A Question About Harry Greb........

[Fighting Marine]

How much of an impact does his legacy take from the lack of fight footage we have of him?

His resume and accomplishments are beyond repute but there is always a tendency to overrate the man when reading about his fights and fighting style based on eye-witness accounts, articles etc.

Is he overrated on P4P lists? Should he be ranked above the other greats we have footage of? How can we truly gage his greatness based on articles and No fight footage at all?

He has taken up a 'mythical' status in the sport.

thoughts........

Poet

[StarshipTrooper]

Nice to see you finally dropped the . at the end of "Poet". At least if you're going to copy someone you can make an effort to get it right :nono9:

Poet

[Fighting Marine]

Nice to see you finally dropped the . at the end of "Poet". At least if you're going to copy someone you can make an effort to get it right :nono9:

Poet

Lol thanks for the advice. Back to the topic at hand mate. What do you make of Harry Greb being rated so high on ATG lists? Take into account we have no footage of him fighting at all.

Poet

[Sugarj]

Well, firstly its not Greb's fault that he wasn't filmed. He, like many others was a victim of the times.

He does have a fantastic record, the close fights with Gene Tunney confirm that he did have ability. That said he did beat a fair share of nobodies too!!

The footage that does exist..........and there is even some on You-Tube shows a very open, off balance and shockingly defensively deficient pugilist from a bygone era. The footage isn't particularly grainy or flicker film either. Johnson, Dempsey and Tunney seem light years ahead on a skill set. I despair that Tunney even lost to him, if Greb fought like he sparred! But granted, Tunney seemed to peak around the time of the Carpentier fight so its hard to say how good Gene was at the time of his only loss.

I seriously doubt that Dempsey avoided Greb, he would have been surely squashed like Carpentier was.

That said, he was clearly a pound for pound great in his day and deserves to be listed as an ATG. I just cant see him doing well in any era except his own. I think he'd be annihilated in most of the middleweight division's era's, certainly from the 50s onwards.

If he was matched with a peak Robinson, Monzon, Hagler or Hopkins he would be beaten in a sickening fashion in my opinion. Some fighters do stand the test of time in my opinion, I think Tunney and Dempsey would do very well against modern cruiserweights for instance.

But sadly I cant find a place for Greb on my own pound for pound top ten...............or anywhere near.

That said, there are a number of ways to rate a boxer, on legend or on ability. His legend is great, his ability is questionable without more footage.

Saying he would mix well with modern middleweight greats is ridiculous. Its like saying Hercules or Samson would win today's 'World's Strongest Man' competition.

[TheGreatA]

Well, firstly its not Greb's fault that he wasn't filmed. He, like many others was a victim of the times.

He does have a fantastic record, the close fights with Gene Tunney confirm that he did have ability. That said he did beat a fair share of nobodies too!!

The footage that does exist..........and there is even some on You-Tube shows a very open, off balance and shockingly defensively deficient pugilist from a bygone era. The footage isn't particularly grainy or flicker film either. Johnson, Dempsey and Tunney seem light years ahead on a skill set. I despair that Tunney even lost to him, if Greb fought like he sparred! But granted, Tunney seemed to peak around the time of the Carpentier fight so its hard to say how good Gene was at the time of his only loss.

I seriously doubt that Dempsey avoided Greb, he would have been surely squashed like Carpentier was.

That said, he was clearly a pound for pound great in his day and deserves to be listed as an ATG. I just cant see him doing well in any era except his own. I think he'd be annihilated in most of the middleweight division's era's, certainly from the 50s onwards.

If he was matched with a peak Robinson, Monzon, Hagler or Hopkins he would be beaten in a sickening fashion in my opinion. Some fighters do stand the test of time in my opinion, I think Tunney and Dempsey would do very well against modern cruiserweights for instance.

But sadly I cant find a place for Greb on my own pound for pound top ten...............or anywhere near.

That said, there are a number of ways to rate a boxer, on legend or on ability. His legend is great, his ability is questionable without more footage.

Saying he would mix well with modern middleweight greats is ridiculous. Its like saying Hercules or Samson would win today's 'World's Strongest Man' competition.

So basically what you're going by is some 30 seconds of film footage where he is shown clowning around with an old timer in Philadelphia Jack O'Brien? Thankfully more footage of Tunney exists than his sparring session with Jim Corbett because his record is inferior to Greb's and he looks just as bad on that film.

It's difficult to ignore that Greb has arguably the greatest resume of all time. He fought nearly everybody from middleweight up to heavyweight, and the only people that he didn't fight ducked him, including Dempsey who defended his title against Greb left-overs. Thus he has to be included atleast in the top 10 of any pound for pound list that puts emphasis on record. As for his ability, it can't be judged on film, but I've seen plenty of his opponents on film and Greb had to be pretty good to score wins over them.

