Why is there no fight footage of Harry Greb?

[chrisJS]

Maybe they will turn up in someone's attic someday. Or at some yard sale.

Hopefully. Obviously VHS only really came around decades after Greb’s death so it would have had to be on an old film somewhere and also had to have survived. You never know. Some older stuff has came to surface. It’s not like Greb wasn’t respected. People knew he was extra special so you’d think someone at that time wanted to preserve the footage. His latter years his fights were considered uglier though when he only had one working eye he became a dirty fighter. Maybe the film recorded was the latter years and the fights were ugly? That said it’s confirmed the Walker fight was filmed and that was considered an instant classic.

[billeau2]

There are plenty of films of him training but The highlights of his fighting career came long before TV started showing boxing. For example, Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, which showed plenty of boxing and many of the classic fights we can access today, started 20 years after Greb passed away. Previous to that, most matches were on 8mm films.

Bingo! lights! Jackpot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNE6V_RyBwg

Lol sorry TBear did not mean to get carried away but I am in Northern Nevada and every time you get a bite, a drink, etc you are in a Casino!!

[QueensburyRules]

- -There was once a collector on ye aulde CBZ who had perhaps the only copy of a rare Quarry fight and wouldn't sell or copy for all the tea in China.

Nice guy, friendly, and unabashedly intro me to his beautiful new wife at a match we were covering.

Could be some well to do collector bought up every Greb fight for future profit to put in a wooden box in his attic. Now maybe he died prematurely or his house caught on fire, or maybe it's still waiting for its new premiere.

We can't wait forever, but Time can. May be in crumbles. Who can know?

[Anthony342]

If filmed and rebroadcast on TV at some point, then maybe a few fights will turn up, you never know. They just found a Bret Hart WWF match thought to be lost from 1986 that was just found by a collector and debuted on their streaming service this week, but of course, not as long ago, but you never know.

[Redd Foxx]

One thing to keep in mind is the nature of film. It was expensive back in the day and was often recorded over if the footage wasn't deemed valuable. Older film (not suitable to record anything new on) was bulky and expensive to store so it often got disposed of. Also, it's extremely common for it to get damaged over the years. I've seen trailers for movies that were played around the US but the movies themselves no longer exist because the original reels were all either dumped, damaged, or recorded over.

[QueensburyRules]

- -Oh, let us not forget "they" managed to lose all the first moon landing footage from 1969.

Luckily "they" ain't in charge of everything...yet!!!

[lopetego]

Harry Greb is just a myth

I wouldn't be surprised if he was some bum controlled by the mafia or some criminal organization that was behind that great resume of his

they probably forced a lot of his opponents to take dives and throw fights, so they could win money with Greb

then they destroyed all the footage so nobody would find out this Greb guy was just a chump with a manufactured career

[NChristo-]

No legit answer been given yet ?, the majority of his fights (of which we know were definitely recorded) were recorded on a type of film which degrades rapidly over time (cannot think of the name off the top of my head, been awhile since this was brought up), his bout with Tiger Flowers was 100% recorded but it's not salvagable because it's too damaged. Same with Tiger Flowers himself though, there was a documentary on Flowers' life and a number of his bouts which were all recorded but we'll never get to see any of it because of irrepairable damage, film back then wasn't as it is today, to put it lightly.

If Greb was 5 years later or earlier chances are we'd have some kind of professional footage from his bouts, but as it is, it's a huge inconvience that he was in that timeframe, one of the many unfortunate coincidences in life I guess.

I still have a feeling that something will turn up eventually though, maybe his bout with Flowers did survive and we'll be able to see the 2 forgotten masters going at it, both at their best, maybe we'll get to see scraps of him mauling Gene Tunney in the 14th round of one of their fights, I refuse to believe every frame of him has been removed from our viewing one way or another.

Something will come through eventually.

[NChristo-]

Harry Greb is just a myth

I wouldn't be surprised if he was some bum controlled by the mafia or some criminal organization that was behind that great resume of his

they probably forced a lot of his opponents to take dives and throw fights, so they could win money with Greb

then they destroyed all the footage so nobody would find out this Greb guy was just a chump with a manufactured career

I hope this is being facetious, if it's not sarcastic, you're a mongoloid mate.

[Blue54]

Some of his fights were filmed his Fight with Flowers and Walker fight it was said a private collocter had films of his walker fight and films of him sparring but they were supposlfu burned in a fire.

Another source said one filmed was supposedly sent threw mail to Jim Jacobs but got lost and never arrived.

Tbh Grebs fights were from 1930s which most likely have deteriorated since then but for years the same thing was said about Sam Langford and his films were eventually found hopefully someday someone finds atleast on fight of Greb.