BoxRec

Why is this listed as a loss instead of a draw? One major newspaper gave it to Tunney, the other to Loughran. I don't understand the logic of it being listed as a defeat, especially since Loughran was dropped in the first. Anyone else think this should be rectified and listed as a draw?

I don't think just because the hometown fighter's newspaper gave it to him that it should supersede the New York Times, who was just as biased since Tunney was from New York.

I always thought it was a win for Tunney?

I don't know what the deal is either. This used to be listed as a "Newspaper Win" for Tunney on the Boxrec Dataase.
It says that the "Philadelphia Inquirer has Loughran winning which seems to supersede the New York Times." That doesn't make much sense. Why would it supersede it?
(It's important to note that Loughran was from Philadelphia and that Tunney was from New York.)

If anything, you would think that the New York Times verdict would carry more weight since the fight was in Loughran's hometown and the local reporter may have been influenced by the hometown crowd.
Now it is listed as a newspaper win for Loughran. I have never read any publication that said Loughran deserved the decision.
Of course, it's not an official decision and how much stock should be given to a newspaper decison is debatable.

I don't have a problem recognising newspaper decisions but think that where possible a list of who thought what would be good. If Loughran deserved it the lets hear why.

I dont have a problem using them but if you are going to use them you better do your best to track down every source that was at the fight. If a town had seven papers and you only give three decisions you arent giving a complete picture of how the fight was viewed.

As for the NY Times carrying more weight than the Philly Inq. I dispute that. Ive always given more credence to the papers where the fight was held. Now with that being said Philly was VERY pro Loughran so there could be a bias there BUT, 1. New York papers were VERY pro Tunney and 2. Without knowing the exact circumstances do we even know if the Times had a reporter on hand at the fight? 99 times out of 100 if a newspaper doesnt list an author to the article being quoted and only lists, "AP", "UPI", "Special to the Times", or simply "philadelphia, date of the fight" you can bet the article did not originate from a first hand source, and very often it originated from whichever manager of one of the fighters got to the telegraph office fast enough and sent out HIS report of the fight which made his fighter look best.

klompton wrote:As for the NY Times carrying more weight than the Philly Inq. I dispute that. Ive always given more credence to the papers where the fight was held. Now with that being said Philly was VERY pro Loughran so there could be a bias there BUT, 1. New York papers were VERY pro Tunney and 2. Without knowing the exact circumstances do we even know if the Times had a reporter on hand at the fight? 99 times out of 100 if a newspaper doesnt list an author to the article being quoted and only lists, "AP", "UPI", "Special to the Times", or simply "philadelphia, date of the fight" you can bet the article did not originate from a first hand source, and very often it originated from whichever manager of one of the fighters got to the telegraph office fast enough and sent out HIS report of the fight which made his fighter look best.

That is not necessarily correct. I worked for a daily newspaper in Oklahoma for two years. Our paper belonged to the AP. Occasionally, if one of our stories was sufficiently important, the AP would carry the story on the wire. AP rarely sends a reporter to an event, and normally rewrotes the story filed by the report from the AP member newspaper. AP normally (but not always) rewrites the story to shorten it, but the gist of the story is the same. I never had any fault with the accuracy of any story of mine that AP rewrote. Occasionally, they would carry the story from our paper verbatim.

It is true that, at the turn of the century, "special to the ***" might originate from the fighter's manager. That was not the case, however, with the Hearst papers or other chain papers, such as the Pulitizer papers. They would take their wire stories from the reports that originated with the local paper that the chain owned. By the 1920s, that was typically the case. It was certainly not the case with reports from the AP or UPI.

