Gene Tunney - his career, his influence on the sport and where exactly to rate him

Afternoon, fellas. This is a long one and, for many people I suspect, boring one! Sorry!

Recently having a second read of Jack Cavanaugh's excellent biography of Gene Tunney, as well as discussing the merits of the 'Fighting Marine' with a mate of mine, has got me thinking.

Me and my mate seemed to be at opposite ends of the spectrum when it came to Gene, oddly enough. His primary arguments (and I'll stress that this guy is a proper boxing fan who knows the history of the sport well, so if anyone shares his views then don't be reluctant to speak up for fear of being told that you don't know / understand / appreciate the finer aspects of boxing!) regarding Tunney were that his technical abilities as a fighter are overstated, that he was carefully steered throughout his career to avoid certain fighters and that his record and achievements, while still impressive, carry an air of the old Larry Holmes / Mike McCallum syndrome to them - underrated and underappreciated in their own time, so subsequently blown up too much in later times as a way of compensating.

Any truth in this, in the eyes of you lads? Is Tunney really one of the three main cornerstones of the Light-Heavyweight division and a legitimate pound for pound great whose style would easily transplant in today's game and bring him similar success? Or does he ever so slightly flatter to deceive?

Now I've had stick in the past for arguing, as best I can, that the extent to which James J. Corbett 'revolutionised' modern boxing, or served as its founding father in the gloved era, has been drastically overstated. This is nothing to do with human evolution or the like, but more to do with improvements and evolution within boxing techniques from the implementation / publication of the Marquees of Queensberry from 1867 onwards.

Even hoary old Tracy Callis, for instance, has had to acknowledge that the likes of Bob Fitzsimmons, Joe Gans and Jack Johnson would need to seriously alter their approach, styles and fundamentals in order to survive with the best of today's crop, for instance.

Having delved back in to footage of Tunney, however, I'm quite happy to stick by my initial belief; Gene was the first Heavyweight champion to display a style, skill set and technique which would have carried him to success in this day and age, without the need to modify (or be put on a new scientific diet and take a load of supplements, before Az arrives!).

This is one of the reasons I feel to strongly about Tunney's greatness, first and foremost. Corbett had some nice feints and moves up his sleeve, Gans could probe for openings remarkably well for a man belonging to such an era and Ruby Robert hit hard enough to upset any Middleweight from any era - but these men were peaking a mere 20-30 years before Tunney was, and yet none of them can even hold a candle to him from a technical point of view. They're not even close.

Watching Tunney, you can see (in my opinion, anyway) that his footwork, economy of movement, accuracy, punch variety and defence are lightyears ahead of his forerunners, the majority of his peers and also many who came after, too. Compared to such fighters, Tunney was all legs, really, and it wasn't until Ali came along that we saw a 'big man' who could use his legs and the ring space the same way that Gene did.

Forget Corbett - as far as I'm concerned, if any man helped to usher in the times of pure, beautiful boxing as we know it, and did more than any other within his era to expand the parameters of what we expected to see from a prize fighter, then Tunney is the first port of call.

Take a look at Bernard Hopkins, for instance. You could be forgiven, at times, for thinking that he'd followed a book on boxing written by Tunney hook, line and sinker. Punching effectively on the move is a tricky thing to be good at, even in today's game. Watching the two Tunney-Dempsey fights (and particularly the first one, in which Gene had Dempsey under control for almost every second) you can see how Tunney was able to exploit Dempsey's weakness in this area. Not by 'running' as some like to say, but by using a simple but effective technique. Slight movement to the left, slight movement to the right, double jab.

Over and over and over again. Dempsey, trying to move with Tunney, was repeatedly caught off guard and jolted back by the jabs which he was then in no potision to defend against as he went after Gene.

Now watch the way Hopkins picked Tito Trinidad apart, 75 years after Gene had first mastered the Manassa Mauler. Trinidad could only punch when he had those feet planted, and Hopkins knew this. Similarly, he knew that if he kept the fight at mid range and made Trinidad come to him without 'running' the way De la Hoya did in the championship rounds against Trinidad, he'd always be able to keep the Puerto Rican off balance and behind that jab, as well as those sneaky right hand leads which Hopkins likes to throw.

On top of that, there's the head slightly to the left when in defensive stance, the subtle inside fighting in which both men would bend the knees in to the clinch rather than just hold while upright and maul, and again that economy of movement - nothing to tire themselves out, nothing spectacular, but doing just enough to make their man miss and counter.

