Before Sugar Robinson

W, Tunney at lightheavyweight lost to the MUCH lighter Greb in 1922, and
split the next FOUR fights by all accounts...Remember Tunney was 10-15 pounds HEAVIER than Greb,had 220 bouts less than Greb...So as being
P4P better than Greb, no way....
I don't understand your line about not "having Knowledge of Greb" ? Just look at his astounding record in 300 bouts, beating great HoFamers weighing 15-25 pounds more than Harry, and aside from his prelim bouts, never was KO,D in about 290 fights after,
to the time he retired...And in the last few years, fighting with the sight of ONE EYE...
P.S. In one year in his prime, Harry Greb had 45 bouts, winning them all.
Simply amazing !

 

Benny Leonard I imagine.

 

absolutely agree burt but i know people's knowledge of and appreciation for greb seems to have gone up significantly in the last few years....when ring wrote an article on the top 20 middles of all time before hopkins-delahoya, they ranked greb number 1 but said most readers would never have heard of him.

i think they're right: in the last 5 years or so the general knowledge of greb has gone up quite a bit; only hard cores knew about it previously and even then, much of his record was difficult to discover pre internet. the casual fan simply had never heard of him.

i imagine many writers of the last few decades only knew him by a reputation of his impressive record and toughness but probably weren't able to rank him properly without extensive research. it's a fact i'm spoiled: without the internet i simply would have little idea of greb's greatness

 

Most likely Benny Leonard.

 

Woah hold up there Burt. I never said this is how I feel about Greb and Tunney's ratings as a p4p fighter at all. I was simply saying that Tunney may have been viewed as greater than Greb, so don't try and school me on how you perceive Greb to be, I can make my own judgement thanks . I just think the fact Tunney was able to succesefully win the heavyweight title and retired undefeated at heavyweight with just the one loss, without the knowledge that Dempsey (viewed as one of the greatest HW of all time back then more so than now by many) had visibly deteriorated too the extent that we now know. Surely you must see where I'm coming from??

However this is only an educated assumption. You got any information about who was widely recognised as the p4p best fighter before Ray Robinson's incredible career?

 

Correct N, most casual boxing fans hardly heard of Harry Greb before the internet...To them the"latest is the greatest applied ". I on the other hand first heard the name Harry Greb,when as a young boy who started to go to the fights when my dad took me every week or more,once asked him the question "who was the best fighter you ever saw "? My dad replied "Harry Greb". He then told me when he in 1922 went to old MSG to see his
neighberhood hero Gene Tunney absorb a terrible beating from a fighter named Harry Greb. He told me he never saw so much blood Tunney shed,and my dad would always tell me Greb,so much smaller than Tunney was the best fighter he ever saw, and that included Ray Robinson whom
my dad and I saw several times when Sugar Ray was a welterweight
great...From then on I soaked up tons of information on Harry Greb...
Greb was the real deal...Cheers...

 

W, Tunney was and IS underated. But my saying Greb is always on the best 5 P4P list because P4P means not which fighter would have or did beat whom, but did they go and beat men consistantly out of their weight class, such as A Fitz, Langford, Greb, Walker, Armstrong, Robinson did.
Tunney never fought above his weight class which
is not a knock on him, just a fact...
P.S. Before Ray Robinson, as a boy, Henry Armstrong was considered by many the best P4P fighter, preceeded by Greb, Langford, Fitz...Cheers...

 

I've read contemporary articles where Henry Armstrong is described as the best p4p .... so I guess it must be him.

 

John Edward Kelly if you go back as far as his day...

It was the consensus of several boxing writers and reporters that he would beat John L. Sullivan (widely believed at the time to be the greatest boxer on the planet) if only he were "a little bigger" pretty much the definition of a P4Per.

 

Dempsey the Nonpareil was until Fitz the greatest fighter of his time, but beating the HW John L is beyond his means, unless John L was in his cups...

 

What about aaron pryor

 

It's between Greb and Leonard,..and I say Greb.