GEne Tunney
GEne Tunney
On your records you have tunney as losing twice to GReb, all other sources i've seen say he's only lost the once, could you please explain why this is so
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Joe Richmond
- Heavyweight
- Posts: 43
- Joined: 25 Feb 2003, 16:58
Gene Tunney
Note--The 1978 Ring Boxing Encyclopedia shows5/23/1922, Harry Greb W-15 rds over Tunney; also 2/23/1923, Tunney W-15 rds over Greb. Both bouts were for the American lightheavyweight title. If you can ever get ahold of one or more of Nat Fleischer's great record books, I'm sure that you will agree there's much great reading as well as boxing reference material.
Steve Compton who is working on a book on Harry Greb, has the three newspaper reports out of Cleveland for Tunney's bout with Greb in Cleveland. According to him, Greb won the newspaper decision in 2 out of 3 papers, therefore we listed it as a newspaper decision win for Greb.
Steve posts on the old timers forum as "Klompton" from time to time, maybe he can expand on this more than I can.
Steve posts on the old timers forum as "Klompton" from time to time, maybe he can expand on this more than I can.
In a book which I feel has no equal in boxing, "Corner Men" (1991), the author, Ronald Fried, interviewed Ray Arcel who in 1922 was then training Benny Leonard and who recalled Tunney's loss that year to Greb saying - "This is the only fight Tunney ever lost - and he took a bad lickin'."
There is more about Greb/Tunney I: the most amazing being Tunney's own description, as told to columnist Grantland Rice, of the work of his corner, 'Doc' Bagley, between rounds.
Anyway, Fried writes later of Arcel telling of Tunney's post-fight discussions with Benny Leonard and the advice Leonard gave Tunney.
"Because Arcel was at the Gym when Tunney and Leonard met, he is able to recreate much of the dialogue between the two champions. 'So, Benny went over there, and of course when Leonard walked into a gymnasium everybody stopped working. This was the great, the great.... you know... And Gene is punching the bag and Leonard stood there looking at him and he says: 'How are you Gene?' Tunney kept punching and he said: 'I'm all right, Ben, I'm trying to get into shape. I'm going to knock that Greb out'.
"Leonard says, 'You're throwing a right hand. Where are you going to hit him with a right hand? On the chin? You ain't never going to hit Greb on the chin with a right hand. If you're going to hit Greb with a right hand, the place to try to hit him is in the body. Try to do that."
"And the second fight, Tunney destroyed Greb. He destroyed him. He really did. Body Punches. He took Leonard's advice."
And, Ronald K Fried writes also of Arcel's memory capacity: "Citing boxing matches from as far back as the early 1920s, Arcel gives the year the fights took place and they rounds they ended - and his memory inevitably proves accurate when checked against The Ring Record Book."
Finally, any boxing aficionado who has not yet read "Corner Men" should treat themselves to the sheer joy of it as soon as circumstances permit.
There is more about Greb/Tunney I: the most amazing being Tunney's own description, as told to columnist Grantland Rice, of the work of his corner, 'Doc' Bagley, between rounds.
Anyway, Fried writes later of Arcel telling of Tunney's post-fight discussions with Benny Leonard and the advice Leonard gave Tunney.
"Because Arcel was at the Gym when Tunney and Leonard met, he is able to recreate much of the dialogue between the two champions. 'So, Benny went over there, and of course when Leonard walked into a gymnasium everybody stopped working. This was the great, the great.... you know... And Gene is punching the bag and Leonard stood there looking at him and he says: 'How are you Gene?' Tunney kept punching and he said: 'I'm all right, Ben, I'm trying to get into shape. I'm going to knock that Greb out'.
"Leonard says, 'You're throwing a right hand. Where are you going to hit him with a right hand? On the chin? You ain't never going to hit Greb on the chin with a right hand. If you're going to hit Greb with a right hand, the place to try to hit him is in the body. Try to do that."
"And the second fight, Tunney destroyed Greb. He destroyed him. He really did. Body Punches. He took Leonard's advice."
