Why didn't Gene Tunney have more fights?

It was enough for him to get KOd once , he felt the second one coming .
People will always nuthug those who retired young and didn't have to endure the journeyman's fate of those who take their time in the sport , unless they have the vast size advantage of a Walker Smith Jr. or a Vitali Klitschko , or the DKP protection of Ali and Holmes , or the foul style plus cherrypicking of a Hopkins , etc.

 

MY guess is that he just wanted to enjoy the good life and fight only often enough to make big money. It's basically the same thing that Dempsey did.

 

In just about all the boxing books that I could get my hands on as a kid, Tunney was always glossed over, somewhat grudgingly because he beat Dempsey, and there was one constant, eternal adjective that was always used to describe him....COLORLESS...amazing how often that word was used for Tunney. and like I said, it seemed he got glossed over..sold short as some great fighters have been when they commit the unpardonable sin of not being especially "exciting" for the fans..unexciting stylewise, no matter how masterful they were..and it didn't help Tunney at all that he was an intelligent, literary, somewhat aloof guy who used flawless languaqe and diction and was apparently so..."clean"..with no rough edges..no seamy, bawdy or "colorful" aspects of his personality that would endear him to the boxing public or to the press. He's always been, in my mind, a criminally underrated, underestimated fighter..more so than anybody you can dare to name.

 

Some historians also described him as "An elitist snob".

How can someone be so criminally underrated when he never fought black fighters or bigger fighters?

 

You're completely oblivious to how great a fighter Tunney was...and the beat goes on...:-(

 

I think I brought up two excellent points

1. Tunney never fought black fighters

2. Tunney never fought bigger fighters


How can someone be so unbelievable great when he has these 2 black marks on his record? You think Harry Greb never fought black fighters or never took on bigger fighters? I don't think so.


I don't underrate him at all. I have him in my top 5 light-heavyweights of all time, and in my top 25 heavyweights of all time lists. That is a very fair placement for Tunney.

 

Neither did the vast majority of HW champs.

Tunney had over 80 fights, which was probably more than any other HW champ except Johnson, Fitzsimmons, and Carnera.

He made close to $1 million for his defense against Heeney, and the top of the division was a jumble with no consensus #1 contender to challenge him after that.

 

Except for two hall of fame top 3 rated contenders Jack Sharkey and George Godfrey

 

Its hard to fault a guy for walking away on top. On the flip side, this is why he shouldn't be in anyone's top 10 all time. There were some capable challengers around and coming up. HAD Tunney stuck around I think he would have beaten them and punched his ticket to a higher ranking. But credit shouldn't be given on what is thought in comparison to what WAS.

 

So in your bizarro world, a #1 and #3 spot are interchangable?

And can we please see this mysterious ranking from July of '28 that has Godfrey in the top 3, which you insist on citing to but mysteriously fail to produce.

 

http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/The_Ring_Magazine's_Annual_Ratings:_1928

 

It says right at the top of that page, "As selected by The Ring magazine in the February 1929 issue."

I asked for Godfrey's ranking in July '28, which is when Tunney retired.

 

Your bias and obvious agenda is so emotion driven as to make your opinion of Tunney ridiculous and unbelievable.

 

Did Tunney ever fight bigger men of reasonable quality for his era or black fighters of note ?

 

With respect to opponents of stature, 6'3" amateur champion Martin Burke lost to Gene over ten rounds in August 1921, then again over the championship distance in February 1924. There was then a deeply held bias in the belief that a well coordinated title caliber heavyweight could only be so tall or so heavy, and Burke competed as a light heavyweight in the professional ranks despite winning the 1919 AAU HW Title. Burke defeated Fulton and Floyd Johnson over the championship distance (in October 1922 and May 1925 respectively), split a pair with Larry Gains in 1927, and went the ten round distance in back to backs with Godfrey in 1925, despite being outweighed by over 45 pounds.