Why was Greb ranked as no.1 so late?

I may not be an expert on boxing compared to you guys but no, it's nothing like beating them guys. Comparing either of them to the fighters you listed is ludacris.

 

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Sammy Langford looks pretty damn great to me against Jeanette. He was definitely ahead of his time IMO.

 

in what way?

 

I noticed that in the 1950 vote which Dempsey won, Greb got no support at all-not one vote I believe.

I know some of the old time writers did comment that he was better against big men than he was against men his own size. Speed seems to have given him the most problems.

The lack of film probably hurts him with modern commentators. Greb is a fighter for the record books.

 

Why would a fighter who’s called the best I ever fought…or…the best I ever saw..
By undoubtedly the most impressive and lengthy list of bad asses not take precedence over any sportswriters choices???

This post is simplified for all attending nitwits!!

 

I think that they might be several reasons why, first and foremost being that he wasn't a big puncher with a lot of kos. He wasn't a smooth and stylish boxer. He was a rough and tumble type of fighter and he played fast and loose with the rules. Fritzie Zivic said that, because of Greb, he wasn't even the dirtiest fighter from his own neighborhood.
My guess would be that, if there were tape of Greb fights, a lot of people would scoff at the idea of him being a great fighter...because a lot of people that claim to be boxing fans are really stupid about boxing and don't know what they are looking at most of the time.

 

I think Greb is overrated personally... Top 10 I can see... MAYBE.. BIG MAYBE no. 5... anything before that.. no way... With ZERO video evidence of him..I just can't put him any higher than 5.

 

The Gans win is both very good and overrated at the same time. Let's not forget Gans had to travel by train in order to make it to Boston in time to fight Langford THE DAY AFTER he edged Dave Holly. That same Dave Holly was also good enough to beat Langford himself and fight him tough in other fights until Langford outgrew him in their final match. Holly fought Gans just as tough on multiple occasions.

Giving a guy that kind of credit for outlasting a fighter, even a great one, over 15 rounds the day after he fought someone who's at least the equivalent of a beltholder today isn't taking the full context of the fight into account. Any teen beating Gans is a great win, but there's some caveats to it that never seem to get brought up.

Without those circumstances, and despite being the smaller man, I firmly believe Gans wins as it wasn't until the latter stages of the fight that Sam pulled away.

 

I don't know, haven't seen many rank him at # 1, that spot is still usually taken by SRR on most peoples lists.

Anyway P4P is a myth, a consolation prize for little guys who can't hang with the HW's so I don't waste much time over that.

McGrain made a good post explaining his career & losses.

The reason guys like Langford, Fitzsimmons, & Greb are getting rated higher is because we have access to information & footage at our fingertips. I can just google & look up their records, can look up 100 year old news reports of fights online, can look up footage of fights from over 100 years back.

All of this was close to impossible for your average fan even 20 years back because there was no internet, he might have heard from grandpa about Langford or Greb but there was no way to verify things for himself unless he put in serious time and effort. You had to go to some huge library in a big city, get those stacks of newspapers and comb through them to find the news reports of Langford fights, to find fight footage you had to first find the right collector & pay good money. Look at that Langford-Jeanette fight that's up on youtube, that's only become available to the outside world beyond collectors only recently afaik & it's because of the internet, even a hardcore fan 20 years ago would have never found it where as I found out just by typing in their names.

People here are always crying about how Boxing is not accessible to the casual fan because its not on network TV, I say BS. Boxing today is far more accessible than ever for watching, all you have to do is go on youtube type in Boxing & you get literally 1000s of fights, some of them from over a 100 years ago. Imagine getting Fitzsimmons vs Corbett 20 years ago before the internet era.

So now we have access to information, we find out that these guys were fighting from MW to HW or in Langford's case LW to HW. Not only were they giving HW's competitive fights, they were winning sometimes, that is a huge achievement in any era. Consequently peoples estimations of them are going up, at least that's the way it is for me.

As for "technique" & how they would do today, what exactly is the point?

They were fighting under different rules & conditions, why not ask how today's greats would do as bare knuckle fighters?

If there are unlimited rounds then of course you are gonna clinch more & pace yourself, if the gloves are smaller then you hold your hands lower to parry the punches etc. What might make no sense from today's rules made sense then.

And look at the shitty video technology (compared to today) with which they were filmed, that doesn't give you an accurate picture of what their real capabilities were.

It's a bit like this video only in Black & White & far more grainy:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srrmj6eAFGc"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srrmj6eAFGc[/ame]

Finally these guys were often giving up weight to fight the real best Boxers around (the HW's) & finding success. You can wave that pound for pound trinket all you want but it really doesn't mean much in the real world, just a made up term for smaller guys.