And, Ronald K Fried writes also of Arcel's memory capacity: "Citing boxing matches from as far back as the early 1920s, Arcel gives the year the fights took place and they rounds they ended - and his memory inevitably proves accurate when checked against The Ring Record Book."
Finally, any boxing aficionado who has not yet read "Corner Men" should treat themselves to the sheer joy of it as soon as circumstances permit.
Last edited by Alipius on 20 Dec 2004, 21:45, edited 1 time in total.
Ill take Tunneys own words about the second fight from his own biography where he says that he felt maybe there was something to Greb complaining about the decision and thats why he agreed to the third match. Ive read most of the accounts from New York, New Jersey, Philly, Pittsburgh and the other smaller papers that viewed the second Greb Tunney bout and not a single one ever said that Tunney DESTROYED Greb. Thats the silliest thing Ive ever heard. The only time Tunney was even close to winning a dominant match against Greb was their fifth and final fight in St. Paul when Greb was about 31 years old totally blind in one eye and Tunney was fighting as a heavyweight. Was Arcel in Cleveland for the fourth fight? I dont know but the Cleveland reporters were out in force and none of them gave Tunney the decision. So in the opinions of most contemporaries Greb was no worse than 2-2-1 against or 3-1-1 against a bigger, stronger, younger Gene Tunney.
re
I don't know about it being one of the worst decisions in New York boxing history as there have been some terrible, terrible calls, all of which I am meaning happening pre-Greb-Tunney. I know that Greb put it all over Tunney for Tunney's only actual recorded loss, but all of their other bouts, I have read from writers of the time who all pretty much state that the first bout aside, all the others were pretty close matches.
After writing of the Ray Arcel observations and then reading the comments of Klompton, I feel suitably chastened.
Perhaps I first should have read the report of Tunney/Greb II, drawn from many sources, on pages 74 to 80 in my copy of "Gene Tunney: The Golden Boy who licked Jack Dempsey twice", by John Jarrett (2003) wherein, by giving the same quote from Tunney as to why he agreed to a rematch, he sort-of coincides with Klompton.
But I'm such a Tunney fan!
Perhaps I first should have read the report of Tunney/Greb II, drawn from many sources, on pages 74 to 80 in my copy of "Gene Tunney: The Golden Boy who licked Jack Dempsey twice", by John Jarrett (2003) wherein, by giving the same quote from Tunney as to why he agreed to a rematch, he sort-of coincides with Klompton.
But I'm such a Tunney fan!
Mongoose, tell us how dirty Greb was. In 300 fights how many times did he lose via DQ? When your getting your ass kicked by a guy half your size and your spending your time crying foul it looks a lot more like frustration than a legitimate gripe. Your talking about a guy who was carried from the ring once for kick to the nuts, blinded permanently in one eye from a thumb, and whose only DQ loss came in a fight that reporters say could have resulted in a DQ for his opponent just as easily.
He's an exert from a wise man known as Pretcov showed me from the tunney-greb fight
A Man Must Fight
While training for the Greb match, which took place just four months after the Levinsky match, I had the worst possible kind of luck. My left eyebrow was opened, and both hands were sorely injured. I had a partial reappearance of the old left-elbow trouble which prevented my using a left jab. Dr. Robert J. Shea, a close friend, who took care of me during my training, thought that a hypodermic injection of adrenalin chloride over the left eye would prevent bleeding when the cut was re-opened by Greb. At my request he injected a hypodermic solution of novacaine into the knuckles of both hands as well. We locked the dressing-room door during this performance.
George Engle, Greb's manager, wanting to watch the bandages being put on, came over to my dressing-room and found the door bolted. He shouted and banged. We could not allow him in until the doctor had finished his work. Getting in finally, he insisted that I remove all the bandages so that he could see whether I had any unlawful substance under them. I refused. He made an awful squawk, ranting in and out of the room. I became angry. Eventually I realized that Engle was only trying to protect his fighter and, if I let it get my goat, that was my hard luck. Moreover, his not being allowed into the dressing-room made the situation look suspicious. I unwound the bandages from my hands and satisfied George that all was well.