The floor is yours if you feel that Tunney's abilities perhaps weren't what they were cracked up to be, but I'm standing with my original assessment - the man was a master of pure boxing.

The other gripe my friend had, naturally, came with Tunney's record, in particular his defeat to Greb and his Heavyweight reign (or rather his lack of one).

Tunney may not have quite been the one hundred percent finished article by the time he first boxed Greb in 1922, but he was far from green and untested, either. He'd been boxing for pay for seven years, and had already shared the ring with the likes of Leo Houck and Battling Levinsky, both sometime world champions.

We should also remember that Tunney was a genuine and natural Light-Heavyweight by the time he'd fully grown and filled out. Harry Greb, on the other hand, was a mere Middleweight right throughout his boxing life, and he was no weight hopper, either; he scaled just 162 lb (compared to Tunney's 174 lb) for their 1922 encounter, and was giving away four / five inches in height as well as seven inches in reach. Rumours that his eyesight had been severely damaged in a brutal encounter with Kid Norfolk were rife, too.

And yet, Greb absolutely trounced Tunney when they first fought. Grantland Rice, one of the foremost boxing writers of his time, called the fight, "perhaps the bloodiest fight I ever covered. Greb handled Tunney like a butcher hammering a Swiss steak. By the third round, Gene was literally wading in his own blood." The legendary Damon Runyon stated that referee Kid McPartland's shirt was drenched in Tunney's blood, too, saying that McPartland resembled, "someone who'd been painting his house red while under the influence of hard cider."

Let's get the mitigating factors out of the way. Greb was one of the finest fighters to ever lace 'em up. He also beat a string of other Light-Heavyweight champions in his career despite giving away weight, height and reach, such as Tommy Loughran (albeit Tommy was a very young pup for their series), Jack Dillon, Battling Levinsky and Mike McTigue. However, none of those names are propelled to anything like the heights which Tunney's is. We should also remember, of course, that preparing and studying for an opponent in Tunney's pomp could be a little more tricky than it is today if they weren't a major name. No Television, no YouTube, and in many cases not a great deal of time or promotion before fights, making it hard to get a scout in place to observe a possible future opponent. This applies to both men, of course.

So what about their second fight? Well, Tunney made a better fist of it and got the decision - but it was a very unpopular one. Of 23 newspapermen ringside, 19 of them felt that Greb should have been the man with his hand raised at the end. Grantland Rice said of the fight, "Greb did most of the fighting, most of the hitting, most of the holding. He used his head repeatedly, but even considering the number of points he lost in this way, he still deserved the decision."

Jim Halliday, writing for the Staten Island Advance, gave an even more damning verdict, saying, "A vital blow at boxing in New York State was delivered last night in Madison Square Garden when Gene Tunney, badly beaten in 13 of the 15 rounds in the fight, was awarded the decision over Harry Greb."

The pick of the bunch went to Regis Welsh, although the fact that he wrote for the paper of Greb's home town, the Pittsburgh Post, should be taken in account. He stated that Tunney had been "the beneficiary of the most high-handed robbery ever seen anywhere in the fistic world."

Tunney was not without support, mind you. Hype Igoe, one of the great sports writers of the day (but also a fellow New Yorker of Tunney, in the interests of fairness!), stated that he saw Tunney as the winner, writing in the aftermath, "The clear work, straight hitting and honest fighting was done by Tunney."

But the general feeling was clear, overall - Tunney had got lucky, and Greb had bested him again in the eyes of most.

The argument my friend makes is that the way in which Greb managed to have the wood on Tunney in the early running of their series must surely effect how highly he rates in the pantheon of Light-Heavyweight greats, as well as calling in to question how well he'd have done if matched with the other 175 lb legends on a head-to-head basis. While Greb managed to score wins over several fine Light-Heavyweights, he was also handicapped against the bigger men thanks to his lack of natural size and knockout power, as well as not being as consistent at 175 as he was at 160.

If that's what Greb can do to Tunney, then what about someone like Bob Foster, or Roy Jones Jr? Food for thought, because in some quarters I've seen picking those names against Tunney, particularly in the case of Jones, be taken as a byword for knowing nothing about the sport! This wasn't a young, near-enough peak fighter in his best weight class being pipped or closely beaten by a smaller man, ala Leonard-Duran I. This was that bigger, younger fighter being systematically taken apart first time out, and being bested in most people's eyes pretty comfortably second time out, too.

