I dont get Harry Greb's boxing Record

[r.burgundy]

You come across as an intelligent young man, but Poet respects the sports heritage and has been around long enough to have seen a few changes in the game.. With all due respect, but you should come on the history section in order to learn about fighters who had every newspaper in the land talking about them..
My grandfather watched Harry Greb fight live, and there's a few posters on here who's father's may well have watched him too... Nobodies heroworshiping fighters they haven't seen on film, they've just spent years of their lives studying every aspect of their adversities, and exactly how they became ATG's.. You can't change the fact they're ATG's by comparing them to the fighters of today.. Collectively, we can only speculate on the contrasts of different eras..
If 98% of Ray Leonard footage, suddenly disappeared off the face of the earth, does that mean the boxing fans of 2090 shouldn't rate him?

well said.but heres a prime example of what im talking about and the problem with not being able to see.this is taken from espn which is 1 of todays most credible sports networks.
http://espn.go.com/sports/boxing/blo...owed-roy-jones

"Roy Jones Jr.'s hands don't flash with the lightning rapidity they used to. The days in which he could stand in front of an opponent and make him miss time and again, or stick out his chin with his hands behind his back, then produce a knockout with a punch from seemingly nowhere, are in the past.

At his peak, Jones seemed impossible to hit and barely lost a single round. But he has lost five of his past 10 fights, three of them by knockout, the most recent a first-round stoppage by unheralded Danny Green."

now if there was no vid of roy,and all we had to go were articles.reading that top paragraph would make somebody think he was borderline invincible and superhuman.but weve all seen roy and as incredible as we was,he fought limited opposition.there is no getting around that.

glen kelly was 28-0 when he fought roy,so if i dont know any better and im reading about roy and i see he k.o'd somebody 28-0 with his hands behind his back,my mind would go crazy.but ive seen glenn,and he was a bum.he had no realistic shot at winning that fight regardless of record.so to act as if guys like glenn just suddenly popped up in the 80's is silly.these guys have been around since the beginning of prize fighting.

im not trying to take away these guys status,but i cant put them on the same pedestal as guys im actually able to see.do you agree that seeing is believing?

[r.burgundy]

Your reading comprehension could use a little work my friend. I never made an analogy about slavery. I simply showed that people will believe what the want from history and interpret the rest as they see fit. You never saw Abe Lincoln govern, but its a given he was a great president and rightly so. On the other hand you choose to question the credentials and accomplishments of Greb even though they are rooted in facts. You have interpreted it the way you saw fit giving minimal thought to everything we know about him. THAT was my point.

its not a given abe was a great president because a southerner at that time would tell a different story of abe.

the credentials of greb are rooted in facts but even facts can have an asterisk.for instance,lincoln said if he didnt have to free ******,he wouldnt have.so to a person not knowledgable,all they would know is lincoln freed ****** and therfore no way he could be pro-slavery or racist.but if they knew his intentions and all the facts behind his freeing of the ****** they may view him different.

so yes we know greb is great by his resume,but we cant measure how great cause we dont know much about what his oppenents looked like.theres a huge gray area is all im saying

[StarshipTrooper]

Damn all you edumacated peeps with ur book learnin'

Fixed it for ya

Poet

[r.burgundy]

Fixed it for ya

Poet

yes cause id much rather read about my fav boxer than actually watch him!

[EzzardFan]

post proof that there are less boxers today please?

I'll go one better than that:

From "The Arc of Boxing by Mike Silver", chapter 3:

In 1955 there were 238 professional boxers licensed in Massachsetts, by 2007 there were only 42. Prior to WWII there were over 500. If thats an accurate indicator then it was about 45x easier to become champion in 2007 than it was in 1955.

Another set of figures from the same source estimates 5,000-6,000 licensed boxers US wide in the 1950s, and 2,850 by 2006. If those stats are accurate then it's 16x easier to become champion now than it was in the 1950s.

Still scary numbers none the less.

Now I'm guessing you're struggling to understand where the figure of 45x comes from? OK you take the multiple of the number of (other) licensed boxers, then multiply that by the number of additional weight divisions, then you multiply that by the number of governing bodies issuing titles. So 5.6 x 4 x 2 = 45.33333333333...(ish).

