-
-
Is it possible no one cared back then?
Maybe we inflate Greb? Maybe we inflate film? Maybe a mix of the two?
It's difficult for me to believe, given we have older film, it's because it's just too old to survive. I understand degradation, but, I've watched Jeffries before the Johnson fight. Fitzs and such are the very birth of film, got those kinda.
As much as Greb is celebrated by boxing fans, he's not a HW champion or even a HW contender. Is it not possible he simply did not have the casual appeal to film, properly store, and transfer?
I think we should be grateful for what we have. I don't see anything in way of true contemporaries. Only reason we have any film of Norfolk is because he fought HWs. I think I may have come across McCoy once...sparring Corbett.
How many non-HW matches does even Tunney have on film?
Comment
-
Great points. I'm working on a similar line of reasoning and wondering if there was a more nativist appeal... Like if you, or I, were residents of Keese Rock Pittsbuyg PA... and some dandy from Brooklyn starts talking in the local beer shop... "Listen bub, them New yorkers they pretty good... But we got our own boys!" Pittsburgh has an outstanding amount of talent all the way up to the present... some kid, a lightweight fighter, wrecked his life but was really talented, Spadafora... But some of murderer's row came from the area, including Burley, of course, Conn, Grebb, Michel Moore as well! If this was the case, some local outfit may have made a tape and it might be in someone's basement somewhere... Its not impossible to imagine.
Comment
-
I know that the Greb/Walker fight and Greb/Tunney I were filmed, not sure what the third fight is that is mentioned in the article below. Somewhere out there is fight film on Greb, whoever has it either doesn't know what or who it is, or isn't sharing.
(Copyright, The Times Mirror Company; Los Angeles Times 1990all Rights reserved)
One evening in 1986, Jim Jacobs was talking about his collection of boxing films, the most extensive in the world.
"Thomas Edison invented the motion picture camera in 1894," he said. "From 1894 to the present, there is only one great fighter missing from my collection-Harry Greb."
Jacobs, who died at 58 in 1988, never gave up hope that one day film of Greb, a brawling middleweight and light-heavyweight champion, would turn up.
It has.
To Jacobs, the frustrating aspect of his 30-year quest was that he knew at least three Greb fights had been filmed.
"I have three frames of the first Greb-Gene Tunney fight that I found stapled to a copyright application for the film," he said in 1986.
"I've tried everything. . . . It's frustrating. Greb's the only great fighter I don't have.
"The guy who filmed the 1922 Greb-Tunney fight was George Dawson. I even know what hotel he stayed at the night before the fight. I've interviewed his heirs. None of them know anything about the film."
Film of Greb has been found, 64 years after his death. It's not a fight film, but it's the next best thing.
Bill Herr, a retired truck driver from Shelby, Ohio, found a Harry Greb entry on a computer list of boxing film material from the University of South Carolina library. Herr also is a fight film collector and also has been on Greb's trail since 1964.
"I learned that the Fox Movietone Newsreels, along with out-takes, were donated to the University of South Carolina. So I wrote a letter and asked if there was any boxing footage in the collection.
"They sent me a computer list, and I saw a 400-foot item described as, `Harry Greb working out.' So I bought it."
Herr looked at the film and sent it to Steve Lott, who works for Jacobs' former business partner, Bill Cayton, in New York. Jacobs and Cayton were partners in their fight film business, and also in the early management of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.
On the 4 1/2-minute newsreel, Greb is shown sparring with turn-of-the-century light-heavyweight champion Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, jumping rope, punching a speed bag, doing sit-ups, mugging for the camera and playing handball.
To boxing historians, Greb is best known as the only man to defeat Gene Tunney. Tunney later became heavyweight champion by beating Jack Dempsey.
In their May 23, 1922 fight, Greb, weighing 162 1/2 pounds, broke Tunney's nose in the first 20 seconds and gave Tunney, at 174 1/2, a 15-round beating for the light heavyweight title. Tunney avenged the loss twice, beating Greb in 1923 and '24.
Greb was a puncher-brawler called "the Human Windmill" in an era when nicknames were mandatory. He fought 294 times, knocking out 47, winning 64 decisions and receiving 170 non-decisions from 1913 to 1926. States frequently refused to recognize anything other than a knockout to decide a fight then because of ******** concerns.
Greb won fights with his thumbs, his forehead, his laces, holding and hitting, tripping, hitting on the break and hitting low.
Greb was 32 when he died in 1926 during surgery to remove bone chips from his nose.
Indexing (document details)
Author(s): EARL GUSTKEY
Section: Sports; PART-C; Sports Desk
Publication title: Los Angeles Times (pre-1997 Fulltext). Los Angeles, Calif.: May 19, 1990. pg. 6
Source type: Newspaper
ISSN: 04583035
ProQuest document ID: 60056884
Text Word Count 527Comment
-
That Greb training film has been on YouTube for a while I believe.
I've given up hope of any fights of his coming to light at this point. If Jim Jacobs couldn't find any then they almost certainly don't exist.Last edited by ShoulderRoll; 03-24-2021, 08:11 PM.Comment
-
He looks phenomenal.
Comment
-
- -Great stuff Dempsey. As to Greb not being a hvywt contender-obscenely ridiculous. He was beating many of the guys Jack was beating. That Greb wanted that fight is no surprise, any fighter of worth would want it, but today we got Spence/Crawford ducking each other inspire of being in an era with almost no political restrictions in place of most of boxing early history. So what's their excuse in 2120 if fans still exist then still interested in boxing?Comment
Tweet
Comment