It's not all doom and gloom, though! Of course, Tunney turned the tide as his series with Greb pushed on, showing that ability to make adjustements and improvements, and displaying that ring IQ for which he's famed. Although Greb continued to have his moments in their remaining three bouts, there's little doubt that over the final 35 rounds they shared, Tunney was the better man. The only caveat you could add is that a great, great 175 pounder turning the tide on a great, great 160 pounder should be expected in any case, and that Greb, by then with over 240 fights to his name (at the back end of 1923) compared to around 60 for Tunney, was arguably already slightly past his peak, as well as going ever-more off the rails in his personal life after the death of his young wife.

Outside of Greb, Tunney's work as a Light-Heavyweight does read very, very impressively. The era that Tunney boxed in, I think, should be considered a pretty strong one for the weight class, and between 1922 and 1925 Gene beat Battling Levinsky, Jimmy Delaney and Georges Carpentier, all of whome held the world title in that division. The downside is that Levinsky was certainly past his best, and that Delaney and Carpentier had already been dethroned by the time Tunney boxed them - so while such wins read impressively, they aren't quite in the mind-blowing category. Through a combination of avoidance, poor management and plain old bad luck, a championship fight against the reigning divisional king never materialised for Gene, and an additional win on the biggest stage against a Battling Siki or a Mike McTigue would have been a nice embellishment for his CV - and it was probably the least he deserved.

Nevertheless, I still believe Tunney to be one of the three or four greatest Light-Heavyweights who ever lived. Those horrible tussles with Greb aside, he was the model of consistency at the weight, in an era where even the most outstanding champions were dropping decisions or, now and then, being stopped in non-title fights with alarming regularity. When you match that consistency with his wins over the vastly underrated Jeff Smith and Tommy Gibbons, as well as boxing a draw with another all-time top ten merchant at 175 in Tommy Loughran, there's no way you can say that Tunney is anything less than one of the very best to do his thing at Light-Heavyweight.

So that's another point of my mate's which I feel is debunked.

Now, finally, Tunney the Heavyweight. Now I think my mate may well be on to something. In 2010, Bert Sugar, for instance, listed Tunney at # 5 in his list of the top ten Heavyweights of all time, ahead of the likes of Mike Tyson, Rocky Marciano, Joe Frazier and Larry Holmes.

Come on now, Bert.

The IBRO were a little more reserved, putting Tunney at number 11, but again this saw him higher than Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield. This list was compiled in 2006, so again a pretty recent one.

I can obviously let the lists of men such as Nat Fleischer and Charley Rose, compiled decades ago and before many great Heavyweights began to show their class, slide when it comes to this, but these two very recent offerings, along with the likes of Muhammad Ali himself (in his retirement) and Teddy Atlas placing Gene in their top three and five respectively, show that surely Tunney has been somewhat historically overrated (and I hate using that word) as a Heavyweight?

As I said earlier, Tunney had complete control of a ring legend in Dempsey, but we're all well-versed in how inactivity, domestic / legal issues and father time had blunted Dempsey's edge by 1926. Was Dempsey poor in his fights with Gene, or did Gene simply make him look poor? I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle, in fairness, but two wins over Jack, along with a routine defence against a merely servicable fighter in Heeney before sailing off in to retirement, is surely not enough to warrant such loftly praise as a Heavy, even if he did achieve these wins with a slickness and style which was all his own?

The thing is, had Michael Spinks retired after beating Gerry Cooney (so before Tyson obliterated him), his record north of 175 lb would read just as well as Tunney's, perhaps even better - but I don't think he'd have been afforded the same generous placings as a Heavyweight, oddly enough.

Definitely some romantisizing of Tunney's record and abilities as a Heavyweight going on, methinks. I wouldn't even have him in contention for a top ten spot by any means at all, and I have misgivings about how he'd fare against the second rung of Heavyweight greats in a head to head fight in most cases, never mind the Alis and Foremans of this world.

So overall, where does that leave us? We've got a supreme speciment who, I think, is a shade underrated in terms of his natural ability, talent and technique, who is the definition of 'elite' at 175, but who has probably been given a wee bit too much kudos for his Heavyweight career.