I'll address the rest of your objections when I get back.

PS - You should read that book, several top trainers contributed to it including Emanuel Steward and Teddy Atlas.

[JAB5239]

its not a given abe was a great president because a southerner at that time would tell a different story of abe.

the credentials of greb are rooted in facts but even facts can have an asterisk.for instance,lincoln said if he didnt have to free ******,he wouldnt have.so to a person not knowledgable,all they would know is lincoln freed ****** and therfore no way he could be pro-slavery or racist.but if they knew his intentions and all the facts behind his freeing of the ****** they may view him different.

so yes we know greb is great by his resume,but we cant measure how great cause we dont know much about what his oppenents looked like.theres a huge gray area is all im saying

There are gray area's, Im not denying that. But if you put the pieces together and do the research it isn't nearly as vast as you've made it out to be. We know much about his opponents and even have film of some of his opponents fighting other great fighters.

[louis54]

much easier to become champ now than in the 50s much less between ww1 and ww2.

[r.burgundy]

I'll go one better than that:

From "The Arc of Boxing by Mike Silver", chapter 3:

In 1955 there were 238 professional boxers licensed in Massachsetts, by 2007 there were only 42. Prior to WWII there were over 500. If thats an accurate indicator then it was about 45x easier to become champion in 2007 than it was in 1955.

Another set of figures from the same source estimates 5,000-6,000 licensed boxers US wide in the 1950s, and 2,850 by 2006. If those stats are accurate then it's 16x easier to become champion now than it was in the 1950s.

Still scary numbers none the less.

Now I'm guessing you're struggling to understand where the figure of 45x comes from? OK you take the multiple of the number of (other) licensed boxers, then multiply that by the number of additional weight divisions, then you multiply that by the number of governing bodies issuing titles. So 5.6 x 4 x 2 = 45.33333333333...(ish).

I'll address the rest of your objections when I get back.

PS - You should read that book, several top trainers contributed to it including Emanuel Steward and Teddy Atlas.

great post.im a stats junkie.
but in sports,more does not usually equate to better.especially in boxing.so just cause theyre 238 boxers who are licensed doesnt mean thats 238 potential opponents.you would have to divide 238 by the # of divisions to even began to get a more proper estimate,and taht doesnt even take activity level into account.alotta guys just boxed on the side.i know plenty licensed boxers who have never fought a pro fight.you also must factor in that their are more belts for less boxers which also makes it easier but the difference wont be felt at the top.it will be at the bottom were quality suffers

just noticed your screen name.ezzard was 1 hell of a fighter.skills and power.shame he doesnt get much credit.he's 1 of the few old timers whom i would call legit

[r.burgundy]

There are gray area's, Im not denying that. But if you put the pieces together and do the research it isn't nearly as vast as you've made it out to be. We know much about his opponents and even have film of some of his opponents fighting other great fighters.

all i know of is film of gene tunney,who was very unimpressive as well.ive seen his fights with dempsey, carpientier,and with heeny.i didnt see much to like.he fought with his hands to low,and was wild offensivly.at light heavy i couldnt by any stretch of the imagination see him beating guys like jones jr,holyfield,moorer or spinks

from the 1 video ive seen of greb sparring i couldnt imagine him at 5'8 and by all accounts,feather fisted beating monzon,hagler,jones,hopkins etc etc at middle.i couldnt even see him being competitive

[The Hate Giver]

No it's plain sensible. The boxers today have nowhere near the skills of the boxers that fought from the mid-1920s to the mid-1950s. There are many reasons for this:

That is the exact old school bias im talking about. You would favor a 20s-50s great over a 70s & up great? Not if your life depended on it. You just want to keep preserving history for the sake of keeping fighters you loved growing in such a high pedestal. You keep making it look like old school fighters are so much more superior in every way no new school fighter can overtake them hence you get off in defending & knowing how great a fighter you have never seen fight even if there is no visual evidence. If your life depended on getting the right prediction on a fantasy match up harry greb vs roy jones jr. or marvin hagler you would abandon your biased favoritism with greb.

