And as a result his name, inspired by the ‘Fighting Marine’, Gene Tunney, who was nominally still the linear heavyweight champion when Tunney Hunsaker was born in February 1930, would be bound eternally with his precocious opponent.
In the aftermath of their shared six rounds, Clay splattered and smeared with the blood of his game quarry following a wide points decision, Hunsaker remarked that, “Clay is incredibly good for an 18-year-old and I’ll be amazed if he doesn’t go all the way.” On the night, Hunsaker weighed just 182 pounds and was unable deter the newly minted Olympic Gold medalist. Clay had turned professional just 55 days earlier in the aftermath of his triumph in the Rome games and was backed by a syndicate of wealthy men. His story is familiar to all.
As the spectators and the newspapermen slipped away from the Freedom Hall, Louisville and the gaze of the national spotlight departed with them 65 years ago, Hunsaker returned to his life as a dedicated public servant and seemed to retire as a prizefighter too.
Two years later he accepted a fight with Joe Seldon from Cleveland. It proved to be a punishing contest. Fought just three days after Benny Paret passed away due to the injuries he sustained in his fight with Emile Griffith adding scrutiny the death of a fighter always draws to the sport, Hunsaker collapsed as he walked back to his corner at the end of a round and would fall into a coma for 9 days.
Thankfully, unlike Paret, Hunsaker would recover, after two brain operations, and would again be walking the beat of his home town following rehabilitation. Later in life, he would reconnect with his famous foe from 1960, now known to the world as Muhammad Ali, and they met several times in the decades that followed, including the launch of a Golden Gloves amateur programme in the neighbouring town of Charleston, WV in 1987.
Hunsaker died aged 75 in 2005.
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