Trying to balance all of that out is not easy, but in general I'd say there's enough of a case to acquit Tunney of those charges of 'Larry Holmes syndrome.' You still need to be a relatively big fan of the sport to give an in-depth appraisal of the man, and his fighting style, as I've stressed already, is still not as revered as it should be in my eyes. With all that in mind, I think arguing that Tunney is overrated in terms of his whole career and his impact on the sport is a misinformed view.

It never does any harm to question this sort of stuff every now and then, and I'm glad I have - to me, however, Tunney remains what I initially always thought he was. A pound for pound top fifteen man of all time, and the first true 'immortal' of the Light-Heavyweight weight class, as well as being a man who, as we saw him, would have flourished and succeeded in any era of boxing.

Any era.

Cheers for sticking with me, lads. If there's anything you want to add, please do. Ta.

As always Chris a well written and argued piece. I believe I am with you in this. My own view is it is not until the 1920s that we really start to see guys whose skills would translate into the modern game, or indeed any era. This is no slight on those that had gone before but just that longer fights, different rules and scoring had an inevitable impact on the tactics that were both practical and sensible.

However once one hits the 20s we see fights over 15 rounds, a real crack down on grappling and scoring on a round by round basis in line with how fights are scored now broadly. As such I personally watch guys like Ross, Leonard, Mclarnin and Tunney and cannot see any reason they cannot be dumped in their respective divisions whenever you choose after that point and they would flourish.

Like most on here the Tunney fights I have seen most will be against Dempsey and whilst as you have noted Dempsey was a good few years past his glorious best the fights were by no means Ali Holmes farces. Jack was still dangerous and explosive and Tunney shows some absolutely superb footwork and mastery of distance to keep Jack out of his natural danger zone, and footwork and movement are assets that would serve you well in any era.

I do feel like Ezzard Charles Gene’s work at light heavy can sometimes lead to him being over rated and ranked at heavy and as you have said it is slightly incongruous that such generosity is not allowed to Spinks from a more recent vintage. However in terms of his light heavy weight body of work I have no issue with him being nestled in anyone’s top five, particularly as many of us have Charles atop those rankings who was similarly title-less.

If I was to be overly critical of Tunney you could question the lack of black contenders/fighters on his record because obviously a fight against Wills would have been another mightly impressive string to his heavyweight bow and as Kid Norfolk proved against Greb there were some very decent black light heavies around during his time.

Nice post, Jeff.

Yeah, the colour line issue with Tunney (as it does with most world champions from his era) has to raise its head, I guess. I think first off you have to give Gene some benefit of the doubt as, unlike the cases of Jeffries and Dempsey, there wasn't one standout black fighter who was deemed as THE biggest test for him when he was at his peak. Norfolk was an excellent performer but didn't necessarily distinguish himself as the standout of the chasing pack, for instance.

My understanding is that Tunney actually offered Wills (albeit a Wills who was no longer at his best) a fight once he'd gone up to Heavyweight, but that Wills declined for whatever reason (I think this might be touched upon in Cavanaugh's book, but I can't quite remember off the top of my head).

Fine article as always Chris and, as many will be quick to point out, I have nothing worthy to contribute re Tunney's place in the great pantheon of the sport but felt your efforts deserved recognition nonetheless. My only gripe is the assertion that Corbett could be considered the man to revolutionise modern boxing when you'd be hard pressed (especially after my banging of that particular drum) not to give that accolade to Peter Jackson.

Yes, he's an unfashionable pick, although I'd wager that's more to him being unknown to the wider circles, but there's evidence to suggest that Jackson was doing what Corbett did at the same time and arguably in a better fashion.

Some will point to their 62 round fight and the fact that it was called a no-contest/stalemate but again I'll point to Jackson's injury sustained a few weeks before as a reason for him not gaining the upper hand and influential in Corbett's decision to deny him a rematch once he became Champion (I appreciate that Jackson's sprained ankle is beginning to sound ominously like Haye's broken toe but let's not get nasty about it).

However, comparisons will Ali are not uncommon when talking about Jackson as a HW fighter who possessed good handspeed and impressive footwork to go with his ring smarts and ability to finish fights.

Corbett? Pfft!

You may well be right Chris, think by the point Gene was around Wills had waited that long as number one contender he was very much of the view that he should not really have to prove himself all over again, particularly as the various times he had underlined his credentials had done little to get him in a ring with Dempsey.

Like you say the situation is not the same as Wills Dempsey or Jackson Sullivan but you could even throw the mercurial George Godfrey into the mix as a guy who would have been a decent old test for a fledgling heavyweight contender.