Less fighters
Less fights. In the early days most fighters fought a minimum of once a month. That meant they's have fought at least 50 times within 4 years, and an average of 100-200 times in their entire career.

Less gyms

Less boxing clubs

Less trainers with less experience.

Poor refereeing, failure to allow infighting which is now essentially a dead art.

For a era so touted in so many great fighters one wonders why great fighters in their prime continue to fight fighters with 15,20,30 losses & even fight fighters who have less than 20 wins. You want to talk about poor refereeing in this era? How about the era where the referee was also the judge? How many robberies took place? At least in the modern era people know the judges & referees name & is show it in television & there is that threat of looking so blatantly corrupt that it somewhat helps in deterring outright shenanigans.

But in the golden era? Controlled heavily by the mafia? Where black people dont even have equal human rights? They are suppose to get a fair shake in sports? Forget about it. No wonder there were so many great white fighters back then when black people didnt have equal rights. As time moves on & social equality & rights are given to all people, the number of great white fighters in all divisions slowly disappear. Are so biased that you think the old school era was free from boxing atrocities & corruption?

Too many 'sports scientists, personal trainers, and nutritionists who earn their living from marketing training and nutrition that has nothing to do with boxing.

Did boxers back then throw right hooks, jabs, lead rights, left hooks differently? Last time i checked they were still the same. & those personal trainers, nutrionists, & sports scientists give modern fighters an edge that old school fighters dont. Yet they are physically inferior? Even though statistics have shown that humans are bigger, stronger, & faster now than they were back then?

Heavyweights that are just too heavy to move. Watching two beached whales is more interesting.

Less experience of losing. see back in the old days nobody cared too much about going undefeated, so they threw good fighters together in the hope of making a good fight. Those tough fights were great experiences. Today it's common place to duck any opponent a contender doesn't feel he can beat, right up until the point he challenges for the title. So what we have now is a bunch so manufactured contenders fighting tomato cans, but no each other, and waiting for their shot at the champ. If a tomato can beats a contender then everyone else ducks him. That's why fighters are so **** these days.

You act as if this generation of fighters are devoid of talent. You act as if pernell whitaker, roy jones jr., floyd mayweather jr., manny pacquiao, lennox lewis are physically & talentley inferior to fighters from the 20s.

A right hook in the 30s is the same right hook in present time. Stop trying to preserve history in order to shield your favorite oldschool fighters from being over taken in the rankings.

Its the same reason why paintings back then will always be better than paintings now. To preserve history.

The high number of KOs we see today is due to A) The lack of defensive skills, and B) because the fights are badly mismatched.


Everything but without the body builder look.

See my point above on how fighters these days have manufactured records. In the old days nobody ducked anyone and as a result there were more hard fights, and more fights that went the distance. The result of this was that people lost to each other a lot more. This experience made them better fighters.

Stop pretending that every single fight that took place in the old school were vs all time great legendary competition. That's not the case & you know it.

So in 20 years when everything goes 3D do we start to discount all the fighters that we only have 2D footage of?

Get a grip!

Can you visually see 2d & make a educated & accurate assumption that a fighter is great?

Yes.

& 3d?

probably even better.

Can you do the same with newspaper accounts & a writers opinions which has a high propensity to be biased & sensationalized?

NO.

3d>2d> old newspaper articles.

You are losing your grip old man.

When fighter A has beaten more fighters and better fighters than fighter B, fighter A has to rank higher. Why would I rank a fighter higher with video footage if I know another fighter has beaten the same caliber of fighters and more of them?

Even if you have never seen them fight & they are what from 50 years ago. If your life & everybody who you hold dear depended on it, who wins?

Prime Harry Greb or Prime Bernard Hopkins?

Well, it's pretty damn obvious why this window-licking spastic is in the red

Poet

You guys take this one. I'm just not in the mood tonight to deal with the nitwit "we don't need no education" crowd.

Poet

At least the *******s worship a great fighter as opposed to dangling from the nutsack of a C-class bum like Wladimir the way you do
Poet

Fixed it for ya
Poet

I respect you poet as a poster, you know your stuff, but for a guy that has information out in this site about his personal life you are too quick to the trigger with the disparaging remarks. You havent said anything about the topic other than to personally bash people you dont personally know.