Young Stribling, Kid Norfolk, rematching Tommy Loughran and fighting Tommy Gibbons sooner seem like obvious choices. Fighting Carpantier, Gibbons, Houck, Smith at the end of their career with two of them being blown up MW's gets criticised but what should have his LHW run looked like? Here is an article questioning whether Tunney ducked Stribling. Says the fight was signed and Tunney snuck into Stribling's training session trying not to be noticed to scout him since he hadn't seen much and ended up backing out of the fight. "Did Tunney Dodge Stribling" [url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19290223&id=SMoaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9UoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3938,2935267[/url] Here is an article before the fight talking about the excitement and detailing specifics. [url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1961&dat=19260308&id=r38hAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Z4sFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4980,66360[/url]
Very interesting article. I don´t think Tunney ducked Stribling. Tunney knew he could beat Dempsey. His made a career at heavyweight, going for that fight. What convinced Tunney was the roumor of the sparring sessions at Dempsey´s camp. Harry Greb acting as a sparring partner gave Dempsey a terrible beating. And Tunney having lost to and gained revenge against the formidable Greb put his focus entirely on Dempsey. After defeating Dempsey the second time he had allready planned his retirement from boxing.
Jack Delaney was actually one of the first guys i thought of but he really didn't start fighting at LHW consistantly until 1925 so there was only a one year window same with Slatterly but his was even smaller. Berlenbach's was similar to Delaney. The Greb Dempsey sparring was in 1920 with tons of reporters to witness it and was known at the time. The Stribling incident was 1926 so im sure it had no direct bearing on his decision. He planned to go after Dempsey and thought Stribling was more risk than it was worth once he saw him and backed out. Careful risk managment was a key component to his career he was very calculated.
New York Amsterdam News—1922-1993 This pap is extremely unkind to Gene and has a lot to say about him wanting no part of his fellow NYer Kid Norfolk and his racism in general.