Really great piece and I agree Tunney's ability was many years ahead of its time. Even more so than Dempsey's. I think the reason he and Charles are sometimes bizzarely highly rated as heavyweights is because that's where they were actually champions, whereas their best work was at lightheavyweight. I saw a list of Ali's greatest heavyweights and Charles was really high. The two of them were meant to be pals from what I've read.

On paper the Dempsey wins are great ones, but although I'm sure it's not a popular opinion, I'd back the Jack of a few years before to beat him. Tunney should be mainly rated, in my eyes, for his work as a light heavy and that's enough for him to be top 15. Greb may have mashed him in their first encounter and bettered him in the second, but Greb's no ordinary fighter. There's an argument for him to be in Robinson's throne. Maybe with footage that's where he'd be.

From watching them both, I don't think he'd figure out Ezzard and if he did it wouldn't be more than once in three encounters. He's the sort of fighter whom you would always think has a better chance in a rematch.

Anyway Cleverly owns him.

I know I have mentioned it before Dave but a trainer, whose name escapes me, who worked with both Jackson and Jack Johnson was convinced Jackson was the better fighter and would have bested Johnson, can’t remember the exact quote but believe his rationale was Jackson did everything Johnson did but had better footwork.

Like you think Corbett’s status as the forefather of modern technical boxing is overstated. In my view he gets the title on the back of being a lot bigger than the likes of Gans and Erne and a lot whiter than Jackson, but such talk will probably send Truss into meltdown and this thread deserves better.

The fact I've contributed to such a well written article is likely to cause few circuits to overload in the big lad's head anyway.

Bad oversight on my part there, Dave, and of course I can't argue with anything you've said regarding Jackson!

I said a similar thing in regards to how Tunney would have got on against a peak version of Roy actually, JBW. Some fighters are incredibly hard to figure out first time of asking and Jones, much like Greb (who even though we don't have footage of him, we know punched from odd angles non-stop, was dirtier than a miner's boots, set an almost impossible pace and had unusual upper body movement) was one of them. But Tunney's performance in those final three fights with Greb, as well as the way in which he ruthlessly exposed the flaws in Dempsey's game after studying him so closely for so many years, suggests that Tunney had the brain to hold his own with anyone if he got enough bites of the cherry, and eventually beat them.

I wish I could remember the story of someone telling Tunney what sort of fighter it would take to beat Dempsey back when he was in the marines. It's a good tale and shows just how far back Gene had his eye on Jack.

Here you go, JBW.....

While stationed at Romorantin, Tunney had met a Marine corporal named Jack McReynolds who had been a sportswriter in Kansas City. McReynolds had covered several of Dempsey's fights in the West, and Tunney, like other American servicemen abroad, had begun to hear and read a lot about Dempsey. The young fighter's penchant for first-round knockouts and general ring savagery had made him a sensation and, moreover, eared him a shot at Willard's title.

If Dempsey were to lose eventually, McReynolds told Tunney, it would be to a boxer and not a puncher: his brawling style left him vulnerable, particularly to jabs and to a straight right. That, of course, presupposed that the boxer could avoid Dempsey's murderous left hook, which had knocked out more than two dozen opponents, or his damaging rapid-fire combinations. If the left hook could render an opponent senseless, so too could his powerful right cross or the combinations. And he most certainly could take a punch. Indeed, there was little margin for error by a Dempsey opponent.

"Is he really that good?" Tunney asked.

"He's very good," McReynolds replied. "He'll murder Jess Willard and take the championship when they meet."

"What's he like?" Tunney persisted.

"He's a big Jack Dillon," McReynolds responded.

Tunney was instantly struck by the analogy. He knew that Dillon was an outstanding fighter who had held the Light-Heavyweight title from 1914 to 1916. He also knew that Dillon was a highly aggressive fighter who, fighting out of a crouch, constantly stalked opponents while throwing a barrage of punishing blows to both the head and body. But Tunney also knew that Dillon, known as 'Jack the Giant Killer', had trouble with skillful boxers like Mike Gibbons and Battling Levinsky who, in their tenth meeting in October 1916, had taken away Dillon's title on a twelve-round decision.

McReynold's assessment of Dempsey's style heartened Tunney, who although essentially a methodical boxer with extraordinary footwork and exceptional defensive skills, had demonstrated that he could knock out an opponent with one punch, usually his right.

