Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Fight Of The Century, December 1, 2006
Before the World War I, boxing was an informal affair controlled by a few men without the regulations of today. Safety concerns were strictly the responsibility of the fighter (which continues today to a smaller extant). But the Roaring Twenties brought a popularity to boxing that peaked with the Jack Dempsey-Gene Tunney fights, as popular in their day as the Joe Louis-Max Schmeling fights (see "Beyond Glory" -2005- by David Margolick) or the trio of Muhammad Ali-Joe Fraizier battles (see "Sound and Fury" -2006- by David Kindred).
"Tunney" is a dual biography of both Dempsey and Tunney, their livies and a cultural times approach. It traces their respective careers, climaxing with their two epic fights, including the infamous "long count" which allowed Tunney time to recover and win the fight. It traces their respective post-fight lives and of their unlikely friendship. Funny and readable, "Tunney was make a great gift for the holidays.
|
|
|
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A MUST for boxing fans, but others will enjoy too, March 29, 2007
If you're a boxing fan, you MUST read TUNNEY: BOXING'S
BRAINIEST CHAMP AND HIS UPSET OF THE GREAT JACK
DEMPSY by Jack Cavanaugh . . . fans of other sports and
history buffs will enjoy it, too.
It is the tale of Gene Tunney, the poetry-quoting fighter, who
always was overshadowed by Dempsey--even though he
beat him twice . . . but what made the book so enjoyable
was that it featured tales of many other fighters of
the era, including the amazing Harry Greb who fought
for several years with just one eye . . . in addition, it
gave me a greater appreciation of the role played by
sports (and boxing in particular) in the 1920s and 30s.
I also got a kick out of finding the story behind such
famous quotes as the following:
* Even Flynn seemed surprised at the knockout. "Well, it was this
way," he explained some years after his most notable victory. "I hit
him with a one-two. But just put it down that I didn't exactly knock
Dempsey out. He just forgot to duck."
* As he had feared, Dempsey was called on to say a few words. Though
he had already appeared in movies and on the vaudeville stage, Dempsey
was not comfortable speaking in public. But he handled himself well and
seemed to win over his audience. "I feel like the Irishman who was asked
to do something special for the guests at a very fancy affair," Dempsey
said to the assembled guests. "The Irishman said, 'I can't sing, I can't
dance, and I can't tell a story. But I will tell you what I will do. I'll fight
anybody in the house.' "
* Several days after the fight, Dempsey apologized to Firpo for hitting
him as soon as he got up, claiming he was so dazed he didn't know
what he was doing. To which Firpo, likable and with a wry sense of
humor--and whose varied business interests would make him one
of the richest men in South America-replied, "There were three of
us in the ring, Jack, so if you didn't know what you were doing,
why didn't you hit the referee?"
I was most impressed by the author's thorough job of
research . . . only the ending of the book left me a bit disappointed,
in that it didn't contain very much information about Tunney's life
after he left the ring . . . that was probably because he was
such a private individual; however, he was one great fighter that
might now finally get some credit that failed to come his way
when he was active in the ring.
|
|
|
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pugilist Pefectionist, October 30, 2007
After his first and only defeat in the ring,
heavyweight boxing champion Gene Tunney salved his
physical and mental anguish by pondering the pithy
perplexities of Shakespeare's retelling of the Iliad,
Troilus and Cressida. Lanky, literate, blessed with
athletic and mental agility, uncommon self-possession,
and artistic tastes, ranging from Victor Hugo to
Wagnerian opera, Gene Tunney is portrayed as a
pugilistic enigma in Jack Cavanaugh's fascinating
biography. A Marine Corps boxing champion in WWI who,
after turning pro, went undefeated as a heavyweight
(his only loss came as a light-heavyweight), Tunney
was knocked down only once in his career. He retired
at age 31, married heiress Polly Lauder, and for the
rest of his life pursued a variety of business
ventures and the arts. Tunney, like F. Scott
Fitzergerald's Gatsby, was a remarkable, self-created
individual. Tunney's heroic flaw, however, was that
he wasn't the champ the people wanted him to be -- but
what a fighter he was. What a man.
