Is Greb Greater Than Duran?

[Sugarj]

If Harry Greb was fighting today & we seen him on the PPVs, we would all recognize that he was indeed a very special (great) fighter. To win like he did over who he did as much as he did and for as long as he did says something.

And since none of us were alive when he was doing all his carnage, we have to go by his record, the collective opinions about him that made him into a legend and the legacy that he made for himself by his heart & gifts he had in the ring.

"Legends" don't just happen, they're bestowed upon those who stand out over others.

Greb is for sure a legendary champion & an all-time great.

So is Duran, but in the all-time pecking order, I give the nod to Greb.

I don't doubt it, the guy surely must have been remarkable to have picked up the wins he did.

I just think that as sheer fighting machines come (pound for pound) prime Roberto Duran takes some beating, there was nothing he couldn't do extremely well, whether it be as a pressure fighter or a masterful defensive boxer. Duran had everything a fighter could ever need.....speed, power, workrate, heart, chin, combinations, head movement, ring smarts.

We don't know enough about Greb's game due to the lack of film. Contemporary reports indicate that he had an incredible workrate, ridiculous speed of hand, bags of heart and every dirty trick in the book. I'm not sure that his game would have been quite as diverse as Duran's despite his remarkable record. But I'd love to be proved wrong......should some film come into the public domain.

What I wouldn't give to see all the Gene Tunney fights!!!!!

[Greatest1942]

No, not really. I know what you mean, but it doesn't really go like that. In the same vein you could then argue that Duran clearly dominated 3 divisions. He beat the top featherweight in the world who went on to dominate the division when Duran left and was world champ for many years. He dominated 135 and then moved up beat some top contenders, the previous long time WBC champ in Palomino and then beat the lineal champ and best fighter at 147. That's dominance, but would you call it dominance over 3 divisions? I doubt many would. He dominated one division.

Greb is similar. He didn't beat the champ at heavyweight or LHW (though that's an interesting one as he beat the top guy there but didn't win the title with it), so any dominance is completely moot because unless you beat the top dog, you're not the top dog no matter what else happens.

You could argue that he was dominant in two divisions, but beating Tunney once in five fights is not dominating the top LHW in that era.

It's a funny one. I'm sure Greb today would be said to have been 1/4 the fighter of Duran going by tape of him. Even in his day people talked about his unorthodox boxing, his utter lack of any proper form, technique, correct punching and just about everything else relating to boxing. He was, as quite a few put it, about as amateur looking fighter as there was.....yet, no matter how amateur someone looks, if they beat that many top, great fighters it is utterly unarguable that they themselves are great. If Mayorga had beaten Trinidad, Oscar, Mosley, Spinks and Cotto you couldn't deny that he was great despite looking like a hack that could be easily beaten.

I'm kind of sure that's what Greb was like a bit. A much, much better version of Mayorga with an unbreakable chin, better stamina and higher workrate....?

The above in bold destroys your credibility...so according to you Greb was not LHW champ...

GREB WILL AWAIT CARPENTIER'S REPLY; New Light-Heavyweight Champion to Return to His Pittsburgh Home Tomorrow.

Unmarked and without any visible evidence of his latest encounter in the ring, Harry Greb, the new American light-heavyweight champion, was about ...

Sue the New York Times man...How dare they write this?

Or may be this newspaper :-

Harry Greb Wins Light Heavy-Weight Crown
Greb Decisively Outpoints Tunney In Fifteen Rounds Old Timers at Ringside Predicted Kayo On Account of the Speed of the Two Battlers

Whats interesting is that you seem to living in a land where Greb beat Tunney but did not win title....where do you get your news from ?

1)What do you mean he did n't win the title at LHW? He was light heavy champ...check his record out..FYI Greb beat Tunney in his second bout...almost all newspaper except a few gave it to him..even the MSG president called it a bad decision...Tunney himself acknowledged it was bad one. The fourth by all accounts was a draw.Even teh ****ty Boxwreck has Greb-Tunney 4 as a draw.Tunney won 3rd and 5th.

And its not only beating Tunney...Greb beat the top LHWS of his time.
This is Greb's LHW resume :-

Jimmy Delaney
Maxie Rosenbloom
Gene Tunney
Tommy Loughran
Jimmy Slattery
Kid Norfolk
Tommy Gibbons
Jeff Smith
Battling Levinksy

Kindly give me 10 LHWS of all time who had better wins.If this is not a great resume at LHW I dont know what is. Does Duran have as good a resume at WW and MW, which were higher than his natural weigh...same as LHW was higher than Greb's weigh as was heavyweight.