Things were totally different in 1920s than they were when you were writing. Hearst did not own papers in every city in America so a report with no author could not be accepted as being without error. Furthermore, your own argument backs up why one shouldnt take a story from the Times on a fight in Philly verbatim if it is a wire report. If there are six papers split down the middle in philly as two who won between Tunney and Loughran and you use the Times as a tie breaker based on an article they published from an ap report you could be giving a writer in Philly credit for two opinions, his papers and his story published in New York without his name. You see? Either way, whether it originates with a legit author or with some unknown entity that may have his own motives it hardly seems fair to count that story above those of the men sitting ringside. By that logic we could we could count any number of reports from all over the country on a fight between Tunney and Greb and you could find wire reports ad naseum that say one or the other won and all of those reports could be the work of a single author. Ive actually seen this done on some of the boxrec ND bouts here. An even more interesting scenario (in my opinion) arose simply in Pittsburgh in my research of the Greb-Norfolk fight. There were seven newspapers in Pittsburgh at the time of that fight. 4 said Norfolk won, and 3 said Greb won. HOWEVER, the Chronicle-Telegraph's story listed no author. When one compares that story with Harry Keck's written for the Gazette-Times (if I remember correctly) you quickly realize that Keck wrote both articles and simply changed the wording very slightly for the CT article and left his name off so as not to get busted for writing for a competing newspaper. The paragraph breaks, rounds described, everything is almost identical. So now anyone who hasnt done their homework would give Norfolk more newspaper decisions than Greb but this is not so given that six men witnessed and reported on the contest locally, not seven, and of those six 3 voted for each man. So in short, I would be very wary of quoting out of town papers when researching the ND era and would urge anyone researching that era (especially a town like Philly that had several papers) to get ALL of the local sources and try to reach some concensus, not just pick and choose whichever suits your argument.

It should be listed as a no decision and folks can read the reports and decide for themselves.

For sure, I am totally against taking the newspaper decisions, averaging them, and then calling it a draw.

In cases such as this, just keep the ND decision with the notes and sources.

delisa wrote:It should be listed as a no decision and folks can read the reports and decide for themselves.

For sure, I am totally against taking the newspaper decisions, averaging them, and then calling it a draw.

In cases such as this, just keep the ND decision with the notes and sources.

When a newspaper verdict is listed it implies that the 'official verdict' was ND. Mentioning the newspaper verdict only adds to that.

klompton wrote:Things were totally different in 1920s than they were when you were writing. Hearst did not own papers in every city in America so a report with no author could not be accepted as being without error. Furthermore, your own argument backs up why one shouldnt take a story from the Times on a fight in Philly verbatim if it is a wire report. If there are six papers split down the middle in philly as two who won between Tunney and Loughran and you use the Times as a tie breaker based on an article they published from an ap report you could be giving a writer in Philly credit for two opinions, his papers and his story published in New York without his name. You see? Either way, whether it originates with a legit author or with some unknown entity that may have his own motives it hardly seems fair to count that story above those of the men sitting ringside. By that logic we could we could count any number of reports from all over the country on a fight between Tunney and Greb and you could find wire reports ad naseum that say one or the other won and all of those reports could be the work of a single author. Ive actually seen this done on some of the boxrec ND bouts here. An even more interesting scenario (in my opinion) arose simply in Pittsburgh in my research of the Greb-Norfolk fight. There were seven newspapers in Pittsburgh at the time of that fight. 4 said Norfolk won, and 3 said Greb won. HOWEVER, the Chronicle-Telegraph's story listed no author. When one compares that story with Harry Keck's written for the Gazette-Times (if I remember correctly) you quickly realize that Keck wrote both articles and simply changed the wording very slightly for the CT article and left his name off so as not to get busted for writing for a competing newspaper. The paragraph breaks, rounds described, everything is almost identical. So now anyone who hasnt done their homework would give Norfolk more newspaper decisions than Greb but this is not so given that six men witnessed and reported on the contest locally, not seven, and of those six 3 voted for each man. So in short, I would be very wary of quoting out of town papers when researching the ND era and would urge anyone researching that era (especially a town like Philly that had several papers) to get ALL of the local sources and try to reach some concensus, not just pick and choose whichever suits your argument.