Jack Cavanaugh's wide-ranging biography chronicles not
only Tunney, but also the parallel rise of his
nemesis, heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey. Tunney
defeated Dempsey twice, the first time to take the
title from Dempsey in the "fight of the century" in
1927. Their rematch a year later became an indelible
event in boxing and sport history when Tunney was
knocked down by Dempsey for the only time in his
career in the round that became known as the "long
count." Cavanaugh takes the reader on a fabulous
carnival ride through the world of boxing as well as
providing a wonderful panorama of American popular
culture during the 1920s.
Cavanaugh engages the reader early with Tunney's
upbringing in Greenwich Village in New York. Tunney's
Irish immigrant father, John, was a hardworking
stevedore who labored on the docks of the Hudson
River. John loved boxing and encouraged his oldest
son, James, called by family members "Gene," to box,
buying him gloves when he was ten years old. A tall,
rangy kid, Gene Tunney learned how to fight not only
for self-protection but also to defend his two younger
brothers. It's not clear that Tunney ever loved
fighting -- he was simply very good at it, as he was
at almost everything he was to do in life from boxing
to literature to business. He was highly disciplined,
adept at learning and adapting from previous mistakes,
and had unusually high self-confidence in his mental
and physical abilities.
Cavanaugh also plumbs fascinating biographical
information about heavyweight champion and
contemporary rival, Jack Dempsey. Dempsey's
relentless, snarling, back-'em-up with hooks and
uppercuts from out of his trademark coal miner crouch
served as a marked contrast to Tunney's master-boxer
style. Dempsey's story -- going from town to town,
fighting grown men in bars while still a teenager --
is boxing true grit. A charismatic fighter before,
during, and after becoming champion, Dempsey had his
share of image problems, stemming from a highly
publicized divorce as well as the incorrect, yet
public, perception that he avoided fighting in WWI.
Dempsey was immortalized as an American icon in the
famous George Bellows painting depicting him being
knocked out of the ring (in one of eleven total
knockdowns in less than four minutes) in his fight
with the Argentinean "Bull of the Pampas," Luis Firpo.
Firpo, who incredibly became a successful businessman
and one of the wealthiest people in South America,
commented, "so many writers pushed him [Dempsey] back
in the ring it looked like he was getting a back
massage!"
Cavanaugh also describes an eerie foreshadowing when
Dempsey and Tunney accidentally met on a ferry in New
York. Tunney, recognizing Dempsey, strode over and
introduced himself. Dempsey, as affable and friendly
outside the ring as he was a raging pit bull inside,
even advised Tunney how he could wrap his right hand
to protect a knuckle that Tunney had previously
injured. The right hand, of course, was one of
Tunney's most damaging weapons in his future
domination of Dempsey in their subsequent twenty
championship rounds against each other.
A fascinating digression in Tunney's tale is
Cavanaugh's discussion of the great lightweight
champion Benny Leonard, about whom writer Budd
Schulberg said, "I think that Leonard was to many
young Jews what Ali became to young blacks many years
later." Cavanaugh tells the "you can't make this
stuff up" story of Leonard's savage pounding of Irish
Eddie Finnegan in a fight that took place in western
Pennsylvania. Amidst the din of anti-Semitic catcalls
and insults aimed at Leonard, Finnegan startled
Leonard by begging in Yiddish for Leonard to take it
easy on him -- telling him that his real name was
Seymour Rosenbaum!
Still another fascinating and entertaining side story
is Cavanaugh's mention of five-time Tunney opponent
Harry "The Pittsburgh Windmill" Greb. An incredible
fighter who threw hailstorms of legal and illegal
punches from every angle, Greb rarely trained, was a
wanton womanizer, had perfect hair, powdered his face,
and defied common sociological explanations as to how
and why he ever got into and liked the fight game.