In the first exchange of the fight, I sustained a double fracture of the nose which bled continually until the finish. Toward the end of the first round, my left eyebrow was laid open four inches. I am convinced that the adrenalin solution that had been injected so softened the tissue that the first blow or butt I received cut the flesh right to the bone.
In the third round another cut over the right eye left me looking through a red film. For the better part of twelve rounds, I saw this red phantom-like form dancing before me. I had provided myself with a fifty-per-cent mixture of brandy and orange juice to take between rounds in the event I became weak from loss of blood. I had never taken anything during a fight up to that time. Nor did I ever again.
It is impossible to describe the bloodiness of this fight. My seconds were unable to stop either the bleeding from the cut over my left eye, which involved a severed artery, or the bleeding consequent to the nose fractures. Doc Bagley, who was my chief second, made futile attempts to congeal the nose-bleeding by pouring adrenalin into his hand and having me snuff it up my nose. This I did round after round. The adrenalin, instead of coming out through the nose again, ran down my throat with the blood and into my stomach.
At the end of the twelfth round, I believed it was a good time to take a swallow of the brandy and orange juice. It had hardly got to my stomach when the ring started whirling around. The bell rang for the thirteenth round; the seconds pushed me from my chair. I actually saw two red opponents. How I ever survived the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth rounds is still a mystery to me. At any rate, the only consciousness I had was to keep trying. I knew if I ever relaxed, I should either collapse or the referee would stop the brutality.
After the gong sounded, ending the fifteenth round, I shook hands with Greb and mumbled through my smashed and swollen lips, "Well, Harry, you were the better man, to-night!" and I meant that literally.
Harry missed the subtlety of the remark, for he said, "Won the championship," and was dragged from me by one of his seconds, who placed a kiss on his unmarked countenance.
I discovered through the early part of that fight that I could lick Harry Greb. As each round went by, battered and pummelled from post to post as I was, this discovery gradually became a positive certainty in my mind. I was conscious of the handicaps under which I had entered the ring. They were not the things that led me to this conviction, however. Many boxers upon entering important matches suffer from sore hands, cut eyes, or something of that sort. There is nothing unusual about that. But I realized that a broken nose and a four-inch cut through arteries over the eye in the first round of a fifteen-round match are at least uncommon and of sufficient seriousness to change completely the current of events.
I left the ring and walked up the aisle toward my dressing-room. This was negotiated only through nervous excitement. I climbed the flight of stairs, each step getting higher and more difficult, and, as I got near the top, the reaction set in. I collapsed; the top step was impossible. I could not make it. The boys carried me into my dressing-room and set me up on the rubbing-table. Immediately the hands of support left me, I fell back with a thud, the back of my head striking the table. I lay perfectly conscious of everything that was taking place, but unable to move a muscle. Nature surrendered.
Everything but the right thing was done to stimulate me. All I needed was a stomach pump to remove the mixture of blood, adrenalin chloride, brandy, and orange juice. It was two hours before I had sufficiently revived to be led out of the old Garden.
The day following the Greb match, I went down to the office of the Boxing Commission to receive my cheque for 22,500 dollars, and placed on a file a challenge to Greb for a return fight, backed with a cheque for 2,500 dollars.
My next consideration was to get my body and face restored to normal after the pummelling and battering that I had received from Greb during those fifteen bloody rounds. I did not recover as quickly as I expected. The strain of the fight and the loss of blood left me weak and exhausted. I was compelled to remain in bed for a week when I returned to Red Bank. A blood tonic prescribed by Dr. Shea soon fixed me up. In a few weeks' time I was again hale and hearty and ready for renewed action.
A Man Must Fight
While training for the Greb match, which took place just four months after the Levinsky match, I had the worst possible kind of luck. My left eyebrow was opened, and both hands were sorely injured. I had a partial reappearance of the old left-elbow trouble which prevented my using a left jab. Dr. Robert J. Shea, a close friend, who took care of me during my training, thought that a hypodermic injection of adrenalin chloride over the left eye would prevent bleeding when the cut was re-opened by Greb. At my request he injected a hypodermic solution of novacaine into the knuckles of both hands as well. We locked the dressing-room door during this performance.
