If Tunney & loughran remached

Depends when it happens.

 

If it was after Tunney beat Dempsey, then Tunney wins convincingly by a decision.

 

It would have been interesting. Loughran always claimed Tunney ducked him. I dont buy it. Loughran was a guy who could never admit his losses but on the night he fought Tunney a huge throng of admirers went to his house to wish him well. He came outside and wept in front of all of them apologizing for his performance and wishing he had done better. He knew in his heart he had lost, that much is apparent. He also always admitted that Tunney was a good fighter, so he respected him as well. I think at a certain point he realized that Tunney could do everything he could and more only Tunney could do it better and was bigger to boot. If you study them they fought a lot alike and I dont think Loughran would have wanted a better version of himself staring back at him.

 

Why? Dempsey was way past his prime. Loughran would have boxed Dempsey's ears off in 1927 as well.

 

Tunney didn't beat Loughran. The papers are pretty split up on who won. Some said Loughran got off the floor to give Tunney a boxing lesson. Loughran was only 19 years old here, very green. Tunney certainly didn't want to tangle with the more mature Loughran. Tunney was a very protected fighter in my opinion.

 

Protected fighters dont duke it out vs Greb as many times as Tunney did imo.

 

Tunney always wins for me, he looks so much better on film, Loughran just isn't quite upto Tunney's level

 

He did, in training, before the Tunney fight and its on film. Loughran made Dempsey look bad.

 

What papers are split? Quote them. Ive seen one article favoring Loughran. The others state Tunney won. Not to mention it was Loughrans hometown where he was already a massive hero. I'll take a fighter crying and apologizing to his fans as a token of a loss, a lot quicker than biased hometown reporting which is mixed with hometown reports that he did in fact lose.

He was 1 month away from being 20 and had nearly 50 fights against some of the best fighters in the country if not the world including Harry Greb. He was hardly green. Possibly by the standards of the day (and even that is debatable). In the year prior to fighting Tunney he had faced Jimmy Darcy, Fay Kaiser (who just months before had given AEF HW champ Bob Martin a bad beating), Bryan Downey (uncrowned champion at that time), Mike McTigue (1 year and 1 day exactly from winning the LHW championship), Harry Greb (current American LHW champ), Jackie Clarke (very good contender), etc. So he was hardly wet behind the ears and keep in mind that Tunney had been at least as protected until he fought Greb.

I do agree with SuzieQ that Tunney was protected, particularly early on, but Loughran wasnt really the type of guy they were protecting Tunney from. Loughran was good but he wasnt unbeatable, particularly outside of Philly, he fought at a measured pace and wasnt a big puncher. He was also smaller than Gene.

 

So your going to throw the Philadelphia inquirer's coverage of the fight out the window because it was Loughran's hometown? I give more credence to the papers for where the fight was held. Yes it is pro Loughran, but the New York times was extremely bias toward their hometown favorite Tunney, anyways.

Regarding Tunney-Loughran, Jack Cavanaugh wrote of the scoring in this biography Tunney:

"Not many boxers could outbox Tunney at this stage of his career, but Loughran was one of them. Aware of that, Tunney tried hard to knock out Loughran, but never came close after the opening round, and the fight appeared to have been even by the end. While there could be no official decision, the majority of sportwriters at ringside - most of them from the Philadelphia-area newspapers - gave their verdicts to Loughran.

"'Tommy Outclasses Gene in Sensational Bout After Weathering a Storm in First Round,' read the somewhat misleading sub-headline in the following day's Philadelphia Inquirer. As it was, it went into the record books as a no decision fight. Tunney himself knew it had been close, but felt he had won the bout, as did virtually all of the New York sportswriters who were present." Tunney, p. 168


John Jarrett's "The Golden Guy Who Licked Jack Dempsey Twice" states that
"Nat Fleischer gave Tunney five of the eight rounds, some reporters called it a draw, while the two local papers, the Evening Bulleting and the Enquirer, both saw Loughran as the winner."

At least two local papers gave decision to Loughran and none local papers were listed as having scored for Tunney

 

No I dont throw it out and I certainly dont take Fleischers (who may or may not have even been at the fight... he was known to be at six different places at once) word or the words of the New York press higher. However, lets not pretend that the Philly press which was six feet deep in Tommy's ass at the time wasnt going to favor him. Nor do I put much credence in Cavanaughs words as his book contains a ton of factual errors even in regards to newspaper decisions and quotes (which are easily verifiable). Its also bull**** that no papers gave it to Tunney. The Philadelphia Record gave the bout to Tunney as did the Evening Public Ledger, which also printed a nice photo of Loughran climbing off the canvas at "9" with his glove on his chin and a dazed look on his face.

Here is Loughran's quote directly after the bout, you tell me if he thought he won "The weight was too much for me. I did not put up the bout of which I am capable of, but I have no alibis. After being knocked down in the first round I just couldnt get started. It was not until near the end of the seventh that I found I was myself." keep in mind this was an eight rounder. Then Loughran was followed home by his admirers but refused to come out and speak to them, he sat inside sobbing. So, if you want, you can believe he beat Gene Tunney but by his own admission he was knocked down hard and badly dazed for 7 of the 8 rounds fighting a man who was bigger, stronger, at least as fast, more durable, and who hit harder, was more experienced, and at this point likely more skilled. So, yeah, I think its pretty safe to say that there definately could have been some bias in those papers that favored him. Its ludicrous to pretend that there wouldnt have been any bias. Louis Jaffe gave Loughran only one round. That round was the eighth and final round in which Loughran made his best showing. One can easily see how a hometown favorite, nearly knocked out in the first but coming back to have a great 8th could rally supporters and leave an impression on his fans (some of which happened to be newspaper writers).

 

It all revolves around this.:good

 

Irrelevant...Tunney, with the extra confidence of his two 10 round triumphs over the legend Dempsey would have beaten Loughran with more emphasis.