Actually, no. Things in the 1920s were closer to things in the 1970s (when I wrote) than at the turn of the century. That's because of the rise of the memberships held by newspapers in the Associated Press and the pre-cursor to UPI (I think it was Scripps). By the 1920s, most daily newspapers belonged to either the AP or the Scripps organization. The real turning-point came around 1915 when AP inaugurated the teletype, which transmitted stories directly to printers over telegraph wires, and made it simple to reporduce wire service reports in the local newspaper. AP stories are written either (a) by a bureau writer in the location where the event occurred, or (b) taken as a rewrite of a story from the local newspaper. It’s been that way since before the 1920s. (AP started in the 1840s, but the teletype revolutionized things.) So, an AP or UPI account of an event should be as accurate as the report filed by a local newspaper.

All that aside, in my opinion, boxrec should simply list the result as a no decision, without comment as to which newspaper says "won" the fight.

Regarding Tunney-Loughran, Jack Cavanaugh wrote of the scoring in this biography Tunney:

"Not many boxers could outbox Tunney at this stage of his career, but Loughran was one of them. Aware of that, Tunney tried hard to knock out Loughran, but never came close after the opening round, and the fight appeared to have been even by the end. While there could be no official decision, the majority of sportwriters at ringside - most of them from the Philadelphia-area newspapers - gave their verdicts to Loughran.

"'Tommy Outclasses Gene in Sensational Bout After Weathering a Storm in First Round,' read the somewhat misleading sub-headline in the following day's Philadelphia Inquirer. As it was, it went into the record books as a no decision fight. Tunney himself knew it had been close, but felt he had won the bout, as did virtually all of the New York sportswriters who were present." Tunney, p. 168 (italics added)

raylawpc wrote:

klompton wrote:So, an AP or UPI account of an event should be as accurate as the report filed by a local newspaper.

"Should be" But Ive done enough research in newspapers from twenties to know thats more often than not not the case. I can think of examples such as Greb-Flowers 1, Greb-Tunney 4 and 5, among others that disprove this and I could easily go through my newspaper morgue and find literally hundreds more.

Thats beside the point though as the point is if you are using a new york report that originated in philly from a local philly writer you are either giving more credit to a single writer than he is due OR you would be simply better served by getting the original report and not the AP/UPI report as by your own admission they are edited and incomplete.

It just strikes me as unbelievable someone would argue that an AP report is as desirable as the original report from which it originated.

klompton wrote:

raylawpc wrote:

klompton wrote:So, an AP or UPI account of an event should be as accurate as the report filed by a local newspaper.

"Should be" But Ive done enough research in newspapers from twenties to know thats more often than not not the case. I can think of examples such as Greb-Flowers 1, Greb-Tunney 4 and 5, among others that disprove this and I could easily go through my newspaper morgue and find literally hundreds more.

Thats beside the point though as the point is if you are using a new york report that originated in philly from a local philly writer you are either giving more credit to a single writer than he is due OR you would be simply better served by getting the original report and not the AP/UPI report as by your own admission they are edited and incomplete.

It just strikes me as unbelievable someone would argue that an AP report is as desirable as the original report from which it originated.

No, that's not what I'm doing. My point is simply that an AP report is filed either (a) by an AP bureau sportswriter present at the event, or (b) a rewrite of a local story from an AP member newspaper who had a writer at the event. In either case, it is a ringside report and entitled to whatever weight that carries.

I agree that one shouldn't just add up the ringside reports to determine whether a fighter "won" a no-decision fight, for many of the reasons you give. And I, too, believe the better practice is to get the report from the local newspaper, even over wire service reports. (The wire service report is typically shorter. But that doesn't mean it's inaccurate - it just means it doesn't carry as many details. As to sportwriting, that makes some degree of sense: A fan in Billings Montana probably doesn't want as many details about a fight in NYC as the NY fans would want.)

