Customer Reviews

Gene Tunney: The Golden Guy Who Licked Jack Dempsey Twice

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A serviceable, if not great, biography of a heavyweight champion who had the misfortune to defeat one of the Ring's most popular heavyweight champions (Jack Dempsey)and suffered accordingly with the public. The biography traces Tunney's development as a boxer and faithfully consults secondary sources about his ring career. The biography would have been improved if the author had delved more into Gene's personal development. The reader is left wondering how much of Gene's publicized love of literature was genuine and how much was someone trying to contradict the public's expectations of what boxers were suppose to be like. That Tunney was an intelligent boxer is part of boxing lore,but again this point could have been developed better. The single defeat in his career to Harry Greb, followed by vindicating return victories, would appear to be a subject worth exploring.What did he learn from his defeat by Harry Greb and how did he use this knowledge to overcome the only blemish on his record? This is the most obvious example, but there would be other opportunities to develop this theme. The book does mention Tunney's eventual decline into alcoholism, apparently caused by the tragedy of his daughter's murder of her husband. How pervasive this was is unexplored.

Unfortunately, the biography is more a recording of facts and lacks the illuminating analysis/interpretation of great biography.

Gene Tunney was a very unlucky heavyweight champion, he was born with good looks, intelligence and excellent boxing ability but came at a time when he would have to meet and beat (twice!) a living legend in the form of Jack Dempsey. The public would not forget the taming of the Manassa Mauler by Tunney.

The book is well written but a touch bland, as if the author did minimal research except go through the books about the time and quote passages. There seemed to be little new material uncovered.

I would have liked more about Tunney as a man, what did he do once he left boxing? Was he successful, if so, how?