Thanks in large part to his two wins over the immensely popular Jack Dempsey, you'll find Tunney and his 65-1-1 record at the top of a lot of boxing lists.
The International Boxing Research Organization has Tunney ranked as the fourth best light heavyweight and 11th best heavyweight. Bert Sugar ranked Tunney fifth on his heavyweight rankings and Nat Fleischer ranked him eighth.
On my list, he's much closer to 80 than to eight because he only had nine significant fights - title fights or fights against Hall of Famers.
He was hurt a bit by the times and then decided to walk away young and healthy.
Although known for his Dempsey fights, it's his five-fight series with Harry Greb that gives you a much better picture of Tunney.
Tunney performed much better in the second matchup. Most at ringside thought Greb still won the fight, but the judges gave Tunney a split decision.
In the third fight, Tunney's win was not disputed.
The fourth and fifth fight is where the era hurts Tunney in my rankings. Tunney won both fights easily, but in that era you still had fights where a fighter only "won" if they scored a knockout. So even though the newspaper writers declared Tunney the clear victor, they are officially no contest boughts. Those wins would have moved Tunney up a lot higher.
The other unfortunate thing for Tunney is that neither of his official wins over Greb were for "world" titles. Both were for the American Light Heavyweight title.
Seeking bigger paydays, Tunney moved up to heavyweight and finally got a shot against the great Dempsey, who spent much of the 1920s partying rather than fighting. Dempsey easily beat a rusty Dempsey in the first fight and mostly dominated the second - other than for the infamous "long count," which was the only time in Tunney's career that he was knocked down.
After Dempsey, Tunney dominated an overmatched Tom Heeney and then .... retired because he felt there was no real opponent that excited the public and he didn't want to wait around for one to develop.
Tunney was 31 and never even considered coming back. Instead, he went into business and made millions. The decision was the right one for his life, but he could have moved farther up this list with a few more defenses.
| Gene Tunney | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Significant Fights | |||||||
| Opponent | Result | Fight Points |
Title Points |
HOF Points |
Total | x Win % | Final Total |
| Battling Levinsky | UD-W | 90 | 20 | 50 | 160 | 80.38% | 128.6 |
| Harry Greb | UD-L | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||
| Harry Greb | SD-W | 75 | 20 | 100 | 195 | 95.41% | 186.1 |
| Harry Greb | UD-W | 90 | 20 | 100 | 210 | 94.71% | 198.9 |
| Georges Carpentier | KO | 100 | 100 | 200 | 87.25% | 174.5 | |
| Tommy Gibbons | KO | 100 | 100 | 200 | 96.00% | 192.0 | |
| Jack Dempsey | UD-W | 90 | 100 | 100 | 290 | 93.44% | 271.0 |
| Jack Dempsey | UD-W | 90 | 100 | 100 | 290 | 92.06% | 267.0 |
| Tom Heeney | KO | 100 | 100 | 200 | 80.00% | 160.0 | |
| Totals (8-1-0, 3 KOs, 1 SD) | 1,578.0 | ||||||
| Record in non-significant fights | |||||||
| 57-0-1, 45 KOs | 5,630 | ||||||
| % of fights toward 50 (70.7%) | 3,980.4 | 3,980.4 | 56.80% | 2,260.9 | |||
| Totals | 3,838.9 | ||||||
| Peak 5 Fights | |||||||
| Jack Dempsey | 271.0 | ||||||
| Jack Dempsey | 267.0 | ||||||
| Harry Greb | 198.9 | ||||||
| Tommy Gibbons | 192.0 | ||||||
| Harry Greb | 186.1 | ||||||
| Peak 5 Totals | 1,114.9 | ||||||
| Final Totals (significant, non-significant, Peak 5) | 4,953.8 | ||||||
| Boxing's 100 Countdown | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | Fighter | Significant Fights |
Non-Significant Fights |
Peak 5 | Final Total |
| 73. | Gene Tunney | 1,578.0 | 2,260.9 | 1,114.9 | 4,953.8 |
| 74. | Terry Norris | 2,777.9 | 1,327.0 | 847.2 | 4,952.2 |
| 75. | Ike Williams | 2,209.4 | 1,667.5 | 1,055.3 | 4,932.2 |
| 76. | Vasiliy Lomachenko | 1,866.8 | 2,343.9 | 714.8 | 4,925.4 |
| 77. | Mike McCallum | 1,998.4 | 2,124.3 | 800.4 | 4,923.2 |
| 78. | Billy Conn | 1,937.3 | 1,936.1 | 1,031.5 | 4,905.0 |
| 79. | Benny Leonard | 1,729.8 | 2,089.5 | 1,040.1 | 4,859.4 |
| 80. | Sugar Shane Mosley | 2,479.9 | 1,512.3 | 858.7 | 4,850.9 |
| 81. | Lou Ambers | 1,589.2 | 2,098.7 | 1,158.2 | 4,846.1 |
| 82. | Harry Wills | 2,564.4 | 1,355.7 | 923.7 | 4,843.8 |
| 83. | Mickey Walker | 1,987.8 | 1,775.7 | 1,075.4 | 4,838.8 |
| 84. | Joe Gans | 2,314.9 | 1,639.8 | 883.0 | 4,837.6 |
| 85. | Sven Ottke | 2,824.5 | 1,317.7 | 687.5 | 4,829.7 |
| 86. | Ronald "Winky" Wright | 2,243.3 | 1,658.3 | 922.5 | 4,824.1 |
| 87. | Fighting Harada | 1,259.6 | 2,409.2 | 1,105.9 | 4,774.7 |
| 88. | Humberto Gonzalez | 1,866.7 | 1,952.3 | 907.3 | 4,726.4 |
| 89. | Ricardo Lopez | 2,830.5 | 1,188.1 | 702.7 | 4,721.3 |
| 90. | Carmen Basilio | 1,723.3 | 1,804.7 | 1,184.1 | 4,712.2 |
| 91. | Orlando Canizales | 2,529.3 | 1,510.3 | 669.3 | 4,708.9 |
| 92. | Jeff Fenech | 2,103.9 | 1,728.7 | 844.8 | 4,677.4 |
| 93. | Michael Carbajal | 2,333.7 | 1,519.2 | 817.0 | 4,669.9 |
| 94. | Marcel Thil | 2,579.8 | 1,170.9 | 900.9 | 4,651.6 |
| 95. | Nicolino Locche | 1,858.0 | 1,946.8 | 820.3 | 4,625.1 |
| 96. | Ricky Hatton | 3,458.8 | 449.1 | 708.9 | 4,616.8 |
| 97. | Ismael Laguna | 1,059.5 | 2,659.4 | 889.9 | 4,608.7 |
| 98. | Ramon "Chocalatito" Gonzalez | 2,187.1 | 1,771.9 | 638.6 | 4,597.5 |
| 99. | Wilfredo Benitez | 1,439.4 | 2,223.0 | 914.4 | 4,586.8 |
| 100. | Carlos Zarate | 1,124.2 | 2,707.1 | 751.5 | 4,582.8 |
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