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

[TheGreatA]

but how much should being a top h.w in a terrible time frame factor in the greatness?
james toney seems to get no props whatsoever for his run at h.w and he came from m.w

Toney gets some credit, but he can only blame himself for getting caught for steroids against Ruiz. His best win at HW that isn't a no contest is over a 40 year old Evander Holyfield. He hardly cleaned the division out of its contenders.

gunboat smith lmao.he fought somebody named gunboat smith.stuff like that is almost impossible to take serious.and no doubt,somebody,likely poet 1st,then jab,will come in here talking about how great gunboat was but this only adds to the sillyness of that era.

It's even more silly that you judge a fighter based on his name. "Gunboat" was only his nickname, like Thomas "Hitman" Hearns. His real name was Ed Smith and he was a top heavyweight for a long time. A white heavyweight who took on black heavyweights, which is deserving of respect considering the era he fought in. He knocked Jack Johnson out of the ring in an exhibition and won a decision over Sam Langford. The man was no joke.

[BennyST]

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

None?

[r.burgundy]

Toney gets some credit, but he can only blame himself for getting caught for steroids against Ruiz. His best win at HW that isn't a no contest is over a 40 year old Evander Holyfield. He hardly cleaned the division out of its contenders.



It's even more silly that you judge a fighter based on his name. "Gunboat" was only his nickname, like Thomas "Hitman" Hearns. His real name was Ed Smith and he was a top heavyweight for a long time. A white heavyweight who took on black heavyweights, which is deserving of respect considering the era he fought in. He knocked Jack Johnson out of the ring in an exhibition and won a decision over Sam Langford. The man was no joke.

toney wasnt on steroids.he took nandrolone for a shoulder injury.his fight with ruiz actually got pushed up,thus the drug still being in his system at the time of the test
i thought dominik guinn was a good win also,but toney absolutely deserves a victory over rahman,and sam peter on his resume.but im glad i got to see the fight to make my own judgement

lmao.i know gunboat isnt his real name lol.i was just commenting on the era in general.it was a real toughman type of time.everybody was tough as nails,and the names reflected that.it doesnt get any tougher than gunboat.well maybe soldier buck or fireman jimmy but hey.
as far as gunboat as a fighter,i'll take your word on it.im no fan of those eras

[TheGreatA]

toney wasnt on steroids.he took nandrolone for a shoulder injury.his fight with ruiz actually got pushed up,thus the drug still being in his system at the time of the test
i thought dominik guinn was a good win also,but toney absolutely deserves a victory over rahman,and sam peter on his resume.but im glad i got to see the fight to make my own judgement

So wasn't on steroids yet in the very next statement you say he took steroids? He may have taken them for injuries but I wouldn't be surprised if he took steroids to mold his physique into that of a heavyweight's. Sure he's overweight at 230 lbs, but he was quite solid at 217 against Holyfield. Greb never weighed more than 170 lbs and was outweighed by 30 to 40 pounds a lot of the time. Toney was no middleweight by the time he fought at heavyweight.

Guinn is decent, but not a top contender and he puts up next to no effort most of the time.

You think he won the first Rahman fight? The rematch was meaningless between two washed up fighters. He arguably won the first fight with an out of shape Peter, but got humiliated in the rematch.

lmao.i know gunboat isnt his real name lol.i was just commenting on the era in general.it was a real toughman type of time.everybody was tough as nails,and the names reflected that.it doesnt get any tougher than gunboat.well maybe soldier buck or fireman jimmy but hey.
as far as gunboat as a fighter,i'll take your word on it.im no fan of those eras

True about the names. It just happens to be that Gunboat Smith was one of the legitimate fighters of the era. Better than a lot of the "white hopes" who refused to take on black opponents that get a lot more credit than he does. However I won't give Greb too much credit for beating Smith as Smith was past his prime by then.

[r.burgundy]

So wasn't on steroids yet in the very next statement you say he took steroids? He may have taken them for injuries but I wouldn't be surprised if he took steroids to mold his physique into that of a heavyweight's. Sure he's overweight at 230 lbs, but he was quite solid at 217 against Holyfield. Greb never weighed more than 170 lbs and was outweighed by 30 to 40 pounds a lot of the time. Toney was no middleweight by the time he fought at heavyweight.

Guinn is decent, but not a top contender and he puts up next to no effort most of the time.

You think he won the first Rahman fight? The rematch was meaningless between two washed up fighters. He arguably won the first fight with an out of shape Peter, but got humiliated in the rematch.