On film I've seen Greb's opponents like

Gene Tunney
Tommy Loughran
Jimmy Slattery
Mickey Walker
Mike Gibbons
Tommy Gibbons
Kid Norfolk
Mike O'Dowd
Bill Brennan
Mike McTigue
Al McCoy
George Chip
Jimmy Delaney

and they all look good, some great, which is why it's difficult for me to believe that Greb fought like a caveman compared to them, considering that he beat them. If he did fight ugly then it sure must've been effective. Sandy Saddler had poor boxing skills but no one can deny that he was effective and probably a top 50 ATG if not better. I doubt Greb had poor boxing skills though since he was praised by the likes of Gene Tunney, who was a master-boxer.

[r.burgundy]

i personally dont put a ton of stock in these guys.you have to respect his record but i think the word "great" is too broad a word.tunney is supposed to be some great fighter but i watch video and see nothing special whatsoever.50 years from now we could say vitali beat the great nigerian sam peter.anybody who has seen sam knows he isnt great,but as far as nigerian heavys go,he is the = of mike tyson,so he is a great fighter for his country.boxing fans have the hardest time excepting the obvious.majority of guys are only good for thier eras

[Obama]

He fought nearly everybody from middleweight up to heavyweight, and the only people that he didn't fight ducked him

Let's not get carried away now. Here's my list of the 10 best Heavyweights from the 1920s (unnatural Heavyweights included):

1. Harry Wills
2. Jack Dempsey
3. Jack Sharkey
4. Gene Tunney
5. Max Schmeling
6. Fred Fulton
7. Young Stribling
8. Harry Greb
9. Sam Langford (Post-Prime)
10. Tommy Gibbons

Now Greb only fought Tommy Gibbons and Gene Tunney of the lot. He went 2-2 with Gibbons, and 1-3-1 with Tunney (newspaper decisions included). In other words, he didn't have a winning record. Neither of those guys were natural Heavyweights, while most on the rest of the list were. So Dempsey ducked him, but that leaves another 6 guys he could have fought. They duck him too?

[TheGreatA]

Let's not get carried away now. Here's my list of the 10 best Heavyweights from the 1920s (unnatural Heavyweights included):

1. Harry Wills
2. Jack Dempsey
3. Jack Sharkey
4. Gene Tunney
5. Max Schmeling
6. Fred Fulton
7. Young Stribling
8. Harry Greb
9. Sam Langford (Post-Prime)
10. Tommy Gibbons

Now Greb only fought Tommy Gibbons and Gene Tunney of the lot. He went 2-2 with Gibbons, and 1-3-1 with Tunney (newspaper decisions included). In other words, he didn't have a winning record. Neither of those guys were natural Heavyweights, while most on the rest of the list were. So Dempsey ducked him, but that leaves another 6 guys he could have fought. They duck him too?

There was no point in time when he could've fought Schmeling, Sharkey or Stribling. Langford was old and blind when Greb started campaigning as a heavyweight. So there was Harry Wills, a 6'3, 210-220 lb man who deserved a shot over Greb even and possibly Fulton, who was 6'6, but Fulton was at his best in the late 1910's.

1924 Ring Magazine heavyweight rankings:

1. Jack Dempsey, Champion
2. Harry Wills
3. Tommy Gibbons
4. Charley Weinert
5. Quintin Romero Rojas
6. Jack Renault

Greb had wins over bolded.

He also had wins over some of Dempsey's best opponents such as Billy Miske, Bill Brennan, Battling Levinsky, Gunboat Smith, Willie Meehan.

[TheGreatA]

Greb signed to fight Young Stribling in 1924, although Stribling was not yet a heavyweight then, but it was post-poned and then called off.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...ing+greb&hl=en

Stribling then apparently refused to take Greb on.

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/...B&pqatl=google

[Sugarj]

Hi GreatA,

Its true and a bit churlish of me to judge Greb on the small footage available. I, like yourself am a video nut and I like to judge fighters on what I can see.

I was one who was very impressed at sparring videos of the likes of Jim Corbett and Jack Johnson when they were old men. I saw no such spark/genius in what is available of Greb.

Granted, I too have seen videos of some of Greb's opponents.....and many fought very well. As I said in my previous post he was clearly a pound for pound great for his day and deserves to be remembered as an ATG.

I'm possibly a little more vocally critical of Greb because so many list him top 5 of all time on the basis of his record and fight reports. Its not his fault of course.