When he was fighting were people saying he was the best fighter p4p of all time? Also if you go back like 30/40 years every historian and boxing fan was calling Sugar Ray the best fighter p4p, which they did even in 1950 (while he was close to his prime.) Even today some people say Sugar is the best. Greb is without a doubt the best fighter to me in terms of record and that makes him the best fighter pound for pound. Just wondering why that title came to him so late?
No Langford? See you had guys from the old days saying Fitz, Gans etc. were the best. With Greb? I dunno.
He's number 5 after armstrong. Yeah I know as a casual fan i'd never even heard of greb so I wonder why his name seems to be so deeply buried. I know his victory over tunney received great reports though.
I still don't understand why Langford is rated so highly Edit: or the fact that people pick the likes of greb over many modern day middleweights. Honestly that video of him sparring is just god damn awful for modern day times. I respect the fact that the game has evolved a considerable amount since then, but I feel as if everyone on ESB is a sheep about it. They see the great posters of ESB put Greb and Langford in their top 10 p4p so they feel like they have to follow them.
Robinson is the best ever, show me visual evidence that he is not..... Ray has the record AND the film combined to support this.
'Pound for pound' is ultimately so subjective. Think what you are trying to do; find the best fighter 'pound for pound' from the 85lbs man in the 1850's to the 400lbs fighter in 2012, with every shape and size in between, over the last 150 or so years. Because of the lack of generally acknowledged expert essays, that could create credible theories to answer the question; what happens is the so called 'experts' of a particular time give their opinion, which is generally considered 'definitive' by the mainstream. 'Experts' come and go and have their own agendas and opinions, thus the lists change. And in more recent times, the Internet has come along, leading to a lot more people giving their two pence.
going back to the thread, i think the question is more when did greb become so well respected again and when did his name get dug out of the archives as it were. when ring did their top 20 middleweights of all time before the hopkins-dlh fight, he was #1. i was a little surprised because while i'd heard of him, i knew very little of his true worth. i think the greb revival began on the forum in earnest about 3 years ago and while he was always rated highly, became a near consensus number 1-3 at that point. in terms of the mainstream though, was there a point when historians started singing grebs praises from the rooftops? was there a year, maybe when his footage was discovered or his resume re-examined?
At 17 he outboxed a primed Joe Gans. Aged thirty-three he ko'd Harry Wills with a single punch in the 19th round. So think about someone outboxing prime Whitaker before moving up through the divisions and knocking out prime heavyweight Holyfield in the 11th. That would be enough to get a modern fighter to p4p top 5, never mind an old-timer with wins over a raft of other top men and ATG's at multiple weights.
I do not believe the mainstream think much of Greb. Harry Greb seems to be a phenomenon of the Internet 'experts'; an 'insiders' pick.
Klompton blames multiple conflicting newspaper accounts and writers with an agenda against him. Robinson on the other hand happened to be of america's favorite racial group during the 40s and 50s and was known as a real sweetheart out of the ring. That's why he got his due in his own time.
He also drew and lost to a bunch of nobody's so why does that not count for anything? (I respect the fact that many fighters he fought have records that are unfinished, however it's not like they were ATGs he was against) what about Bryd then? Natural SMW beating Vitali who could be considered an ATG heavyweight.
still can't believe his record across weights, i've said it before but if you give him credit for newspaper wins he beat... gans-top 3 lightweight walcott-top 10 welter ketchel-top 10 middle flowers-top 20 middle o'brien-top 20 light heavy wills-top 20 heavy those names along are ridiculous. taking your analogy further that would be akin to ONE fighter beating... duran, ray leonard, hopkins, fullmer, joe calzaghe, riddick bowe all while weighing under 170 pounds.