How great was Gene Tunney really?

He absolutely is great, you can beat an opponent not at their peak & it may still be a great win - or series of wins, as punctuate Tunney’s career. He’s my pick for the most under-rated HW Champion in division history.

 

A poor mans Henry Maske.

That about sums him up.

 

Well how do you view Usyk and how will you view him if he retires after beating Fury? Tunneys career at HW is a better version of that and he spent much more time at HW. Tunneys resume isn't the deepest but he beat 12 title contenders at LHW and/or HW including 2 over Dempsey, 3 over Greb and Loughran. These 3 and Tunney might have been the top 4 fighters ever at LHW/HW and Tunney was 6-1-1 against them. Most of these fighters except Greb were relevant at both weight classes. For example he beat Carpentier at LHW right below the weight limit.


The thing with the newer contenders is when Tunney retired it appeared HW was cleaned out and LHW had been cleaned out by someone he had a win over. No one knew who was going to be considered great in the future. Its all hindsight. Heeney won the tournament to be Tunneys last opponent(barely) over fighters that are more respected today like Sharkey and Uzcudin. Sharkey also had lost a prior title elim to Dempsey. Harry Willis had lost to Sharkey and Uzcudin. So in 1928 who was there for Tunney that Tunney had to fight? Someone like Ermino Spalla might be the worst IBU champ but that was the European champ when Tunney was fighting. By the time guys like Max Baer and Carnera reached the top Tunney would have been on the wrong side of 30.

 

I don't rank the color line guys much, but when I had a Tunney thread recently, someone clued me in that he was willing to fight Wills and it was Harry that didn't want the fight. I looked it up and it was true.

Now, that was fair enough--Wills was the number one contender and should not have had to defend the spot, but it certainly adds some context.

Also, by the time Tunney was done with Dempsey, Harry was on the slide. It's always going to be problematic that the white guys didn't always fight the black guys back then, but at least with Tunney there is a little context.

 

His Heavyweighg résumé is light, & doesn’t get him into my Top 10 as a result (I rank only on achievements). By under-rated, I mean what he accomplished at Heavy belies how well he’d have done against ATG’s of the division. But who beats who is it’s own separate discussion.

Taking his career as a whole he is a magnificent fighter. Arguably the second best LHW who ever lived.

 

Tunney beat Risko.

 

This is not true. Tunney challenged Wills when Wills was the number one contender. It was later revealed and admitted in court, when Tunney was sued a couple of years later, that Tunney had no intention of ever fighting Wills and was simply challenging him publicly in order to get his name mentioned as a contender alongside Wills. Wills for his part disregarded the challenge for the simple fact that he was already Dempsey's top contender and the New York State Athletic Commission had sided with Wills demanding Dempsey fight him. It was as close to a fight with Dempsey as Wills would ever get so there was no point in agreeing to fight Tunney. Furthermore, when Wills pressed the fight with Dempsey and protested Dempsey signing to fight Tunney instead of Wills Tunney publicly drew the color line in the event the defeated Dempsey, this was before Wills lost to Sharkey. Tunney never had any intention of fighting Wills.

 

Was also a jarhead. Not a Head of Jar, like you may be, but an actual jarhead.

 

My recollection is that the reason Rickard had to move the first Dempsey-Tunney fight to Philadelphia on short notice was because the strong support that the it was giving Wills. They NYSAC refused to sanction the fight because Wills had been the No. 1 challenger for half a decade.

 

He certainly wasn't Slacker Jack.

 

Source for the first part? I am not saying it isn't true, but I would like to see where it comes from.