easy and not try to commit too many assassinations. In his first few days at Saratoga, he did pug the boys rather viciously and dropped some of them, whereupon, they showed heap much fear and sort of served the ultimatum:
"You killer, we quitter."
So Dempsey pulled up somewhat in his punching.
But in the face of the fact that Dempsey is pulling his punches, it is still obvious that the Dempsey of just now isn't quite the Dempsey of 1923. He's become sort of tame, civilized. No longer is he so fiercely savage. No longer relentless, coldly merciless. No longer does he tip and tear and whirl and dash in and upon his foeman and smother them with the very ferocity of his attack.
His stance has changed. He does not weave and bob as he once did. Rather, he is attempting the average ringman's pose of left arm forward for jabbing purposes. And he's cultivated a jab--a really new asset. But he assumes such a pose rather awkwardly, with the result that he is neither as he was, nor is he converted into an orthodox swarsmith in the matter of boxing position.
The very change of that style makes Dempsey easier to clip with a right hand: for, in the extension of that left hand, he holds it low--drops it on an angle below his shoulder. The result is that his chin is wider open than usual for wallops. Being new in the use of something to protect his chin, he does not accomplish it well. He usually pulls his guard up far too late to avoid being smitten upon the smile department of his preface.
Placed in such a position Dempsey is not the free, two-handed hitter that he used to be. For, naturally, his left is not constantly ready for a swishing left hook. He must shift to get it into driving action with that left. And generally before he can do it, the opportunity to hit is gone.
When you take away, or minimize the punching worth of Dempsey's left hand, you are deducting about 60 per cent from his walloping assets. For Dempsey is naturally left handed, gets terrific power into drives with his left, and has scored more than half his greatest triumphs with his paralyzing left hook.
When Dempsey hits these days he doesn't follow up. He steps back. Maybe it's because he has promised his partners not to follow up, so as to save them from being clubbed to the ground. On the other hand, maybe Dempsey has come to believe that men ought to fall each time he hits and he steps back so as not to impede them in their collapse. Which is a bad idea.
For men do not always collapse when hit, and if Dempsey steps back to watch Tunney fall, and Tunney doesn't happen to do that obliging thing with the first few punches, the champion may find himself the victim of a surprise attack.
It may be that Dempsey, up to now, has been trying out a new style of attack and defense so as to "cross" Tunney. He may succeed. But as between his old style of facing straight on at his foeman, in position to hit with both hands from any angle, and this new position that almost all other fighters assume--well, Dempsey's sensible move is to go back to the old way.
Of course, what Dempsey has been doing in the first week of training at the seashore is not definite criticism of what he'll do in later training--or what he will do in the ring. He may go back to his old way of attack, or he may, before he is through here, perfect a far better defense, plus an attack equal to that of the old days. Certainly he seems to be working out some new idea, which may make him a greater defensive warrior than ever before.
But at this moment, it seems that the experiment of the champion has fliwed; it has made him an easier target than before and forced him to sacrifice fast and accurate punching. For Dempsey, through the first week, was not landing with great violence, or jolting force, because he was hitting from a position which made it rather impossible.
--------
So Dempsey, at this particular moment of his training, while in perfect physical condition, isn't in anything closely allied to perfect punching or defensive position.
Copyright 1926, Ring Features Syndicate, Inc.)

 

What about Greb? He and Tunney were in different weight classes, with Greb being around 12 lbs lighter.
I can't see Spinks losing to him, Hagler, Monzon etc.