Is or should Greb be an all time top 10 LH?

[HOUDINI563]

Their is no denying Grebs record is a who’s who. Just one top win after another. You just can’t overrate his record. It’s unmatched.

From what I have read Greb actually beat Tunney more than once. Aside from their very last bout Tunney greatly struggled with Greb.

One thought regarding Grebs holding and hitting this COULD have been caused by his growing blindness in one eye.

Certainly quite a bit has been written about his head butting, thumbing etc. Fleischer zeroed in on holding and hitting as Grebs fouling tactic.

[The Old LefHook]

g

- -Sugar Ray Leonard popcorn flurries...

Queensbree's best. Makes me wonder where he stole it.

[JAB5239]

g

- -Sugar Ray Leonard popcorn flurries...

That's not what Tunney said or looked like after their first fight.

[QueensburyRules]

So in trying to parse Greb's career, and evaluate his Light Heavy work separate from his Middleweight work, I have to ask how are we differentiating the two? If using the traditional standard of any 'fight he weighed more than 160 goes down as a Lt Heavy fight' then youd have to consider him more of a Lt Heavy than Middle.

If we allow that there was a little more leeway in weight ranges back then, and Greb fighting in the mid 160s vs an opponent in the mid 160s is still a middleweight fight, or if you figure that most middleweights in the past 40 years are probably in the upper 160s on fight night anyways; then most of Grebs career accomplishments come as a Middleweight.

So to more accurately have this discussion, someone should define which fights go towards him being a MW and which go to him being LHW.

- -Mid 160s is mid LH by any traditional measure.

As far as fight film needed for proper great assessment as previously mentioned:

1. Limited film at the end of Will's career is most certainly not near what he was in his prime.

2. What limited film we have of Charlie Burley in his prime reflects badly on him vs what should've been no more than a good journeyman in the day, but any fighter can have a bad day, so we rely on his record just as we have with Wills.

3. I might have missed a fight, but certain I've seen every existent fight of Ali starting with his debut, and while he looks very fast handed in the beginning, he had yet to utilize his feet and is getting clocked a bunch, but seems to have a lot of cut eye stoppages that many of his opponents claimed were premature.

Poor officiating, illegal Dundee trickery and poor showing vs Cooper/Jones reflects no greatness.

His Liston bouts unimpressive and widely assumed to be either/or/both fixed/incompetent officiating.

Patterson carrying a back injury in that defense is certainly not a brilliant example of a great.

And so on through his weak title defenses save the Terrell bout where initially he was getting bombed by flush rights, but he quickly turned that around.

Magnificent effort in FOC, but Joe quickly figured him out and pounded him within an inch of his life shows great spirit, but perhaps Ali lacking in strength and punching technique to keep Joe off him, and remember Cus showed Ali a few weeks before that fight just how Frazier was gonna beat him.

I do tire of beating up on Ali who has a special place in my youthful heart because of an unusual encounter in a sparring session. Seeing him as a kid was like watching a Greek God at play. Couple years later I was still a teen but older when I saw Joe train in a ratty Houston gym, and while I knew enough for the greatest respect of Joe's record and work ethic, visually he was just sorta of a dumpy lump of black compared to the golden Ali I saw. Whereas Ali had maybe 200 folks watching his spar in the Astro Hall/Astrodome Complex, there was only me and a few lifer boxing fans watch Joe train for Dave Zyglewicz. Joe didn't even merit an Astrodome fight like Ali got, but Joe got something better, the best prime win in History against an Alltime undefeated Heavy Champ, and Joe had to jump and plow over so many obstacles to get it done.