Why doesn't Greb have any footage?

I admit, I was once told by a collector friend that they'd had bad dealings with Klompton. Perhaps he was telling the truth, perhaps there were some crossed lines BECAUSE....



I have only had BRILLIANT dealings with Klompton. Absolutely fantastic correspondence, very generous, and more than happy to help provide me with stuff I would never had seen otherwise. And I am cantankerous, and weary of dealing with people without having a chance to meet face-to-face (Klompton and I are separated geographically by some distance)

Klompton has found things I never thought I'd see in my life. First time we spoke, he had a lead on two fights I never even knew had been filmed. I admit, I was cautious. The thing I asked him about, and he was about to get it? Seemed a little convenient.

Lo and behold, he got it. Crystal clear. Rare as rocking horse poop.

Top guy is Klompton. And we've had our differences in debates in the past, but as a bloke, he is sound as a pound. As a collector, one of the very best and most generous guys I've ever dealt with.

 

**** i didn't know that is it the full fight and how do they look? Alot of infighting or did Apostoli box more?

Weren't clips from Flowers/Greb supposed to have been used in his documentary?

 

For the record, I have nothing personally against the guy, except when he's misleading about the truth then calls other lairs on facts he is not aware of. Like I said he has burned his share of bridges.

Most collectors will be nice and sweet if you have enough money or something they want to trade with.

 

Don't condescend me. I know more about collecting than you do.

If anyone is a liar, it's you.

 

Klompton has exposed his lies many times.

 

I dont really believe that Flowers-Greb was shown in the Flowers documentary. Partly because the Flowers film was a docudrama (not an actual documentary) that had actually been completed two years prior to his fights with Greb but failed to get any distribution. They may have tacked on an intertitle or pictures or staged footage of a Greb bout but I have not seen any evidence that actual footage was shot for the film. Rickard was essentially in charge of the promotion via MSG and he was pretty savvy about films and film rights. I doubt very seriously if he would have let them film for inclusion in the picture without getting a cut. If he were going to do that he probably would have filmed the whole thing and Ive never seen it advertised anywhere, no copyright filing, nothing. Id say the odds are slim to none that it was actually filmed.

The Apostoli-Thil fight is good. It is not complete. Just HLs (as most Jacobs promoted cards are), part of the Carnival of Champions. Thil looks very good. He was a great inside fighter and caught Apostoli with some hellacious short punches coming in. He had a knack for letting Apostoli come to him, take a half step back and then fire short hooks, crosses, and uppercuts. Kind of walking Apostoli into the punches. He was winning the fight but got stopped on a cut. IMO it was a controversial stoppage. Thil certainly didnt want it stopped. Apostoli is a puzzle to me. He looks like a monster against Steele (who was admittedly not at his best) but never really impresses me outside of that fight. Thil on the other hand was done a disservice in this country. He was a great fighter.

 

No, I dont think I have every fight known to exist pre-WW2. I think a more accurate statement would be I have every fight I want pre-WW2 that I know to my own satisfaction exists and believe with a relative degree of high probability that those fights I dont have I could acquire if/when I want. Im not speaking exclusively of old pre-WW2 fights though. Ive always said that knowing a film exists is half the battle. Once I know that, if its something Im interested in, the hunt is on. I havent failed in getting anything I am interested in yet so I think I am justified in having confidence in my ability to continue. If I find something I want, and I cant get it easily or immediately, I find out what it will take to get it and work toward that goal. If there is something a guy wants, specifically, to trade for it I get that for him. Maybe a guy has rare boxing film but isnt interested in boxing. He is interested in baseball. Fine, I find out what he wants baseball-wise and get it for him. If a guy wants money I work with him on it. etc etc. Thats why Ive never understood why some say Im bragging when Ive posted photos or such of some of the stuff I have. Because know I have something means you can get it somehow someway. It exists and thats half the battle. For instance, if someone had a copy of Henry Armstrong-Lew Jenkins (a film Ive been looking for which is presumed lost) and wanted to wave it in my face and brag that they have it I wouldnt be upset or care that they may be trying to brag. Id be overjoyed that it exists because then there is a greater probability that I would be able to see it, or better yet acquire it. Contrary to some stuff like that makes my day. I also have enough experience in this to know that for most it is human nature to want to release this stuff and get their 15 mins. of fame from us internet guys. As a relatively young guy I feel that if I know something exists time is on my side. Things change, people die, collections change hands, etc etc. The odds are that those fights which are hard to get (I cant really think of any off hand) will come to light some day in more negotiable situations. So currently Ive checked off pretty much all of the fights I wanted that I considered very rare. Whatever else is left I can either live without, already have in some form or another, dont want, or could/will get when I get around to it. This all comes off as sort condescending but its not. I wish someone told me this 20 years ago. It took a long time to learn that there is always a way and that the best thing you can do to get ahold of some of this stuff is to make yourself valuable to the person who has it. Believe me, if I can get it anyone can.