"Then perhaps Dempsey can be beaten by clever boxing," Tunney said.

"Yes, Dempsey can be beaten by speed, defense, science, form," McReynolds replied. "When Jack Dempsey loses, it won't be because he's outfought, but because he's outboxed."

The more they talked about Dempsey, the more Tunney began to feel that perhaps he, with his vastly improving boxing skills, might just be the boxer to eventually beat the fighter that sportswriters were now calling 'The Man Killer.'

Aware of Tunney's limited experience and some obvious raw points, McReynolds smiled at the thought.

"Gene, you're young, you're fast, you're clever, you can take it," McReynolds said, obviously trying to encourage the young and still somewhat green AEF Light-Heavyweight champion. "It ought to be possible for you to do that somedaw."

"I will," Tunney said. "I will."

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Again, taken directly from Cavanaugh's book, mate.

Great stuff Chris, though I think that you might be selling Johnson slightly short wwith your assessment that Tunney was the first HW to display the skill set,/ technique to be successful in the modern age. Jack' s reflexes, and subtle upper body movement could have given many of his successors trouble, and I believe he had the know how that would have allowed him to do so- he delighted in telling everyone that he knew that Schmelings right hand would cause Louis trouble and backed this up at the book makers. yes he would have had to modify his technique, but a lot of experts said the same thing about Cassius Clay.
That said I find it bloody hard when watching those old fight films to know how much leeway to give due to the poor frames per second speed of the films, the film look so jerky compared to the 100hz refreshment on modern T.Vs, but there's no question that he had great speed, reflexes and the ability to counter.

Tunney I regard as one of my 'untouchable 8', a fighter so important to the development of the sport that it's hard to do him justice, he's the one fighter who I personally think brought in the modern era of boxing. He routinely beat the best of the era at light heavyweight without getting his dues from Carpentier to Gibbons to Greb via Levinsky and Houck then added the cherry on the top by beating an inactive Dempsey twice. Tunney like Sullivan, Corbett, Fitzsimmons, Johnson and Gans have a place reserved in history regardless of era.

Cheers Chris, that's the one!

Thanks for commenting, Horizontal. I'd class Johnson a little behind Gene in terms of style and technique. I think Johnson's natural ability and ring IQ mean that, if he were born in a later era, he'd adapt and make the necessary adjustments to succeed. I just don't think his style as he displayed it within his own pomp would translate today, whereas Tunney wouldn't even have to worry about making those changes.

Inside fighting as we know it now didn't evolve in the Heavyweights as quickly as it did in the lower divisions - I guess with bigger weight differences between fighters, the Heavies were more concerned with mauling, shoving and spoiling on the inside to make those advantages count as much as they could. You can see that with Johnson, who'd be chastised as a dirty so and so if he were doing the same in 2013.

Johnson wasn't too far off, but Tunney was the first Heavyweight king to box like a man for all eras, in my opinion anyway. As you say, though, we all might have different opinions on that matter if we'd been able to see the likes of Johnson up close and personal, rather than on old grainy film.

Tunney for me is one of the first great thinkers of the ring. One for the purists you would say. Quick, crafty and not a fighter who would stand there and take punishment. Definitely a top 5 Light-heavyweight who helped evolve the sport. Great footwork and the 'long count' is still a classic example of taking your time when getting up to get your wits about you

Good article by the way Chris

Splendid article, Chris. I always remember reading that Greb came into Tunney's dressing-room after their last fight and told him in a "good-natured growl" that he wasn't going to box him again. Greb was never in doubt that Tunney would be too good for Dempsey, having sparred Jack, believing that even Dempsey in his best shape would fall short against arguably the best boxing brain of his era (Benny Leonard, possibly, excepted).

I always think it's worth remembering that long count or no, Gene administered a comprehensive drubbing to Dempsey over the two fights, scarcely losing a round besides the seventh in the second duel. The rounds after the long count were perhaps even more one-sided than those that had preceded it, with Gene upping the heavy artillery and flooring Jack in his turn.

His influence on the sport has been properly assessed here, but I still think that people are inclined to underrate Gene, possibly because of his lifestyle outside the sport, which emphasised the intellectual approach he took to boxing. He's on the cusp of the top dozen fighters ever, in my book, and clearly a top 5 light-heavyweight to boot.

Thanks, captain. Cheers as well to Steffan and TTT for contributing.

