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Tunney Hunsaker Boxing Autograph
An 8x10 Action Photograph from Muhammad Ali's first professional
fight against Tunney Hunsaker. Anyone who collects boxing
autographs of Muhammad Ali's opponents will want this rare
autograph!
Tunney Hunsaker
£25.00
Tunney M. Hunsaker, the part-time pugilist
who lost to Muhammad Ali in the boxing great's first professional
fight, died on April 25 after a long battle with Alzheimer's
disease. He was 75.
Hunsaker was a journeyman heavyweight who
also served as Fayetteville, W. Va.'s police chief. He had
a reputation for being willing and aggressive -- and a record
of 15 wins, 7 losses -- when he fought 18-year-old Cassius
Clay at Louisville, Ky.'s Freedom Hall on Oct. 29, 1960.
By the end of the sixth and final round, both of Hunsaker's
eyes were swollen shut, and Ali won the fight on points.
"?The thing I remember most about him
was that he was so big and yet so fast. I used every trick
in the book. The more I'd do, the madder I'd make him and
the better he fought," Hunsaker once said in an interview
with The Associated Press.
Although he was only a minor figure in boxing,
and Ali went on to become one of the greatest athletes of
the last century, the two fighters remained in contact over
the years. Ali even attended a retirement party marking
the end of Hunsaker's three-decade run as police chief.
Hunsaker won a Golden Gloves title while stationed
at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. In his final bout in
1961, Joe "Shotgun" Sheldon landed a 10th-round
punch that sent him into a coma for nine days. Although
he underwent two brain surgeries, Hunsaker suffered from
pugilistic dementia for the rest of his life. To honor his
accomplishments in law enforcement and boxing, the state
of West Virginia named a bridge after him.
