If Tunney Never RETIRED

One of Louis's fame to claim was beating 5 heavyweight champs, Had Tunney rule over the 30's, wonder would Louis have been rank had Baer, Schmeling, Sharkey, Carnera, never attend the status of champion because of Gene Tunney??


the 25 defenses are good works and all, but the real stealer for number 2 is beating the 5 heavyweight champs(Even Walcott which makes 5)

Would that push him out of the top 2??

Ali beat 5(Patterson, Liston, Frazier, Foreman and Spinks)
Than the list just drops after that. All lineal of couse. No Terrell ete.

 

Joe Louis didn't win the title until 1937, he didn't fight any top opposition until 35. Had Tunney not retired in 28, it is more likely that he would have lost his belt to another top heavyweight (Max Baer?) before Louis would have been ready as a challenger.

 

Interesting. It wouldnt be unusual for Tunney to fight once a year or less, as champion. Also, i think that ratings with Tunney at the top means that Sharkey (who was already KOd by Dempsey), and Schmelling and Carnera, may not necessarilly be the standout challengers we assume.

Firstly, for his next defence, Would a Harry Wills fight be out of the Questioned, not highly ranked, but he was a big name, who deserved a shot, and who Tunney previously said he might fight. I havent double checked his record at the time, but Tunney Wills could happen soon after Tunneys "non retirement". A win would seem likely and it would probably add (arguably unfairly) to his legacy substantially.

Tunney could concievably follow this with a 1928 fight with Johnny Risko. I think he would probably win this also. By late 29/early 1930 he could defend against Tuffy Griffith and again, you would have to think that he would be the favourite still. This would leave Young Stribling, who had just beaten Tuffy as one logical challenger and you would expect that Tunney, would again beat Young, before Schmelling got to him, in 1931.

I wonder if 1932 would see Schaaf's win over Stribling establish him as the challenger to face Tunney. That leaves Tunney as an aging champion, with no real standout challengers. I cant see anything but retirement, at this point, to be honest but for the sake of the exercise we could continue. 1933 might be a tough year. You would think that by this time, the sheer size of Carnera would probably earn him his shot, and Tunney would need the fight as a legacy maker. Presumably Tunney would outbox him and win every round, although who knows, age could catch up with him but i am going to assume that he does to Carnera what he does to Dempsey. This leaves another ideal time to retire but again we can assume that he goes one more fight. In 34, Baer blows his chance by losing to a young Joe Louis. This leaves an old and inactive Tunney to fight a young up and coming Joe Louis.

From a legacy point of view, this is a no lose situation for Tunney. But just imagine how his legacy would stand, if after hand picking opponents for this long, Tunney was able to spot the same floor that Schmelling saw (highly likely) and actually execute the same game plan, in order to reproduce a win over Louis. This would quite likely leave Tunney as a consensus number one heavyweight of all time.

Age is the biggest problem, but if you were backing anyone to overcome age to this extent, with Tunney's style you would expect him to be as good a bet as anyone.

Imagine that, with Wins over Dempsey, Wills and Louis, (not to mention Greb and Loughran) Tunney could be legitimately considered the greatest fighter of all time.

 

I think Tunney would have remained champion until age slowed him down.

 

Some of my first posts upon joining ESB concerned what Tunney might have done had he been financially wiped out in the 1929 crash and been forced to continue as champion.

We have no idea when age might have begun slowing him down, but with his habits, speed, mobility, skills and intelligence, I'm confident he could have reigned until Louis took over. We never got to find out how much better he was going to get.

A late bloomer, he was still actually improving when he dispatched Heeney, who Sharkey could only manage a draw against. Gene was an insanely disciplined fitness fanatic who would have never let his weight get above 200, no matter how old he got. (As a kid, he played games with self discipline and self deprivation, such as refusing ice cream when it was readily available. Imagine Ali doing that!) For all we know, Tunney may well have been a Jersey Joe Walcott type whose legs would never desert him.

Dempsey, Marciano and Frazier had career shortening swarming styles, an approach which wears the body down in both training and competition. Gene used an approach which builds the body up, and his career concluding peak performance against Heeney was also the first match where he weighed above 190 pounds. He was still gradually accumulating muscle mass and strength.

Maintaining peak condition and defending the title around once a year against a relatively weak crop of contenders (at a time when Braddock sat on the championship for just over two years), I too believe he could have remained on his feet in forcing Joe to win the title by decision.

Gene was a student of the sport, studying film and making careful observations. If he had gotten to an overconfident Louis ("I thought I was hot ****") before Schmeling did, he would have picked up that same susceptibility to the counter right, and might have been able to hand the Bomber his first defeat in 1935.

Where Schmeling was concerned, Gene may well have been a ringside witness for his 1929 masterclasses against Risko and Uzcudun. If there was a dearth of film on Max, at least Tunney would have had his own first hand observations of the German to draw upon, thanks to Schmeling's popular and frequent appearances in the Big Apple.

Tunney might have rematched Loughran in late 1931, resulting in a dazzling duel of boxing science, perhaps not exciting to a bloodthirsty public, but a fascinating study for connoisseurs of the art.

Carnera would have been a headache for Gene to deal with, but I think he had the firepower to hurt and drop Primo. Carnera posted a superb decision win over an aging Loughran, but Tommy was able to stun him a few times. By the time he became champion, Tunney had developed considerably more of a punch in both hands.

While Gene had nearly 90 bouts under his belt when he retired, most of these were against smaller and fast opposition, so he gained experience without the expense of sustaining significant punishment. Bigger and slower challengers could have proved a real picnic for him.