2) He was middle weight champ

3) He beat all the top contenders of HW division, it is no fault of Greb that he did not meet Dempsey. Harry Willis did not meet Dempsey either so we can't say that he was a good heavyweight...Greb beat the title contenders for Dempsey's title more easily than Dempsey did.

He beat almost every other contender...yes its not domianance in a literal sense, but he was a top contdener there...Sam Langford never won a HW title so wasn't he dominant?


Do you wanna see the reports of the 2nd Greb- Tunney fight? Or do you consider what the judges give as a decision as unimpeachable.

[Greatest1942]

I don't doubt it, the guy surely must have been remarkable to have picked up the wins he did.

I just think that as sheer fighting machines come (pound for pound) prime Roberto Duran takes some beating, there was nothing he couldn't do extremely well, whether it be as a pressure fighter or a masterful defensive boxer. Duran had everything a fighter could ever need.....speed, power, workrate, heart, chin, combinations, head movement, ring smarts.

We don't know enough about Greb's game due to the lack of film. Contemporary reports indicate that he had an incredible workrate, ridiculous speed of hand, bags of heart and every dirty trick in the book. I'm not sure that his game would have been quite as diverse as Duran's despite his remarkable record. But I'd love to be proved wrong......should some film come into the public domain.

What I wouldn't give to see all the Gene Tunney fights!!!!!

1) We know two things of Greb however, we know his opponents class, Tunney,Gibbons or Walker look great even in those old ****ty films.

2) Greb's success against opponents of all styles is unparalleled. NO one had success with so many styles as Greb had.

[wmute]

Greb, by a slimmer margin though. i tend to agree with sugarj.

[BennyST]

The above in bold destroys your credibility...so according to you Greb was not LHW champ...

GREB WILL AWAIT CARPENTIER'S REPLY; New Light-Heavyweight Champion to Return to His Pittsburgh Home Tomorrow.

Unmarked and without any visible evidence of his latest encounter in the ring, Harry Greb, the new American light-heavyweight champion, was about ...

Sue the New York Times man...How dare they write this?

Or may be this newspaper :-

Harry Greb Wins Light Heavy-Weight Crown
Greb Decisively Outpoints Tunney In Fifteen Rounds Old Timers at Ringside Predicted Kayo On Account of the Speed of the Two Battlers

Whats interesting is that you seem to living in a land where Greb beat Tunney but did not win title....where do you get your news from ?

1)What do you mean he did n't win the title at LHW? He was light heavy champ...check his record out..FYI Greb beat Tunney in his second bout...almost all newspaper except a few gave it to him..even the MSG president called it a bad decision...Tunney himself acknowledged it was bad one. The fourth by all accounts was a draw.Even teh ****ty Boxwreck has Greb-Tunney 4 as a draw.Tunney won 3rd and 5th.

And its not only beating Tunney...Greb beat the top LHWS of his time.
This is Greb's LHW resume :-

Jimmy Delaney
Maxie Rosenbloom
Gene Tunney
Tommy Loughran
Jimmy Slattery
Kid Norfolk
Tommy Gibbons
Jeff Smith
Battling Levinksy

Kindly give me 10 LHWS of all time who had better wins.If this is not a great resume at LHW I dont know what is. Does Duran have as good a resume at WW and MW, which were higher than his natural weigh...same as LHW was higher than Greb's weigh as was heavyweight.

2) He was middle weight champ

3) He beat all the top contenders of HW division, it is no fault of Greb that he did not meet Dempsey. Harry Willis did not meet Dempsey either so we can't say that he was a good heavyweight...Greb beat the title contenders for Dempsey's title more easily than Dempsey did.

He beat almost every other contender...yes its not domianance in a literal sense, but he was a top contdener there...Sam Langford never won a HW title so wasn't he dominant?


Do you wanna see the reports of the 2nd Greb- Tunney fight? Or do you consider what the judges give as a decision as unimpeachable.

Oh dear....I think you're missing my point. I literally said that it could easily be argued that Greb was dominant in two divisions. MW and LHW. He also beat a lot of the great heavyweights of that era. It is right up there in my last post. However, he was not champion at lightheavyweight, so relax on the patronising insults. Like I said, you're are clearly missing my point.

I was debating whether you could say he was dominant in 3 divisions initially, because while you can beat the top contenders and have a great record and even a better one than the champ really, if you don't beat the top guy, you haven't actually dominated the division. That's all I was trying to get across.

He was a world champion at MW. He lost his series of fights with Tunney at LHW and I consider Tunney to be the best LHW of that era. Greb was the other top man for me, but he was never LHW champ and lost the series against the other top guy there. He has a simple amazing resume at LHW, I'm not disagreeing at all.

