The Sweet Science

My point is what puts Tunney in the category of an intellectual? The fact that he read books? Twice you've referred to," filthy mouthed ghetto styled thugs", who were these champs who were around in Tunney's time? Dempsey was neither foul mouthed or a ghetto thug nor Tommy Loughran . I don't see your case here.

 

Nicky Piper is a member of Mensa, and he was also, Chairman of the Professional Boxing Association, but I don't know whether or not he has a university degree.

 

Yes I forgot about him:good

 

floyd is the best ring general

 

I'm stating how Tunney was perceived.Several writers found him pretentious ,about his books, but hey we all have out foibles,in many ways he was an admirable man.
I just see no justification for making him this great intellectual and no one has shown any proof that he was one.

 

Of course Tex, but I find it puzzling as to why he would even question Tunney's literary acumen...it's not mythical, it was known back in the 20's that Tunney was a high school dropout who applied himself to make up for his deficit in formal schooling, and did so with aplomb...and that kind of rings a bell with me in that I have done the same in my life. Some of the most intelligent and accomplished individuals I have known have been those who through real life application, are far more conversant and better educated than those who were mere "paper chasers" in a college or a "uni" as the Brits like to say. Some people retain their knowledge based on formal education, but many more just proved to be good test takers without any real absorption of the actual material that was presented to them in their curriculum. There have been may dummies to have attended an institute of higher learning, and many self taught scholars on the other hand, IMO. Getting back to Tunney, he impressed many of the Literati with his scholarly acumen, and was surprised on one occasion by a member of the press reading a book called "The Way of All Flesh". I remember reading about that back when I first began getting into boxing. Years later, I mused that it was some kind of wacko conspiracy theory to suspect Tunney of perpetrating some kind of hoax with the boxing public. It's just bewildering to me, especially considering that so many on the liberal left that are more than ready to confer Muhammad Ali the title of an "intellect" or a visionary,...when what they're doing is confusing glibness with intelligence.
The links that I supplied in response to McVea's post more than make clear the facts concerning Tunney, and in far more detail than I alone am capable of offering.

 

Neither of those links show/prove Tunney was an intellectual. Your reference to revisionism may be appropriate on another thread but it certainly is not on this one.
Now you accuse me of anti American bias which is not only lazy, its downright stupid.

All my favourite fighters are American.
Dempsey
Louis
Greb
Ali
Robinson
Bottom line you made a statement and when it was challenged by me you could not support it. So you resorted to accusing me of being biased against "Yanks" it would be offensive if it wasn't so pathetic.
G B S knew as much about boxing as Tunney did about classical literature,ie very little.Cashel Byron's Profession is a decent stab at the genre,[Jim Corbett played the lead on the stage,] but the fact that he picked Carpentier to beat Dempsey shows how little he knew about the nuts and bolts of the game .I have Benny Green's book Shaw's Champions,it has Tunney and Shaw on the cove,r and I have photos of Hemingway with Tunney and Dempsey in NY none of which prove Tunney had a high intellect.I've asked you to substantiante your claim and you can't, end of.

 

Tunney's interests ran toward accumulating enough wealth so he would have what is commonly called his "f*ck you money". He was probably as single minded a man as ever boxed,and displayed real courage after the beating Greb gave him by electing to get back in the ring with that buzz saw.
What has not been shown is that he had any more appreciable grey matter than any other fighter. I'm not smart but have read quite a lot of what some might consider the highbrow books,
Turgenev,Tolstoy,Dostoevsky,Hemingway,Steinbeck,Joyce,Ishiguro Dumas,Fitzgerald,Faulkner,D*ckens,Lawrence,Shaw,McCarthy,Melville,Murikami,etc does that indicate I'm an intellectual, and,of superior intelligence than anyone else? Of course not, it's absurd to think so.

 

There is a photo of Joe Louis and Tunney sitting next to each other at a dinner table,I believe that is the only photo I've seen with Tunney and a black man, and he never fought one, for these reasons I would not be too sure Tunney would have found Ali congenial company.

 

Doesn't hurt.