George Engle, Greb's manager, wanting to watch the bandages being put on, came over to my dressing-room and found the door bolted. He shouted and banged. We could not allow him in until the doctor had finished his work. Getting in finally, he insisted that I remove all the bandages so that he could see whether I had any unlawful substance under them. I refused. He made an awful squawk, ranting in and out of the room. I became angry. Eventually I realized that Engle was only trying to protect his fighter and, if I let it get my goat, that was my hard luck. Moreover, his not being allowed into the dressing-room made the situation look suspicious. I unwound the bandages from my hands and satisfied George that all was well.
In the first exchange of the fight, I sustained a double fracture of the nose which bled continually until the finish. Toward the end of the first round, my left eyebrow was laid open four inches. I am convinced that the adrenalin solution that had been injected so softened the tissue that the first blow or butt I received cut the flesh right to the bone.
In the third round another cut over the right eye left me looking through a red film. For the better part of twelve rounds, I saw this red phantom-like form dancing before me. I had provided myself with a fifty-per-cent mixture of brandy and orange juice to take between rounds in the event I became weak from loss of blood. I had never taken anything during a fight up to that time. Nor did I ever again.
It is impossible to describe the bloodiness of this fight. My seconds were unable to stop either the bleeding from the cut over my left eye, which involved a severed artery, or the bleeding consequent to the nose fractures. Doc Bagley, who was my chief second, made futile attempts to congeal the nose-bleeding by pouring adrenalin into his hand and having me snuff it up my nose. This I did round after round. The adrenalin, instead of coming out through the nose again, ran down my throat with the blood and into my stomach.
At the end of the twelfth round, I believed it was a good time to take a swallow of the brandy and orange juice. It had hardly got to my stomach when the ring started whirling around. The bell rang for the thirteenth round; the seconds pushed me from my chair. I actually saw two red opponents. How I ever survived the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth rounds is still a mystery to me. At any rate, the only consciousness I had was to keep trying. I knew if I ever relaxed, I should either collapse or the referee would stop the brutality.
After the gong sounded, ending the fifteenth round, I shook hands with Greb and mumbled through my smashed and swollen lips, "Well, Harry, you were the better man, to-night!" and I meant that literally.
Harry missed the subtlety of the remark, for he said, "Won the championship," and was dragged from me by one of his seconds, who placed a kiss on his unmarked countenance.
I discovered through the early part of that fight that I could lick Harry Greb. As each round went by, battered and pummelled from post to post as I was, this discovery gradually became a positive certainty in my mind. I was conscious of the handicaps under which I had entered the ring. They were not the things that led me to this conviction, however. Many boxers upon entering important matches suffer from sore hands, cut eyes, or something of that sort. There is nothing unusual about that. But I realized that a broken nose and a four-inch cut through arteries over the eye in the first round of a fifteen-round match are at least uncommon and of sufficient seriousness to change completely the current of events.
I left the ring and walked up the aisle toward my dressing-room. This was negotiated only through nervous excitement. I climbed the flight of stairs, each step getting higher and more difficult, and, as I got near the top, the reaction set in. I collapsed; the top step was impossible. I could not make it. The boys carried me into my dressing-room and set me up on the rubbing-table. Immediately the hands of support left me, I fell back with a thud, the back of my head striking the table. I lay perfectly conscious of everything that was taking place, but unable to move a muscle. Nature surrendered.
Everything but the right thing was done to stimulate me. All I needed was a stomach pump to remove the mixture of blood, adrenalin chloride, brandy, and orange juice. It was two hours before I had sufficiently revived to be led out of the old Garden.
The day following the Greb match, I went down to the office of the Boxing Commission to receive my cheque for 22,500 dollars, and placed on a file a challenge to Greb for a return fight, backed with a cheque for 2,500 dollars.
My next consideration was to get my body and face restored to normal after the pummelling and battering that I had received from Greb during those fifteen bloody rounds. I did not recover as quickly as I expected. The strain of the fight and the loss of blood left me weak and exhausted. I was compelled to remain in bed for a week when I returned to Red Bank. A blood tonic prescribed by Dr. Shea soon fixed me up. In a few weeks' time I was again hale and hearty and ready for renewed action.