I'm disagreeing that he was dominant at LHW and HW. He clearly wasn't. He was at the very top, but it was alongside other top fighters, not above them, dominating the division. Do you see what I'm saying?

Kid McCoy had it pretty spot on, and basically said what I was trying to say, but UI just couldn't put it down as articulately.

Simply this; Greb's resume is amazing at MW and LHW. Incredible. You could argue that he was dominant at two divisions, not three. However, to me dominance is clearly being the best in the division. With Gene Tunney alongside at LHW he was clearly not the best and lost most fights against Gene in that great rivalry. As McCoy also said, sadly he was not able to even have the chance to win the title, so that was unfortunate to not become champ at MW and LHW because he probably would definitely have done so.

Hopkins dominated middleweight, as did Hagler, Monzon and Greb. Duran dominated lightweight and was the world champ at 147, but he was not dominant there despite beating the top guy. Just the same Greb beat the top guy, but was not dominant because he also lost to him more than he won.

Do you see what I mean?

[GJC]

Always thought that given the opportunity that it wouldn't have been impossible for Greb to have held 3 titles long before Armstrong. No bigger Duran fan than me but got to give the nod to Greb here

[kendom]

The above in bold destroys your credibility...so according to you Greb was not LHW champ...

GREB WILL AWAIT CARPENTIER'S REPLY; New Light-Heavyweight Champion to Return to His Pittsburgh Home Tomorrow.

Unmarked and without any visible evidence of his latest encounter in the ring, Harry Greb, the new American light-heavyweight champion, was about ...

Sue the New York Times man...How dare they write this?

Or may be this newspaper :-

Harry Greb Wins Light Heavy-Weight Crown
Greb Decisively Outpoints Tunney In Fifteen Rounds Old Timers at Ringside Predicted Kayo On Account of the Speed of the Two Battlers

Whats interesting is that you seem to living in a land where Greb beat Tunney but did not win title....where do you get your news from ?

1)What do you mean he did n't win the title at LHW? He was light heavy champ...check his record out..FYI Greb beat Tunney in his second bout...almost all newspaper except a few gave it to him..even the MSG president called it a bad decision...Tunney himself acknowledged it was bad one. The fourth by all accounts was a draw.Even teh ****ty Boxwreck has Greb-Tunney 4 as a draw.Tunney won 3rd and 5th.

And its not only beating Tunney...Greb beat the top LHWS of his time.
This is Greb's LHW resume :-

Jimmy Delaney
Maxie Rosenbloom
Gene Tunney
Tommy Loughran
Jimmy Slattery
Kid Norfolk
Tommy Gibbons
Jeff Smith
Battling Levinksy

Kindly give me 10 LHWS of all time who had better wins.If this is not a great resume at LHW I dont know what is. Does Duran have as good a resume at WW and MW, which were higher than his natural weigh...same as LHW was higher than Greb's weigh as was heavyweight.

2) He was middle weight champ

3) He beat all the top contenders of HW division, it is no fault of Greb that he did not meet Dempsey. Harry Willis did not meet Dempsey either so we can't say that he was a good heavyweight...Greb beat the title contenders for Dempsey's title more easily than Dempsey did.

He beat almost every other contender...yes its not domianance in a literal sense, but he was a top contdener there...Sam Langford never won a HW title so wasn't he dominant?


Do you wanna see the reports of the 2nd Greb- Tunney fight? Or do you consider what the judges give as a decision as unimpeachable.

How can you have such a crazy resume at a weight that's not even your prime weight?

[Greatest1942]

He lost his series of fights with Tunney at LHW and I consider Tunney to be the best LHW of that era. Greb was the other top man for me, but he was never LHW champ and lost the series against the other top guy there.

What do you mean by this .Never LHW champ...My I can't get you.

And besides his series against Tunney in all fairness is tied 2-2, which he achieved with one good eye.

May be I am being a bit thick, but what you mean by the above in bold, escapes me, since Greb was a bonafide LHW champ. He got the title when he beat Tunney.

[Barn]

What do you mean by this .Never LHW champ...My I can't get you.

And besides his series against Tunney in all fairness is tied 2-2, which he achieved with one good eye.

May be I am being a bit thick, but what you mean by the above in bold, escapes me, since Greb was a bonafide LHW champ. He got the title when he beat Tunney.

That was the American Championship I am certain.

[Kid McCoy]

That was the American Championship I am certain.

The American version was really more credible at the time, as the world belt was being passed around by 4 or 5 guys who were obviously not the best in the division and were dodging the top fighters.