I lean towards Tunney for stylistic reasons. My hunch is that Tunney would outbox Holyfield keep moving and be on his feet at the final bell. In this scenario he has probably racked up enough points to get the nod. This is not to say that I think that Tunney is the greater heavyweight because I dont.
Tunney has a very fine chance, Holyfield had slowed considerably by the time he took on Tyson. Prime for prime it's a win for Holyfield.
Holyfield worked best when fighters came to him and not the other way around. While I feel Evander had a top flight ability to adjust during fights I also feel that Tunney's lateral movement would render Evander largely ineffective throught out the fight. I feel that Holyfield would be the aggressor but not necessarily the effective aggressor. I say its a toss up.
Tunney never fought a Black Fighter, and never fought a heavyweight above 202lb or above 6'1" in Height. This is signifigant. Tunney is unproven.
I agree completely :good An old Holmes fights with a somewhat similar style to Tunney and was able to arguably steal 5 rounds out of 12. Tunney is better than that version of Holmes and I'd pick him to keep moving and take a close but clear decison.
You seem to harp on the fact that Dempsey & Tunney did not fight black fighter's. From what Ive read neither had a problem with fighting black guys it was the promoter's and manager's that had the problem. Do you really think proffessional's like Tunney and Dempsey were afraid of black fighter's? Thats rediculouse.
Greb went 2-3 vs Tunney despite weighing only 165lb Louhgran BEAT Tunney, despite the fact Loughran was only 20 years old and weighed just 162lb to Tunneys 174lb!!!! Dempsey was largely inactive and past his prime. He still manage to floor Tunney for 14 seconds. I stand by my original statement tunney is unproven vs a heavyweight above 200lb and above 6'1" in height. Evander Holyfield was 6'3 205-215lb who threw combination after combination. Tunney never fought this kind of heavyweight before.
I understand and respect your points. I just believe Tunney is a much better fighter than U feel he is.
That's true but is that really significant here? Is Tunney going to refuse to fight him or something? If not it makes little difference...Tunney fought plenty of white guys that could fight well, it's not like the black fighters of the era were the only good ones, so the colour of someone's skin should not make a difference in a hypothetical match-up like this really.
I rate him in my top 10 lightheavyweights of all time, and top 25 heavyweights of all time. You think he is much better than this?