Where you and I disagree is on the relative accuracy of AP or UPI reports, which you have dismissed as largely inaccurate. Based on my personal knowledge of newspapers and wire services (and coursework in the history of journalism I took for my undergrad degree in mass communications), I believe that view is incorrect. (Prior to 1915, we are talking about an entirely different situation, however.)

Your argument may be more accurate in considering larger cities like New York, St. Louis, Boston, Philly, etc. But for smaller towns that had locally owned papers like Rock Island, New Castle, Youngstown, etc. That held a ton of fights in this era those reports could be generated from anywhere and often times do come from a manager and much later than 1915. Even given that AP reports originating from a larger city are typically more accurate I have on numerous occasions found AP reports originating from one city appearing in another which are wildly divergant from ringside accounts. I would again stress that any report not crediting an actual living breathing author is suspect, period, end of point. If you have every report of every greb fight which took place in Pittsburgh from a Pittsburgh paper and match that up with reports found in New York or wherever, you would be amazed out how they differ SOMETIMES, not always. I will grant you that from city to city the AP reports are generally accurate and I would stress the term generally because they are so shortened its hard to get anything wrong other than who won or lost, however the large percentage of inaccuracies, and I would argue that even ten percent is a large percentage when trying to get an accurate grasp of a fighters career, you would be remiss and relying on AP/UPI reports anytime prior to the mid thirties.

klompton wrote:Your argument may be more accurate in considering larger cities like New York, St. Louis, Boston, Philly, etc. But for smaller towns that had locally owned papers like Rock Island, New Castle, Youngstown, etc. That held a ton of fights in this era those reports could be generated from anywhere and often times do come from a manager and much later than 1915. Even given that AP reports originating from a larger city are typically more accurate I have on numerous occasions found AP reports originating from one city appearing in another which are wildly divergant from ringside accounts. I would again stress that any report not crediting an actual living breathing author is suspect, period, end of point. If you have every report of every greb fight which took place in Pittsburgh from a Pittsburgh paper and match that up with reports found in New York or wherever, you would be amazed out how they differ SOMETIMES, not always. I will grant you that from city to city the AP reports are generally accurate and I would stress the term generally because they are so shortened its hard to get anything wrong other than who won or lost, however the large percentage of inaccuracies, and I would argue that even ten percent is a large percentage when trying to get an accurate grasp of a fighters career, you would be remiss and relying on AP/UPI reports anytime prior to the mid thirties.

Not if it had AP or UPI or Scripps in the date line. Anything with AP, UPI, Scripps or INS in the dateline did NOT originate from the manager. But I agree its always best to go with the original source, if you have the time and resources to do it. I personally think you are as safe with an AP report after 1915 as any other report because of the technology involved, and licensing requirements that existed back then.

N.B.: I was digging around a bit looking for some history about the AP. FYI, the AP became a national news cooperative in 1900 with the merger of several regional cooperatives. Until 1921, AP had a policy of writer anonymity, meaning AP stories weren't by-lined before 1921. (I'm glad they changed that policy. It was a kick to get a clipping from my wife's grandmother that had my by-line in a Minneapolis newspaper!!)

Find both your knowledge of the paper scene impressive. For what it's worth i don't think there
IS SUFFICENT EVIDENCE EITHER WAY TO GIVE OTHER THAN A ND. A draw would probably be ok. Another point to be considered is that a guy will fight differently when he KNOWS that there will be a decision.

