would Greb is p4p number 1?

[billeau2]

The fur is flying in this thread.

[BennyST]

I have plenty of footage to post on Robinson in which i can form an opinion on...how can i say a fighter was so great when i have 0 fottage of him and the footage i have people have to defend?? and yes i know who Jack obrien is i follow the sport just like you so please feel free to climb off of your high horse

Because we do have footage of some of the fighters he beat, and we know they were exceptional. Gene Tunney for instance.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

You know nothing about credibility, as evidenced by your list.







Plenty of fighters, actually.

Name the fighters

[boliodogs]

There is no footage only tall tales. It's human nature to think the best fighters are fighters about the same age as yourself.So guys the same age as Greb would have said he was the best but the guys that are the same age as Robinson will say Robinson was better. Every sport that can be measured improves as time goes by. Any sport that has a record of times and distances is always breaking the old records. It makes no sense that modern boxers would not improve over the old timers. Big money gives good fighters more of a reason to fight pro. Mayweather makes more money in one fight than Greb made in his entire career.

[soul_survivor]

I'm in agreement with Larry, here.
For all I know, Sugar Ray Robinson at welterweight might very well be the finest fighter of all time, but, quite simply, there is no way for me to attest to that.
For me to support that claim, I'd need to be able to witness and assess his performances myself. If proof does not exist, then it is simply left to question.
Sure, resume can help support that position, but once again, we're left with the same problem. You have to accept the strength of his opposition at the time purely on the faith of others' words.

How reliable would it be to declare Picasso the greatest artist of all time without the luxury of being able to actually view his work today?
Would it be enough for you to just be told via word of mouth that, back in the day, people who saw his work were really, really impressed?
What if we never had the musical manuscripts for the works of Mozart and his music could never be recreated or heard again.
Would it be enough for you just to know that the people who did get a chance to hear it back in the 1700s heartily declared it the greatest music of all time, never to be challenged?

Boxing is not an objective sport - hence why we have judges. If boxing was more like sprinting, we wouldn't need video evidence.
If the records of history had shown a man to have run the 100m in 9 seconds flat in the early 1900s, it wouldn't matter how that 9 seconds looked on camera, we could objectively call him the fastest sprinter in recorded history.
Boxing, sadly, cannot be afforded that luxury.
So to say, X is the greatest fighter of all time, having seen little to none of his greatest performances is, I feel, a very sketchy position to hold.
You're relying on the strength of other peoples words.
And that's how myths get started.

Great, great breakdown!!!

I agree with most of it, but the Robinson example is not the best possible.

There is so much footage available of Robinson and some of his best fights, opponents and performances took place at middleweight and even though he was past his best, he still beat the leading fighters at the time and managed to almost beat the reigning LHW champ too. That's some thing for a guy who is past his best and post 30.

So from there, we can extrapolate how great he was in his 20s at 147 and there is some footage available during his reign at 147. Heck, I have even seen very rare footage of his turn in the Golden Gloves, where he was damn fast with cat like reflexes.

There are fighters however, guys like Greb (mentioned so often) who just can't be accounted for. I'd still rank them pretty high based on resume and reports about his fights and skills but to claim he was p4p the best or near the best is ridiculous, how can you do so without seeing him fight or seeing many of his opponents fight? It doesn't sit well with me. And to make such a claim and say that it is definitive and to argue that claim maniacally is even worse.

Was he the best ever? He MAY well have been but there is NO WAY for us to know that. Whereas we can quite clearly tell the likes of Robinson, Ali, Pep, Armstrong, Leonard, Duran and so on deserve to be ranked among the best if not the best.

[I Love Jesus!]

i have to post footage of harry greb to prove that i'm knowledgable about the history of boxing?

by those criteria, nobody is knowledgable about boxing.
that's how a child argues, kid.


i forgot more about the history of boxing in the last 5 years than you will ever know.

lets see your knowledge in the history section. i've been there for years, and i don't recall you posting there once. if you have knowledge of history, that's where you discuss it.

hey ne what part of new england are u from?

[I Love Jesus!]

i don't have a ton of issues with the top 25-50 but 10 is way, way too high.


hagler also was definitely past his prime when leonard fought him. it's an odd case, because leonard himself was so far gone and coming off of a layoff, but that's doesn't mean we credit him for a prime hagler when hagler clearly wasn't still prime.

He was only 31 though although he had a lot of fights. Not leonards fault he liked the sauce

[Spray_resistant]

Can't rate someone on just a record have to see an adequate amount of fights against good opposition otherwise he is Paul Bunion.

[I Love Jesus!]

I see your point but realize that guys dont fight every other week like they did back then,,, With the expansion of television you really only get one shot or maybe a trilogy,,, look at manny-jmm, they have given us 4 great fights and people whine about having to see a 5th, but if it was 70 years ago, jmm and manny would have fought about 8 times...

Who in the 40s beat guys like ATG benetiz for welter belt, nearly prime duran, and made him quit, and defeated the monster that was hearns,,, all in about 2 years time, plus he beat ayublu for the jr mid belt in a tune-up fight,,

SRL career was short but his accomplishments are amazing if you consider that he beat 4 top 100 fighters of all time, and 2 being at their peak, one being near prime, and one being the middleweight kingpin



Hagler and SRL were both past primes,,, but the fact remains that nobody had ended hagler's reign till SRL did,,,
Do you give jermain taylor credit for beating hopkins, or tarver beating roy,, they were past their primes but still the man,,
and as the great ric flair says "TO BE THE MAN YOU GOT TO BEAT THE MAN"

SRL was also a huge underdog in this fight, and lots of people thought hagler would kill him,,, but revisionist history will tell you that hagler was shot and old

NO... Not at all especially the first fight he got a beating. Although I acknowledge it was the last 4 rounds but still. He did nothing either in the first 8

[Sugar Adam Ali]

NO... Not at all especially the first fight he got a beating. Although I acknowledge it was the last 4 rounds but still. He did nothing either in the first 8

I had the first fight a draw,,, hopkins did nothing till the last 4


but what about the rematch,,, Taylor clearly won that