True about the names. It just happens to be that Gunboat Smith was one of the legitimate fighters of the era. Better than a lot of the "white hopes" who refused to take on black opponents that get a lot more credit than he does. However I won't give Greb too much credit for beating Smith as Smith was past his prime by then.

the word steroid is like the word great.a very broad term and unfortunately the undeserving get lumped into 1 big group
true greb never weighed more than 170,but from what ive seen of those old fights they were lawless.ive never read a book on greb but in my limited research,he would make casamayor a clean fighter

dont know if you remember the commentary during toney/jones jr fight but there was talk of him moving up to heavyweight even then.they actually thought his next fight would be up there,so i doubt he needed anything extra to get to h.w

i give gunboat props for that,but the name will stickout more than anything for me.never heard of him before this thread but he's definitely on the google list

[TheGreatA]

the word steroid is like the word great.a very broad term and unfortunately the undeserving get lumped into 1 big group
true greb never weighed more than 170,but from what ive seen of those old fights they were lawless.ive never read a book on greb but in my limited research,he would make casamayor a clean fighter

dont know if you remember the commentary during toney/jones jr fight but there was talk of him moving up to heavyweight even then.they actually thought his next fight would be up there,so i doubt he needed anything extra to get to h.w

He always walked around at 200 lbs, and drained himself to make 160/168 lb. However his physique looks very different in some of his cruiserweight and heavyweight fights. He is by no means fat and overweight here:



It wouldn't surprise me if he did steroids regularly, but I can buy the injury excuse. Usually the true PED users have a way to get around the drug tests, which are far from top class in boxing, but Toney got caught twice. He has to be very ignorant about steroids not to rid his body of them before drug tests, leading me to believe that he probably did take them for injuries.

[BennyST]

=
You think he won the first Rahman fight? The rematch was meaningless between two washed up fighters. He arguably won the first fight with an out of shape Peter, but got humiliated in the rematch.

He definitely won the first fight against Peter. That was a disgrace of a decision. A disgrace GA. Bloody disgrace!

Arguably schmarguably! He whooped Peter as any half skilled fighter should have. Bloody hell, that still gets on my nerves. ****** fight.

[BennyST]

He always walked around at 200 lbs, and drained himself to make 160/168 lb. However his physique looks very different in some of his cruiserweight and heavyweight fights. He is by no means fat and overweight here:

In that fight and around that period of his career, I can definitely see that was probably on the roids for a long time there. He really did look unnaturally buff for a little dude moving up so far. If you look at all the guys who did move up large weights like Toney, they were all short and fat looking, not short and ridiculously muscled, fast sharp etc.

I could certainly see him being on the roids through his whole period from CW to HW. He was twice the size of some of the natural CW's he fought in terms of pure muscle. He was really huge in some of those fights.

[Obama]

But the difference is that he wasn't campaigning for a title shot. By 1919-1920, he was calling Dempsey out and actively taking on highly regarded contenders. Fulton had his ribs broken by Wills in 1920 and was no longer seen as a prime contender. Even Miske took him out inside a single round by 1922. The likes of Miske, Gibbons and Brennan were taken seriously enough as challengers for Dempsey, and they were all beaten by Greb. Wills was already the top contender, so there was no need for him to fight anybody, he deserved the title shot for nearly 10 years and never got it.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=njsuAAAAIBAJ&sjid=AtcFAAAAIBAJ&pg=4775,6344839&dq=harry+greb+sharkey&hl=en

The writer here believes that Dempsey wouldv'e had more problems with the faster Greb than the big, plodding heavyweights. Tunney of course went onto beat Dempsey the next year. Greb also had the better of Dempsey in the sparring sessions they had, which was widely known. Doesn't mean he beats Dempsey, but he could've presented him some problems.

Like I said Greb took on nearly everybody from middleweight up to heavyweight, and nothing that's been said in this thread truly disproves this notion. He was a legitimate top heavyweight from 1920 to 1925.

You're cherry picking a weak small window of time to rate Greb highly. Even Wills wasn't prime for the duration of that window, but still better than Greb. And Fred Fulton still rated higher up until 1922, the man still had to be beaten by someone not the best Heavyweight in the world to get demoted, rib problems or not. Styles make fights, Greb wanted no part for a very good reason.

[TheGreatA]

You're cherry picking a weak small window of time to rate Greb highly. Even Wills wasn't prime for the duration of that window, but still better than Greb. And Fred Fulton still rated higher up until 1922, the man still had to be beaten by someone not the best Heavyweight in the world to get demoted, rib problems or not. Styles make fights, Greb wanted no part for a very good reason.

5 years is a small window of time? It's the truth because he didn't start campaigning for a heavyweight title shot until 1919 when Dempsey became the champ and died in 1926. He fought every notable heavyweight during that period in time except for Dempsey the champion, Wills the top contender and possibly Fulton if you view him as a top heavyweight from 1920 onwards which I don't. I don't see anything wrong with what I've said here, the rest is just nitpicking.