A report below from the Newcastle Times, Penn.
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 25.—Gene
Tunney, o£ New York, former llght-
heavyweight champion o£ America,
defeated Tommy Loughran of Philadelphia,
at the National League
baseball park here last night. TunnEy
weighed 173 pounds and Loughra,
was 10 pounds lighter.
Tunney landed a hard right on
Loughran's jaw in the first round
and Tommy went down for a count of
nine. Loughran came back gamely
and made a great battle, so much so
that some sport writers were inclined
to judge the match a draw.
Tunney was bleeding from the
mouth and nose much of the time.
Loughran took the offensive In the
last round, but Tunney's body blows
had him weak in the final minutes.

donnellon wrote:Find both your knowledge of the paper scene impressive. For what it's worth i don't think there
IS SUFFICENT EVIDENCE EITHER WAY TO GIVE OTHER THAN A ND. A draw would probably be ok. Another point to be considered is that a guy will fight differently when he KNOWS that there will be a decision.

A report below from the Newcastle Times, Penn.
PHILADELPHIA, Aug. 25.—Gene
Tunney, o£ New York, former llght-
heavyweight champion o£ America,
defeated Tommy Loughran of Philadelphia,
at the National League
baseball park here last night. TunnEy
weighed 173 pounds and Loughra,
was 10 pounds lighter.
Tunney landed a hard right on
Loughran's jaw in the first round
and Tommy went down for a count of
nine. Loughran came back gamely
and made a great battle, so much so
that some sport writers were inclined
to judge the match a draw.
Tunney was bleeding from the
mouth and nose much of the time.
Loughran took the offensive In the
last round, but Tunney's body blows
had him weak in the final minutes.

Yes, one suspects that a fighter might box differently if he knew that no decision would be rendered. But I've often wondered how fighters approached those no decisions fights. Certainly, they had their reputations to think about and I recall reading that bets were won or lost based on those newspaper decisions.

yes a fighter often made more money by betting on himself than he wouldin purses.

Boxrec should have some way of distinguishing official results and newspaper results in the final tallies. It's interesting to see how people perceived the newspaper fights, but IMO it's not accurate to lump them all together in the same tallies. Especially considering, as others here have pointed out, that different newspaper accounts often score fights differently, so how does any one take precedent over others?

Incidentally, boxrec's decision to list Tunney as having two losses is causing a sweep of controversy at boxing sites all over the internet.

Boxrec DID have a way of separating out NDs from NWS etc.

When we first allowed NWS as a drop down menu, it was discussed and the agreement was to allow them but tally the numbers separate. I would never have entered my bouts if that wasn't the deal! I would have just continued to enter ND.

John -- my OCD is in overdrive -- you gotta restore the ND (NWS) tallies like you had!

raylawpc wrote:Regarding Tunney-Loughran, Jack Cavanaugh wrote of the scoring in this biography Tunney:

"Not many boxers could outbox Tunney at this stage of his career, but Loughran was one of them. Aware of that, Tunney tried hard to knock out Loughran, but never came close after the opening round, and the fight appeared to have been even by the end. While there could be no official decision, the majority of sportwriters at ringside - most of them from the Philadelphia-area newspapers - gave their verdicts to Loughran.

"'Tommy Outclasses Gene in Sensational Bout After Weathering a Storm in First Round,' read the somewhat misleading sub-headline in the following day's Philadelphia Inquirer. As it was, it went into the record books as a no decision fight. Tunney himself knew it had been close, but felt he had won the bout, as did virtually all of the New York sportswriters who were present." Tunney, p. 168 (italics added)

And John Jarrett's "The Golden Guy Who Licked Jack Dempsey Twice" states that
"Nat Fleischer gave Tunney five of the eight rounds, some reporters called it a draw, while the two local papers, the Evening Bulleting and the Enquirer, both saw Loughran as the winner."
i.e. at least two local papers gave decision to Loughran and none local papers were listed as having scored for Tunney.

Also, the sub-headline in Philadelphia Inquirer read as "Tommy Outboxes Gene in Sensational Bout After Weathering a Stormy First Round. Local Boy's Great Finish in 7th and 8th Sessions Thrills 22,000 Fans" and not as the author above quotes it.

The reports seem to be mixed with some claiming Loughran won and other claiming Tunney won. Gene had it as a win on boxrec since I can remember maybe its just Tommy's turn to have it listed as a win.