Tunney: Boxing's Brainiest Champ and His Upset of the Great Jack Dempsey

I'd have to rank this right behind Laura Hillenbrand's "Seabiscuit" as the second-best sports book I've ever read. That's because author Jack Cavanaugh paints such vivid pictures of the principal characters that you get really involved with these boxers. You care about what happens to Gene Tunney and Jack Dempsey. They were both incredibly-fascinating people who wound up fighting each other twice in front of the biggest sporting crowds (to this day!) in American hisotry. Both, at various times, were Heavyweight Champions of the world. Tunney remains to this day the most unique boxing champion in history, a man who preferred reading to boxing, a man who got more of a thrill lecturing at Yale University about Shakespeare than winning the prestigious pugilistic crown. As for Dempsey, well....to me, it's hard to think of a more colorful good guy-bad guy-superstar in sports history, along with the likes of Babe Ruth and Wilt Chamberlain. The book is about Gene Tunney, but it's just as much about Dempsey and both men come off as likable guys, even though they were very different. What makes this book special, although, was Cavanaugh's fascinating portraits of other men, like promoter Tex Rickard, manager "Doc" Kearns, and a host of memorable boxers like Benny Leonard, "Battling Levinsky," and my new hero - Harry Greb. Cavanaugh's accounts of Greb, a boxer few people have heard of, are still haunting me days after finishing this book. This is truly a book I was sad to see end. I could have kept reading these amazing stories of these colorful people in the "Roaring Twenties" for weeks on end. I'm not even a big boxing fan, but I'm more of a fan now, thanks to Mr. Cavanaugh's exceptional book.

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, stem

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.

Great history behind Tunney and Dempsey. The reader ends up liking/admiring both guys. Never heard of Harry Greb either and enjoyed learning about him. Only complaint is that Cavanaugh doesn't go into enough detail after the second fight in Chicago. I would have enjoyed reading more about their lives after their boxing careers.

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.