Greb was the only man ever to beat Tunney, so badly,
in fact, that writer Grantland Rice said it was "like
a butcher hammering a Swiss steak." Harry Greb, who
is ranked by boxing historian Burt Sugar ahead of
Dempsey, Tunney, and Ali (#5 out of the hundred
greatest fighters), is fabulous and, of course,
ultimately tragic.
But there's much more. Cavanaugh tells the
machinations behind another "fight of the century,"
the Jack Johnson versus Jim Jeffries title fight in
Reno, Nevada, in 1912. And then there are the stories
of the Jack Londonesque life of boxing promoter Tex
Rickard, quotes by "Golden Age of Sportswriters"
characters, like Damon Runyon, Grantland Rice, Ring
Lardner, W.O. McGeehan and the
hard-drinking-ukulele-playing Hype Igoe ⦠and
there's more, incidental to Tunney. But who cares?
It's vaudeville, it's a Broadway musical revue, it's
boxing, and it's great.
.
The second half of the biography is more
straightforward from the reader's standpoint as it
chronicles Tunney's two fights with Jack Dempsey.
Tunney's taste for reading the classics made for a lot
of press. Tunney, for his part, was annoyed,
sometimes disdainful, and tried to play it down. But
when hearing of Tunney's training camp reading habits,
Jack Dempsey's bodyguard told Dempsey, "The fight's in
the bag, Jack. The so and so is reading a book!"
The first fight between Tunney and Dempsey took place
on September 23, 1926, in Philadelphia's
Sesquicentennial Stadium. According to Cavanaugh, it
was the "biggest sports attraction ever held before
the largest sports crowd of all time." Attendees
included, among others, the Astors, the Vanderbilts,
Irving Berlin, Franklin Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt's
three sons, William Randolph Hearst, Flo Zigfield,
Babe Ruth, Gertrude Ederle (the first woman to swim
the English Channel), Walter Chrysler, New York City
Mayor Jimmy Walker, Ellis Gimbel, Leopold Stokowski,
Douglas MacArthur, Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, Harry
Sinclair, William Wrigley, Andrew Mellon, Charles
Schwab, Bobby Jones, Arnold Rothstein, Abe Attell,
eight members of the infamous 1919 Black Sox team,
including Shoeless Joe Jackson, and more women
(estimated at 10,000 out of a total 135,000 who came
to the fight) than had ever attended a boxing match.
Incredibly, seemingly totally out of character, and
after vehemently denying rumors, Tunney and a
colleague took off from a New York golf course in a
bi-plane and flew to Philly the day of the fight -
unheard of in a day when rail travel and the
automobile were the preferred public modes of
transportation. Though it turned out to be a mistake
(the pilot got lost in the fog and the flight was
nauseating), Tunney, nonetheless, had no problem
handling Dempsey. His brilliant footwork, artful
clenching, and well-timed right hand leads and jabs
enabled Tunney to win all ten rounds on both judges'
cards. It was the first time a heavyweight
championship was won by decision and not a knockout.
Tunney was the heavyweight champion, and the fans
never loved Jack Dempsey more.
The rematch was held on September 22, 1927 at Soldier
Field in Chicago with 145, 000 fans in attendance.
Cavanaugh quotes fight promoter, Tex Rickard, telling
a sportswriter,
Kid, if the earth came up and the sky came down and
wiped out my first ten rows it would be the end of
everything because I got in those ten rows all the
world's wealth, all the world's big men,all the
world's brains and production talent. Just in them
ten rows, kid. And you and me never seen nothing like
it.
Tunney dominated Dempsey once again, but in round
seven Dempsey caught Tunney with a flurry of blows...
Read more ›
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by Randy Roberts
by Christian Giudice
by Angelo Dundee
by Gary B. Youmans
