What do these three have in common? They all reigned as heavyweight champion immediately following living legends. All three were superb fighters and worthy champions, but in their time (and some would argue clear through to present-day) they suffered slights from public opinion, as following a legend is no easy task, and you are doomed forever to be compared to the succeeded champ. This many years on, then, how much do you feel this situation has evened itself out for these three? Do you still feel one or all of them still isn't given their just due, maybe in part because of whom they followed? :think
Holmes has absolutely risen in acclaim. He's a consensus top 5 Heavyweight of all time and appears to be the most popular choice for the spot at #3. Especially impressive given that he not only had to follow the sport's most prominent legend, but he himself was replaced by another almost immediately. Tunney and Charles are a bit different in the sense that they're mostly rated on their work below Heavy (rightly so, of course), but there's definitely been a shift among the knowledgeable spectators in which each man is seen as a greater fighter than the champ who preceded him. Very few guys on this board rate Dempsey greater than Tunney or Louis greater than Charles. That's not the case when looking purely at their rating as Heavyweights, but even there appreciation for them has grown and they're usually placed about right - Charles somewhere around the top 15 and Tunney floating around 20. The view of them in the eyes of the casual fan hasn't changed, but that's to be expected. You're not going to become a big name superstar once your career is over and done with if you weren't one during it.
I think that in some ways the revisionists have swung too far in ther favour. They didn't atract criticism only because they came after living legends, their title reigns also had serious flaws.
I don't think anyone trying to denigrade Tunney's title reign should necessarily point to Dempsey's reign as any great pearl.......
Tunney's title reign was pretty strong in terms of the rating of his opponents, but he only defended the title twice. At the end of the day, a fighter like that makes a choice between retirement and historic standing.
Would've preferred Tunney defending the title against Sharkey instead of Heeney to be honest. At the time you couldn't necessarily know that Heeney would go onto be little more than a journeyman while Sharkey would go onto win the title, but I do think that Sharkey represented a more interesting match-up than the mauling, wrestling Heeney. Apparently the reporters at the time thought it too: http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F6081EF83E5C177A93C6A9178ED85F4C8285F9 Sharkey talked a bit of trash about him as well: http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...g=1655,2034636&dq=tunney+sharkey+heeney&hl=en http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...g=4211,5401731&dq=tunney+sharkey+heeney&hl=en
A few points to make...Right after Gene tunney retired in 1928, the vast majority of boxing people and writers felt that the prime Dempsey of 1919-23 would have surely caught up to Tunney and probably stopped him or won a decision from Gene as Dempsey done to Tommy Gibbons in 1923... And virtually no one in the 1940s era thought that an Ezzard C harles would have any chance against the young Brown Bomber of the Max Baer era... NO ONE...Just look at what the coiled spring that was the young joe Louis did to another great LHt, John Henry Lewis in 1939, when Louis demolished John Henry in one rd for the ONLY ko loss in 117 bouts. And JH Lewis was but 25 years old who was in the same league as Ezzard Charles I believe...I fervently believe that people of those days had to have a better grasp of the fighters ability's who they just seen, then any one of today's critics, so many years later...
I rate J Henry Lewis highly, but no way was he in the same league as Ezzard Charles. Charles is the # 1 lightheavyweight of all time, and top 5 p4p fighter of all time. 1948 Charles knocks out henry lewis
Never fought Bob Baker, Clarence Henry, Rocky Marciano, Roland Lastarza in 1950-1951....yet gave shots to Freddie Beshore, Lee Oma, Joey Maxim(already beaten 4x), Nick Barone? Joe Louis and Jersey Joe Walcott were great title defenses :good
