You know Gene Tunney gets vastly overrated when....

WOW! Hey, here's a blast from the past! How are things meng?

Nah, no Lounge for me these days. I lurk every so often, but none of it interests me enough to post anymore. Hope all's good!

 

Liston overrated? Maybe on this website yes. However, in the main public eyes, they always view him as the guy that ali cleaned up on. He never gets nearly the amount of credit he deserves in my view.

Salvador Sanchez was overrated by the way:hey

 

Tunney is underrated. His footwork alone is light years ahead of all previous heavyweights on film. He also was first fighter of note to study film of his opposition, which shows you a seriousness in craft and dedication. Basically he had great wheels, great chin and underrated pop in his hands. Very accurate puncher too. Of the next five heavyweight champions that succeeded him I would only make Baer a dangerous foe. Schmeling (also underrated) would not be able to track him down over 15, Sharkey would melt under Tunney's discipline, Carnera has no shot, and Braddock would look like a statue. Which brings us to Louis. We know Joe had issues with movers, which to me makes Tunney a very live dog. Tunney earned his stripes so to speak in his wars with Greb, he was marginalized in his day because he beat a popular fading champion that had 100x his charisma. I believe the book "Tunney" said he had 9 fights at heavy but I could be wrong. Shame he didn't have more, although there is something special to retire the way he did. Not sure how he would do against a big heavy or a very big puncher but there is no doubt The fighting Marine was ahead of his time and a handful for anytime.

 

If Machen could do what he did vs Sonny...imagine what the more talented, better chinned Tunney would be capable of.

 

well Tunney fought 2 fine fights against Dempsey and although a much larger light heavyweight beat Greb and others showing skill. At heavyweight his Big win was Dempsey and the long count shows much but I also think you can see how Tunney was head and shoulders over Sharkey and others but IMO Schmeling would have been a rough fight for him.

There are lots of fighter overrated and although Gene did not have the heavyweight resume of a Ezzard Charles he did prove his greatness in the lower weight divisions capped off with the Dempsey wins adding fuel to speculation in H2H match-ups

 

Machen's beard survived the blows of Sonny Liston, Cleveland Williams, Mike DeJohn and many other to heavyweights. His chin was far more tested than Tunney's, especially at HW. So I can't give Tunney any advantage in the chin department. His record shows a marked dearth of power punchers.

And before anyone lists the Ingo KO as some sort of proof that Tunney was superior to Eddie in that dept., ask yourself this- could Tunney's chin have survived that same onslaught from Ingo? Don't bet on it.

 

Look whose back

Tommo/Glover and all your other numerous incarnations

 

Remind me not to frequent the bars you do.

 

He had a pretty big frame and could have carried more weight. 6'1" with a 77" reach and very solid at about 190 Lbs. He actually weighed as much as 192 Lbs. for a fight. He could have carried 200 and even a few more Lbs. quite well. Big shoulders, wide across the chest and back, pretty thick neck, decent arms, strong and durable. 1 of only 3 Lineal HW Champs who were never stopped... Marciano and Bowe are the others.

 

...but where they stacked on top of each other, lined up North to South, lined up East to West... the details are important man! How big were these budgerigars? See how these myths start? Liston was really just 5'11 1/2" with a 73" reach, and barely a HW by today's standards.

 

I disagree. Tunney was established on a world level, but not all that established at heavyweight.

I respect Gene Tunney, but Tom Heeney was nobody special at all. He had a difficult time beating any contenders (drew with Sharkey/Lost and Drew with Uzcudan/lost to "Fainting" Phil Scott) before Tunney gave him a title shot. And Dempsey hadn't fought in three years before Tunney lifted the title from him.

Tunney didn't exactly clean out the top 10 at heavyweights and then fight an active champ.

On the other hand, in addition to Patterson, Machen and Folley, Liston also beat top 10 contenders Cleveland Williams twice (before Williams was shot by police), Nino Valdes, Mike DeJohn and, later, Henry Clark.

Regarding the highly-thought-of Dempsey, I have boxing magazines from the early 1960s, and before their first fight, some writers believed Floyd Patterson would beat Sonny Liston, because the Liston-Machen fight was competitive and Sonny didn't stop Eddie.

Floyd was a very popular champion. He was earning millions fighting on closed circuit television against relative nobodies, because he (Patterson) was so popular. It wasn't because of the match-ups.

Now, people look at Liston's wins over Patterson as nothing special. And history has kind of been rewritten so now people think Liston was a sure-thing to wipe the floor with Patterson, but that's not the case at all (even though that's what happened).

Liston developed that invincible aura because he not only swept through the top 10 and beat Williams, Valdes, DeJohn, Machen, Folley convincingly, he also wiped out a very popular and active champ in a round when he got there.

He also moved back into title contention when he knocked out top-10 rated Henry Clark. After that, there were talks to try to arrange a Liston-Jimmy Ellis fight for the WBA belt in early 1969 (after Ellis edged Patterson), but Ellis and Angelo Dundee ended up talking to a lot of guys and never fighting any of them.

People might overrate both Tunney and Liston, but Liston earned his rep at heavyweight by beating all the top contenders and champ, and if not running into the best heavyweight of all time, likely would've reigned until Joe Frazier came along.

Tunney, all-time great, but not all-time great heavyweight champ. (IMO).

 

Floyd may have been giving a chance to beat Liston by some, especially off the Machen result but a lot of people liked Liston. Practically no one thought Gene would defeat Dempsey.
As for Tunney at heavy, having only 9 fights is not a large sample but it's still impressive. He stopped Tommy Gibbons! He is one of two men to stop Bartley Madden and he did it in just three rounds. He defeated Risko with ease who may have had a poor record overall but has many impressive names on his record. He mastered Greb, who while not at heavy would go on to terrorize the heavyweight division. So you could conceivably rate that on Tunney's ledger. And finally, Dempsey who was old, rusty and his legs were gone but still as tough as they came. Tunney had the bouts been scheduled like most title fights for 15 very likely would have stopped Jack late. A man with only one stoppage (a debatable one at that) in his career.

 

OK, but let's keep things in perspective here. Gibbons was at the end of a VERY long career and had many more tough fights than Tunney. Prime for prime NO WAY does Gene even come CLOSE to stopping Gibbons. I'm not even convinced that he beats him, actually.

This is false. He did not master Greb. The only fight Tunney dominated Greb in was their last one, when Harry was blind in one eye, at a severe weight disadvantage, had tons more mileage on the odometer and was fighting with an injured rib.

When Harry was at his best Tunney could never master him. Greb won their first two fights clearly (though was robbed in their 2nd fight) and at the very LEAST deserved a draw in their Cleveland encounter (none of the Cleveland papers gave it to Tunney). More likely it was a win for Greb.

 

Ok maybe I should of left off the exclamation mark on Gibbons. He did stop him however which old or not is impressive.

Very true on Greb I was referring to he final fight and Excellant point about his eye. He was handicapped in the last bout. There can be no denying though as each fight progressed Tunney improved against Greb substantially.

 

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