The winner here? The fans. Seriously, there are several matchups of Dick Tiger would be dream matches such as against Zale, Cerdan, Rodrigo Valdez and Mickey Walker off the top of my head. Those matches are mouth-watering.
I've been watching some old Tiger fights lately and he was one tough dude in his prime. Would have been a tough nut for any middleweight from any era
I think that for a middleweight to beat Tiger, it helped to be a good trombone player (I'm quoting a boxing writer from the 60's)...you had to box and move, use the jab and box, box, box (see Archer, Giardello and Griffith) ...and did I mention that you had to box? Therefore, I'd pick Tiger over Zale, as the Man of Steel wasn't a boxer....oh, he could box from time to time, depending on the opponent, but he wasn't really a boxer. I think Mr Ihetu would have been way too strong for Tony, and would have really ground him down over the 15 round distance, probably stopping him in the 12th or 13th.
This is a perfect match up. I don't have any great arguments for this but my instinct is Zale emerges the winner of either the first bout or the rematch, but not both under any circumstances. His record is quite interesting for featuring a surprising number of split series. I wish we had film of some of these, I suppose imagination is part of the fun.