 

Thanks for a long and detailed reply... and no, it didn't come off condescending at all! You explain, matter-of-factly, your interest in these rare fight films and how you go about acquiring them. Nothing wrong with that.

If you don't mind me asking - how many (approx.) fights do you have in your collection, and how much space do they take up (just being curious!)?

 

Honestly Ive never counted my collection. Id like to but I think its out of hand now. Space-wise its spread out between DVDs, VHS tapes, Films, and Harddrives. I can say I have probably 2000 to 2500 DVDs, a few terrabytes of HD space, and I dont know how many VHS tapes which comprises the majority of my collection and which I am slowly transferring to digital. The VHS tapes take up the majority of the space which is several large boxes in my basement taking up a small room. Id love to get rid of these things to be honest. Im not nostalgic for stuff like that and think the tapes are a waste of time and space. Im slowly trying to digitize everything: magazines, radio broadcasts, films, files, articles, and photos. Id like to index it all for easy reference and then at some point put it all online in a sort of online archive.

 

Wonderful responce more than i was expecting thanks. Do you also have the Apostoli vs Glen Lee footage? He doesn't look impressive there either?

 

Yeah I have the Lee fight. There are several films of Apostoli actually. I dont really remember the Lee fight, been a while since Ive seen it. I got into him with the Steele fight. I was really impressed by him in that fight because he seemed like the Terminator. He just absorbed everything Steele had, kept coming, and wore him down. He looked so tough and rugged but then he had a some weird performances that make me think he wasnt all of that. Garcia drilled him, which shouldnt have happened IMO. Thil was outsmarting him on the inside, which should have been Apostoli's game. I dont know, maybe Im being hard on him because he looked so tough against Steele. Maybe that wasnt really representative of who he was.

 

Jim Jacobs found a fight from Greb. It is the only footage, not sure if it still exists. I think it was the first Greb-Tunney fight that Jacobs found.

 

Actually he alleged to have found a snippet of footage stapled to a catalog claiming the fight was filmed. The film itself was never found. Many people are skeptical of his claim.

 

Jacobs told a lot of stories about a Greb-Tunney film. They always changed though. He said he found a film but it was too badly damaged to run through a projector. He never had it optically printed despite having other films optically printed and this one was at the top of his list of films he wanted to see. Steve Lott, who worked for Jacobs and was very close to him never saw or heard anything about a Greb film. Jacobs changed his story later and said he never found a film but only found a copyright notation with three frames of the film stapled to the sheet at the LOC. Problem is the LOC has no record of this entry. They would if it originated there as Jacobs claimed. The AFI has an entry for the film but the director has no idea where that entry originated from. He told me that their entries are usually verified by third party sources and yet he can find absolutely no mention of this film having ever been produced anywhere which led him to believe, like myself, that someone (I wont name names) entered this film into their list unscrupulously. In my own research I find no mention whatsoever of this film having ever been made or advertised. Indeed there is absolutely no allusion to this film until the 1970s or so when a certain someone started talking about it and when it mysteriously appeared in the AFI catalogue. Until I see rock solid proof that this fight was filmed I cant put any weight behind the idea. There is absolutely nothing contemporaneous to the fight suggesting it was filmed that I have seen.