The only thing I have against Greb is that he doesn't have a lot of finishes & finishing fights is important to me. But he was often giving up weight & fighting bigger guys, so that also accounts for the many decision wins.

Edit: And I hate when people bring up silly ball sport nonsense like Basketball & use it as some sort of evidence for "evolution" without realizing that Boxing is far far older & peaked in popularity at an earlier date. You find depictions of Boxing from as far back as 5000 years ago & mentions of it in literature from cultures as diverse as ancient India to Greece to Egypt. 80-90 years is a mere blip in time compared to that. We know that even among Ancient Greeks they used gloves, used similar training methods, had defensive wizards (contrary to the mistaken idea that they were all meat heads swinging away wildly at each other) like Melankomas etc.

Combat sports are far more ancient & there is something innately appealing about them to people, long after the ball sports are dead Boxing will live on as it has for at least 5000 documented years. So to assume that for all those years people didn't know what they were doing in a fist fight & were just swinging away wildly smacks of arrogance, fighters adjust to the rule set in which they fight & when you bring in major changes like gloves its gonna take a bit of time to figure out what works best & what doesn't.

 

This is what Harry Greb was doing in 1919...

Jan 14 Leo Houck Armory A.A., Boston, MA. W 12
Jan 20 Young Fisher Grand Opera House, Syracuse, NY. ND 10 Win
Jan 23 Paul Samson-Koerner Southside Market House, Pittsburgh, PA. ND 10 Win Ed Kennedy
Jan 27 Soldier Bartfield Memorial Hall, Columbus, OH. ND 12 Win Mr. Hughes
Jan 31 Tommy Robson Cleveland A.A., Cleveland, OH. ND 10 Win Bill Gorman
Feb 3 Len Rowlands Southside Market House, Pittsburgh, PA. ND 10 TKO 4 Ed Kennedy
Feb 10 Bill Brennan Olympian Arena, Syracuse, NY. ND 10 Win
Feb 17 Battling Levinsky Broadway Auditorium, Buffalo, NY. ND 10 Win Dick Nugent
Feb 28 Chuck Wiggins Coliseum, Toledo, OH. ND 12 Win Ollie Pecord
Mar 3 Chuck Wiggins Elks Club, Detroit, MI. ND 8 Win
Mar 6 Leo Houck Fulton Opera House, Lancaster, PA. ND 6 Win
Mar 17 Bill Brennan Duquesne Garden, Pittsburgh, PA. ND 10 Win Jack Dillon
(vs. Bill Brennan) Exact Atendance unavailable,
but estimated to be largest crowd at Duquesne Garden since Stanley Ketchel vs. Frank Klaus, March 23, 1910.
Mar 25 Harry "Happy" Howard Cambria Theatre, Johnstown, PA. ND 10 Win Jack Cosgrove
Mar 31 Billy Miske Duquesne Gardens, Pittsburgh, PA. ND 10 Win Jack Dillon
Apr 2 Tommy Madden Majestic Theatre, Butler, PA. ND 10 KO 2
Apr 7 Young "Caveman" Fisher Olympian Arena, Syracuse, NY. ND 10 Win
Apr 8 George "One-Round" Davis Broadway Auditorium, Buffalo, NY. ND 10 Win Dick Nugent
Apr 25 Leo Houck Mercantile Building, Erie, PA. ND 10 Win
Apr 28 Battling Levinsky Auditorium, Canton, OH. ND 12 Win Eddie Davis
May 6 Clay "Cheif" Turner Armory A.A., Boston, MA. W 12
May 8 Willie Meehan Duquesne Gardens, Pittsburgh, PA. ND 10 Win Joe Donnelly
May 13 Bartley Madden Broadway Auditorium, Buffalo, NY. ND 10 Win Joe Suttner
May 26 Tommy Robson Olympian Arena, Syracuse, NY. ND 10 Win
Jun 16 Joe Borrell Shibe Park, Philadelphia, PA. ND 6 TKO 5 Law Grissom
Jun 18 Harry "Happy" Howard Mercantile Building, Erie, PA. ND 10 Win
Jun 20 Yankee Gilbert Park Casino, Wheeling, WV. ND 10 TKO 4 Mr. Waher
Jun 23 Mike Gibbons Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, PA. ND 10 Win Ed Smith
(vs. Mike Gibbons) Attendance: 7,187. Gate: $15,654.00. Greb recieved 30% ($5,218.00) Gibbons got $5,000.00
Jul 4 Bill Brennan Convention Hall, Tulsa, OK. W 15 Ed Cochran
Jul 14 Battling Levinsky Shibe Park, Philadelphia, PA. ND 6 Win
Jul 16 George "KO" Brown Park Casino, Wheeling, WV. ND 10 Win Joe Donnelly
Jul 24 Joe Chip Idora Park, Youngstown, OH. ND 12 Win Mike McHale
Aug 11 Terry Keller Highland Park, Dayton, OH. W 15
Aug 23 Bill Brennan Forbes Field, Pittsburgh, PA. ND 10 Win
Sep 1 Jeff Smith Idora Park, Youngstown, OH. ND 12 Win Mike McHale
Sep 3 Battling Levinsky State Fair Grounds, Wheeling, WV. ND 10 Win
Sep 18 Silent Martin Coliseum, St. Louis, MO. ND 8 Win Mr. Helsner
Oct 13 Sailor Ed Petroskey Olympia A.C., Philadelphia, PA. ND 6 Win
Nov 17 George "KO" Brown Auditorium, Canton, OH. ND 12 Win
Nov 24 Larry Williams Southside Market House, Pittsburgh, PA. ND 10 Win Louden Cambell
Nov 27 Zulu Kid Nonpareil Club, Beaver Falls, PA. ND 10 Win Al Watson
Nov 28 Soldier Jones Broadway Auditorium, Buffalo, NY. ND 10 KO 5 Joe Suttner
Dec 10 Clay "Cheif" Turner Broadway Auditorium, Buffalo, NY. ND 10 Win Joe Suttner
Dec 12 Mike McTigue Ideal Pavilion, Endicott, NY. ND 10 Win
Dec 15 Billy Kramer Southside Market House, Pittsburgh, PA. ND 10 Win Louden Campbell
Dec 22 Clay "Cheif" Turner National A.C., Philadelphia, PA. ND 6 Win

