Greb biography

[JAB5239]

Thanks for the info I need to read up on Greb.

Anytime my friend. It turned out to be a very good book with excellent description of his fights and style from various writers, fighters and newspaper accounts. From what I gathered he had excellent footwork darting in and out and his hand speed was said to be better than even the great Benny Leonard. His style (in my mind) would have been like Naseem Hamed (throwing from odd angles), minus the power but with a much, much higher work rate and without the fancy showboating. His dominance was like that of Floyd Mayweather, hardly losing rounds but taking on all the best fighters of his era. Simply put, he is arguably the greatest fighter ever based on resume, longevity and dominance of his contemporaries and HAS to be included in any such debate.

[$Bullsfam$]

Jab did you read "give them to the angels" by Harry Greb? I was gonna take a drive to the library to see if they might have it then I looked at an amazon ad for it and it was like $100 hahaha. FAT ****IN CHANCE!

[Scott9945]

curious to know what your interpretation is of "First hand accounts"... is it some 40yr old writer who writes the autobiography after doing his research or a 92yr old Legendary trainer who saw them fight with his own eyes and expresses his opinion of their greatness.

Specifically I'm referring to writers who covered their fights live. Whether they are still alive now isn't important. They were there and wrote about what they saw. Clear enough?

[Steak]

Well, if were going to call Greb #1 all time, were going to have to dissect his record.

I know he has wins over Rosenbloom, Loughran, Mickey Walker and Tiger Flowers. pretty damned good list of wins already. Add in his win over Tunney and you can surely start to make a pretty good case for him.
Want to add in some other notable wins? then we can start comparing his wins to Robinson's.

I dont like to rate fighters Ive never seen. But for Greb I might have to make an exception. I may not have seen Greb, but Ive seen footage of who he beat, and they were some pretty impressive fighters.

[CarlosG815]

Dempsey would have killed Greb.

[JAB5239]

Dempsey would have killed Greb.

Maybe, maybe not. But the fact remains that Greb twice humiliated him in sparring and Dempsey avoided a fight with him choosing instead to fight guys Greb had already beaten.

[JAB5239]

Well, if were going to call Greb #1 all time, were going to have to dissect his record.

I know he has wins over Rosenbloom, Loughran, Mickey Walker and Tiger Flowers. pretty damned good list of wins already. Add in his win over Tunney and you can surely start to make a pretty good case for him.
Want to add in some other notable wins? then we can start comparing his wins to Robinson's.

I dont like to rate fighters Ive never seen. But for Greb I might have to make an exception. I may not have seen Greb, but Ive seen footage of who he beat, and they were some pretty impressive fighters.

Contenders Greb beat.

Jack Blackburn *
Jackie Clark
Willie Neehan
Lou Bogash
Jimmy Darcy
Johnny Wilson
Clay Turner
Leo Houck
Billy Miske *
Gunboat Smith
Mike O'Dowd
Al McCoy
Tommy Gibbons *

Champions Greb beat.

George Chip
Battling Levinski *
Jack Dillon *
Mike McTigue
Gene Tunney *
Mike Gibbons *
Kid Norfolk *
Tiger Flowers *
Jimmy Delaney *
Mickey Walker *
Maxie Rosenbloom *
Tommy Loughran *
Jimmy Slattery
Johnny Wilson

Asterisks indicate IBHOF members.

Many of these guys Greb fought several times and unlike many of his contemporaries Greb was not afraid to fight the best black fighters.

[JAB5239]

Jab did you read "give them to the angels" by Harry Greb? I was gonna take a drive to the library to see if they might have it then I looked at an amazon ad for it and it was like $100 hahaha. FAT ****IN CHANCE!

The book is mentioned as a tool the author of "The Fearless Harry Greb" used as a tool in writing his own book but found useless because it wasn't based on facts, but myth that the author chose to keep exaggerating instead of getting to the root of them. The reason it is so expensive is that its a very rare book. I'd like to have it for my slowly growing collection, but I can't see spending that kind of money on something I can't learn anything from. If I made more than my humble income I might have bought it just to have it but what can you do?

[crold1]

Where can I find footage of Greb or Langford? I can't find *****. Is books the only thing I can do? I wanna see this guys everybody always says are arguably better then Robinson.

I always thought Robinson was undisputedly the best. I just don't think I could make any opinions of the matter since their ain't no footage on those guys. It's hard to rank them.

The funny thing is, by your argument, you could never really have an opinion on who the GOAT time is because it would never be possible, without seeing them, to say they WEREN'T either.

Which is correct in so many ways.

Whether one has seen them all or not (and no one has seen them all).

Why?

Because, when it gets to the level of a Robinson, Langford, Greb, Charles, Armstrong, Duran...it's splitting hairs at some point and history can never put them all in the ring together.

In other words, we never saw them fight each other (where reasonable).

At that point, it's okay to say "all these people who lived in his time couldn't be wrong" as a factor in evaluation. In the case of Greb, watching tape of the guys he beat is a big clue.

Rock on.

[JAB5239]

your correct in that it is impossible to say who was the greatest of all time because no layman ever seen all the greats fight and to make that vital judgement that one certain fighter was the best of all time, so we must go with our own thoughts of what we have read and what we have seen along side clippings and articles from respected people who did see many of those greats from yesteryear fight.. Ray Arcel who is almost universally recognised as the greatest trainer in the history of the sport so would know exactly what it took to be special in the prize ring was born in 1899 and was involved in boxing all his life training greats like Benny Leonard, Gene Tunney, Freddie Steele right through to Roberto Duran is the person who's word i personally respect over any other layman. Ray Arcel said,"When thinking about who was the greatest fighter of all time one should think of only one fighter and that is Jack Dempsey, he would have beaten everyone"... just a thought!

Yet Dempsey avoided Greb after being whooped in sparring, preferring to take on fighters Greb had already thrashed. Interesting to say the least.