How much of a chance was Tunney given against Dempsey?

:barf

Tunney was given a pretty good shot. According to the 1976 RING RECORD BOOK AND BOXING ENCYCLOPEDIA Dempsey was 11-5 over Tunney in the first fight, with even money in the second.

As a comment, Dempsey's odds were not that great back in the 1920's.
He was only 11-5 over Gibbons. In comparision, Louis was 18-5 over Conn in 1941 and Marciano 4-1 over Moore in 1955. This might indicate that Dempsey's stature elevated after the fact.

These are quoted as the odds the day of the fight.

 

You mean that little green thing. I don't even know how it got up there, but I apologize. I am really not all that fluid with computers, but I made no effort to put one of those whateveryoucallthems out.

Now the one above I did deliberately. It is supposed to be an embarressed icon.

 

It could be both. I would not dismiss racism in the case of Louis, but while everyone supposedly felt that in the Louis era that Dempsey would cream Louis and in the Marciano era that Dempsey would cream Marciano, fairly safe opinions as they could never be tested, there was not this sort of consensus when Dempsey was actually fighting. I do find it most interesting that the gamblers who were laying their money on the line thought Marciano a stronger favorite over Moore (4-1) and Charles (7-2) than they thought Dempsey over Gibbons (11-5), despite Gibbons' loss to Greb in 1922 and giving away significant weight.

As for Louis, he was often a 10-1 to 20-1 favorite, and was a stronger favorite over Conn by far than Dempsey was over Gibbons. Dempsey was 4-1 over Brennan. Frankly, it is difficult to imagine Louis not being at least 10-1 over Brennan.

I don't think there was much good Dempsey film available prior to the sixties. I remember that Jim Jacobs brought his films to New York in the early sixties to show to the press and most of the boxing writers obviously had not seen at all old-timers like Jack Johnson and Stanley Ketchel. Dempsey was somewhat more recent, but I think it was still a problem showing old films at proper speed. I remember seeing clips of Dempsey-Firpo back in the fifties, and they were run ridiculously fast, like silent film comedians. Jacobs, I believe, was the first to really work at making the old films watchable.

The records were available through the RING RECORD BOOK. Discussions very rarely dealt at all with records, though. The arguements were basically head to head with old timers dominating the debates as they could claim to have seen past champions. Some young fellows, such as Don Riley in the twin cities, did bring up the warts in the records of old timers, such as Johnson being ko'd by Choynski and dropped by Ketchel.

 

Dempsey was my boyhood idol, so I would have been of the opinion he could defeat anyone. The film I saw with Firpo was useless. In the sixties, I saw films of Willard and Gibbons and even Firpo that gave some idea of Dempsey's style. Except for the Louis fight, I didn't actually see that much of Marciano until the seventies. The films of Marciano's fights impressed me for the first time as an adult that he may have fought tougher competition--Walcott, Moore, and Charles looked better than anyone Dempsey was fighting, except possibly Tunney, whom he did not defeat.
I lived through the Marciano era, but the possibility that Marciano might have been as good or better than Dempsey was never discussed by anyone I know of despite his undefeated record.
I can't say what others saw--who had access to films and what condition they were in. I don't remember any writer referring to a film until the controversy about the loaded gloves in the mid-sixties, when writers like Don Riley commented on what the film showed.


The whole way sports is looked at changed in the sixties. The arguement that modern athlete's were bigger, faster, etc and that track and field records proved modern athletes better came with the sixties. In the United States, Pete Rozelle, a public relations expert, became the Commissioner of the NFL in 1960 and really sold pro football as being the now sport with the best athletes and teams being on the field right now. Baseball and boxing reporting had always been dominated by backward looking old timers. The younger reporters now went in an entirely different direction. Sonny Liston first, and then Ali, were credited with being better than the old timers and the basic arguements were listing height and weight comparisions. I had never seen that earlier.

 

So since you seen these films in the 60's. What other old time fighters you saw?? Perhaps Greb lol.

 

I find it amazing, that Dempsey who has not fought for 3 and a half years in a row, comes into the ring in 1926. As a 11-5 favor. I would have made Tunney the favor. But of couse some things dont make sense at all.
Holyfiled beats Tyson rather easy, and Tyson is the favor in the rematch. Come vs Lewis and its a 50 50 pick em??

 

Most of them. Every heavyweight champion back to Corbett, except Hart, and most of the top men who were filmed in the lighter weights.

Sorry, not Greb, though. He was filmed against Tunney and Walker, I understand. It is hard to believe these films weren't preserved, but it probably shows just how film of old fights was not considered valuable back in the 20's to 50's era.

 

How much of the Fitz Corbett fight did you see? the same 5 rounds?? Are was the fight complete back in the 60's? And if complete, what did you think of the whole fight?

 

You can see them a lot easier than we could. Television had only a couple of channels and signed off before midnight. It was a different world. And I was a crazy boxing fan back in those days, but the only fights you could see were the live ones on TV. As a heavyweight champion, Marciano did not fight on live TV very often and if Mom wanted to watch "I Love Lucy", I was out of luck.
Don't forget, though, we did listen to the big fights on the radio.
Also, I grew up in the boondocks. It was probably somewhat different in places like New York or Chicago.


I did see some early fights when a kid at Rex's tavern in town. He had a TV up high behind the bar, and a bunch of us kids would stand out in the street and watch through the window. It was quite a ways away, though. I remember seeing Walcott knock out Charles in 1951, but I probably wouldn't remember much of anything if I had not seen the film many times since.

 

No. They had excerpts of Fitz and Corbett. I know the 6th round and the 14th round were shown with the two knockdowns.

I don't think anything has been lost since the sixties, although I understand that there once was a decent film of Jeffries knocking out Munroe. Too bad it didn't survive.