This **** reads like science fiction. Did any fighter ever have a better year?

 

Why is Greb ranked as No.1 these days ? Simple answer ...Cause he was !...To say he is a product of the internet is silly...He is a "product " of the internet because you and I are on it, but as a kid ,speaking to oldtimers who saw Greb and reading old boxing books
Harry Greb was an almost legendary figure, with an almost surreal record against
anyone and everyone...Just to ponder the fact that this 160 pounder, beat LHs like tunney, Gibbons, Dillon, Battling Levinsky, Rosenbloom, heavyweights like Gunboat Smith, Billy Miske, Big Bill Brennan, Willie Meehan ,etc on an almost weekly basis in a 300 fight career, and get this with only ONE EYE for the last few years, is mind boggling
to behold....Robinson was more beautiful to watch, but Greb was a force of nature
always getting the JOB DONE...

 

Well comparing Riddick bowe a 235 pound heavyweight to a 210 heavyweight in wills first of all. Second of all the fact that Langford lost multiple times to wills. So infact it would be like beating Riddick bowe then losing to him multiple times, not JUST beating Riddick bowe. If you argue that Langford was out of his prime therefore Holyfield loss shouldn't be taken into account against Lewis because he outweighed him and Holyfield was out of his prime. However I'm sure it doesn't work like that with many of you guys.

Maybe I put to much weight on a loss when comparing fighters ATGness

p4p on this forum has been lost anyway IMO. I thought the idea of p4p was that if everyone was in the same weight class who would win, which is the reason why the likes of tommy hearns, chris Eubank etc have completely different lists to you guys. They base it on who would win rather than all their accomplishments which us obviously where Sam is rated so highly because H2H he'd get destroyed by the likes of Duran, Whitaker etc at lightweight and so on.

 

On the.subject of Greb: I think its impossible, if you're not from America to state the influence New York and the east coast has on American culture. New York is our Mecca the USA answer to London or Paris and as the song goes if you can make it there you can make it anywhere. In the united states pretty much everything west of Philadelphia is considered 'west', even though you haven't actually hit the middle of the country yet.

All the other suspects on a p4p list hit it big in new York. Ali had his tussle with Doug Jones and the fight of the.century. Dempsey had his most.dramatic victory and Louis most important wins all took place in the big apple. Ray Robinson was practically a new York native and Harlem's darling.

Greb never had that. He was disliked in new York and preferred to fight elsewhere. Back before television made this a smaller country the new York papers were essentially the news. If they didn't like you, or worse ignored you you might as well not exist.

so Greb's legend faded. Leonard (who was a new York native) took his place as best non heavyweight of the era. But as for someone who was actually there... Grantland Rice (the guy who coined the phrase it is not whether you win or lose but how you play the game) called Greb once of the greatest offensive forces he had ever seen over a career that spanned 40 odd years, in any sport. So when a bunch of sports writers don't list Greb on a top five list don't assume it means much. The same guys wouldn't list pernell Whittaker either.