Jersey Joe Walcott v Luis Firpo, Gene Tunney and Jack Sharkey

To start with, I wouldn't write off Tunney's surviving Dempsey for 20 rounds, even if Dempsey was washed-up he was very dangerous.
Carpentier and Gibbons were at least respectable punchers.
The sheer number of fights Tunney had without tasting a KD or being troubled is quite persausive in allowing us to surmise he had good durability.

From 1946 - '51 Walcott fought Maxim, Ray, washed-up Louis, Layne, Oma, and Bivins (a total of 9 fights), they all went the distance (except when Louis KO'd him), win or lose.
He knocked out Ezzard Charles in his 37th round with him. He couldn't repeat than in the next fight.
He scored very few KO wins over rated opponents in this time frame ... Tommy Gomez and Curtis Sheppard perhaps highest among them, Olle Tandberg ? Omelio Agramonte ?

You may think I'm overrating Tunney to say it is highly unlikely that Walcott would KO him, but that's where the evidence points, in my opinion.
A guy who was never KO'd VERSUS a guy who rarely KO'd good contenders.

Anyway, I think Tunney outboxes him the whole way too.

:good

 

Re: Tunney being perhaps the most carefully matched fighter of his time, our old poster Klompton, who was a nonpareil expert on Tunney's era, once gave me a shining example of how the Tunney machine worked:

I looked over my reports of Jeff Smith-Tunney and found it interesting that Billy Gibson, Tunney's manager, demanded the fight be a no-decision bout because they couldnt select a pro-Tunney referee. The more I read about Tunney's back room dealings the less respect I have for him. The guy was undeniably talented but he sure seemed to have the deck stacked in his favor whenever he could.

Basically they wanted to bring their own ref. When they werent allowed to they demanded the fight be made a no-decision bout. This is interesting because New Orleans was one of the few places where decision bouts were legal basically consistently while in other places they werent. As such there wasnt much precident for Tunney to make such a demand. Its even worse when you consider that Smith was several inches shorter, had a shorter reach, weighed in at 12 pounds less (despite coming in at about 11 pounds OVER his best weight), 6 years older, and turned pro more than five years before Tunney, and had a lot more mileage on the odomoter. Basically Tunney had every concievable advantage and STILL wanted to have friendly officiating...

My conclusion? Tunney wouldn't have touched Walcott with a 20-foot pole. Not unless Joe signed half his life away first. Maybe even throw in an amputated limb requirement.

 

Walcott would probably KO the extremely crude Firpo, out point Sharkey but for Tunney i dunno could go either way.
Some of you are comparing him to Charles but he's nothing like him, Charles was more aggressive, slicker, more skilled, bigger and i'd say better punching power. Tunney was a stick and move type so i could see him hitting Walcott with straight punches then running away for a very boring dec. win.

 

From beating greb in the rubber match up until leaving the division tunney was the best lhw in the world bar none imo.

His hw resume is a bit thin though and he really should have fought sharkey and wills as he was a top contender alongside them. Maybe even godfrey as well.

I'm not picking jersey to stop him though, not because he can't, at because stylistically tunney will never fall for his bull****.

 

There's nothing to suggest he couldn't take it from Walcott.
Tunney was rarely, if ever, troubled.

Bivins and Charles were the same size as Tunney.
Both had been KO'd or knocked down by 165 pound Lloyd Marshall.

I think that's obvious. Knocking out Tunney would appear to be even less easy.

I disagree. The immediate post-war heavyweight scene was considered apallingly weak at the time, and there's only so much gloss we can find for it with the passing of time.
Walcott failed against a washed-up Louis, where Tunney succeeded against a washed-up Dempsey.

Obviously.
But he didn't have to find a load of bums to avoid getting KO'd. You can downplay Tunney's opposition, and build Walcott's up, and I suppose that's what you have to do to make it reasonable to pick Walcott by KO as the likely result.

No, Walcott had his own time in a very average HW era and he didn't produce.

Not really. He beat more title contenders, but lost to more too. Many of his wins over contenders (Bivins, Maxim, Ray) were very close decisions.
He failed to decisively beat an old over-the-hill Joe Louis, whatever the folklore says. And then got KO'd in the rematch.

Say what you want about Tunney's resume, or lack of HW credentials, he tended to dominate the highly-ranked heavyweights he actually fought.

 

So, Tunney had good management. That doesn't mean he couldn't fight.

Klompton may have done a lot of research of the era, but his bias towards and against certain fighters is obvious.

He had no problem saying Tunney's win over Madden was "fixed" because "there's no way Tunney could knock out Madden". In other words, because Tunney performed in a manner that produced a surprising result, klompton says it must have been fixed.

He also repeated a rumour that Gibbons-Norfolk was fixed because it suited his agenda.

Tunney wouldn't have touched Walcott with a 20-foot pole, but Layne, Maxim and Ray gave him hell ?
Ok.

 

I like Walcott over Firpo and Sharkey pretty large. The Tunney fight would present some problems and that is a hard one to pick but I still favor Walcott because he would be the puncher of the 2. Walcott had tremendous one punch pinpoint accurate power, not the clubbing volume power of a Foreman or a Liston but he was a better one punch banger.

 

Good post , though I give Tunney a slight edge.

An "on Sharkey " could take a decision, but chances are Walcott out points him.

Joe v Firpo ? Walcott by late stoppage.
Walcott generally did well with punchers, here he is, en-route to stopping Tommy Gomez in 3 rds.

This content is protected

 

Firpo takes a UD with craft and guile.
Sharkey wins by KO in a brutal display of feral power.
Walcott-Tunney looks like Foreman-Lyle with Walcott battering the stationary Tunney to a stoppage.

 

McVey, I attended that fight at MSG in 1946 when Jersey Joe Walcott kod the Tampa, Fl. sensational 185 pound war hero Tommy Gomez...
P.S. Walcott after this ko lost 2 decisions to Joey Maxim and Elmer Ray soon after...:good

 

S, Tunney was "stationary" ? Hmmm!
If Joey Maxim could decision Joe Walcott, Tunney TWICE the fighter that Maxim was and twice as mobile, would most likely beat Walcott who was an in and outer most of his career...Cheers.

 

He was taking the **** Burt