I sometimes wonder if Tunney might have always had the wood on Dempsey, or if he just got him at the right time. Based on how one-sided both fights were, I guess you could say that Dempsey ever beating Tunney, regardless of when they fought, takes quite a leap of faith. On the other hand, it's hard to see Dempsey looking as flat and slow as he did in those fights had they met before his spell of inactivity, regardless of how well Gene fought.

I agree with Steffan that the long count showed the complete contrast between the cool, calculated Tunney and the hot-headed Dempsey. Jack let his natural aggression and instincts get the better of him in the heat of the moment, whereas Tunney kept his head and gave himself every possible chance to recover.

I've mentioned it before, but Dempsey wrote in his autobiography that, straight after the knockdown, he charged at Gene to try and finish the fight but instead walked straight on to a vicious right hand to the chest, of which he said, "(it was) without doubt the hardest punch I ever took in my life. It was not a question in my mind of whether or not I was going to be knocked out - I thought I was going to die."

Seems we're all pretty consistent on where we place Tunney then, aside from TTT who has him slightly higher.

Tunney’s intellectualism is an interesting facet to his character. Think it pretty much goes without saying he was a cut above the average boxer of the time when it came to brains. Believe I am right in saying he was even offered a scholarship to Princeton before he decided to give boxing a try. However have read a lot suggesting journalists at the time argued Tunney played up to this image and overstated it.

Read that he often met journalists with some heavyweight literary work under his arm where the bookmark was near the front, they claimed they saw him the next day with a completely different book. The inference is of course he was not actually reading these books but was just carrying them round to affect an air of intellectualism. Is difficult to know really because you do wonder to what extent these stories were motivated by spite solely as Tunney refused to conform to journalists pre conceived ideas as to what a boxer should be.

Is pretty much accepted he struck up a lifelong friendship with George Bernard Shaw and any number of authors so does suggest he was not exactly struggling for brains.

I do rate him higher than most but if Duran is a consensus top ten fighter then Tunney must be in the same bracket, I wouldn't have to far away from Charles at abou 6/7.

His intellectualism could be a misnomer because in comparison to Dempsey he was always going to appear very thoughtful and articulate but everything i've read suggests he had a pretty able brain in boxing and outside of it.

Great article but I'm not sure how you can "Forget" Corbett when he was the first guy to use pure boxing skill and not brawl...

Corbett is and will always be the Father of modern boxing...For sure maybe Tunney perfected it better....but he was a sloppy second..

Everyone seems to have a downer on the great Corbett.......To me he will always be a hero and a shame he never got the cornishman to give him a return..

That was a great article, one of the finest I've read here, Chris,well done. A Tunney article is long overdue; I was under the impression that he was a much underappreciated boxer, in so far as he is not really mentioned as a Heavy pound-for-pound great.
As a fan of Bert Sugar, I guess that my opinion had been shaped by his to  a large extent.I  believe that Bert did actually have him as his favourite Heavy at one point,but having seen him and Larry Big Pants argue the toss over their top ten rankings, I'm sure you're right in saying that he would end up as his number five...I agree that Jack Johnson is in need of reconstruction before making the leap forward for those "dream fights"- but with Tunney, I just don't see any way he needs to  improve particularly. It's also fun to imagine the Dempsey and Greb fights,and for holding his own against those two he deserves a solid place in the pantheon, at least to me.

I have pondered aloud on this site before of what the match-up between Tunney and  Jeffries would have looked like. Both men were so ahead of their time, which is why I suppose I link them in some roundabout way. Let's hope that he gets more recognition in future.
PS This is what I said on the thread " The most Underappreciated Heavyweights of alltime !!"( last year)

Personally I think that Gene Tunney suffers the fate of the boxer who falls after an era of a very dominant heavy who massively captures the public imagination- in this case Dempsey.

When chris says its a long one, you know it's time to put the kettle on and find a comfy seat before tackling it. Good work fella. Not a great deal to add, except for me when I watch the old guys Tunney is the first one that looks like a modern fighter. In many respects that's enough to warrant the credit he gets and his place in the ATG debates.

In terms of mythical head to head match ups, there is an argument that his 'genius' was being ahead of his time... And that in the 'level playing field' analysis of past v modern greats, that advantage might be taken from him. In short I rate his career higher than I would in a head to head match up analysis - not that I don't think he'd hold his own in the company of the elite light heavies.

Without Corbett would there be a Tunney ???

Corbett is the true genius..