Jim Corbett vs Harry Greb

This is your statement.

"Gibbons, who defeated Greb somewhere between 167-169 pounds judging by his closest listed weight before and after the Greb fight.

Corbett's 185+ Who did Greb beat at 180+ that was decent?! "
Two decent 180+ pounders
Charley Weinert
Jack Renault
More to the point . WTF did Corbett ever beat who was 180lbs plus?

Gibbons weight was all over the place

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People need to get their head out of their ass and quit blaming film for guys like Corbett looking like a complete amateur. The quality and speed of the film didn't make Corbett hop around the ring like a one legged grasshopper when newspaper reports lauded his footwork. Film didn't make Corbett draw way back and then reach way forward when he threw punches. Film didn't make Corbett leave himself wide open, stick his arms out straight, or lean straight back at the waist when his defense was called impeccable. These are all mistakes that would have been capitalized on two decades later but for which Corbett was able to get away with because of the lack of talent and transitional nature of the sport in the era in which Corbett competed.

Mendoza keeps trumpeting what these people said at the time. Well, of course people in that day thought they were great. That was their only frame of reference. But like I said: Consider that the greatest fighting marvel of the age was a hog fat alcoholic. The earliest action photo of John L. Sullivan was his fight with McCaffrey. Hes 26 years old and in his physical prime and looks to be about 40 pounds overweight while fighting a guy who was about 165 pounds. Its no wonder that Corbett was considered a marvelous technician with such amateurish skills when the heavyweights of that era were little better than local toughs. Do a google search and look at the photos of Sullivan Kilrain where both guys look like soft doughy drunks. That's what passed for a well trained professional athlete in Corbett's era. By the 1910s and 20s boxing had passed that era by and only rose colored goggles kept those guys from Corbett's and Sullivan's era relevant.

The idea that Corbett, who weighed 180 in his prime, with those primitive skills, could be plucked from the 1890s and be successful in the 1910s or 20s is absolutely ludicrous. The ONLY reason anyone can even entertain such an idea is because of the impact Corbett within the context in which he existed. That's a totally different argument than matching him head to head based on the skill he actually exhibited.

As for the post you made before:


"1) You have never seen Gerb on film in the ring! So please stop quoting those who saw him as if they were 100% correct,"

You don't know what Ive seen. You can pretend you have my boxing list but you don't (give it to whoever you want it makes no matter, its not mine, the people who have seen mine can tell its not and those that haven't still wont have seen it after getting whatever you send them). Even if you did it wouldn't be indicative of what Ive seen.


"because I can equally show you those who said Corbett was a master boxer too. "

Right, in the 1890s, when boxing was little more than a local toughman competition with little skill or training, dominated by an obese drunk.

"Do you think Jack Johnson was skilled?"

More skilled than Corbett.

"If you say yes, take note that Siler an expert and 3rmd man in the ring thinks Peter Jackson was better had than Johnson, as he puts it by long odds! That's how good Jaskson was."

Corbett didn't beat the injured Jackson that he fought. Whether Siler thought he was more skilled is irrelevant and not germane to the argument. We aren't talking about whether Greb would beat Johnson or Jackson. We are talking about whether Greb would beat Corbett.

"You said Greb resembles Calzaghe. Ok, but you're a real fool if you think he resembles Mayorga Zivic would be a better choice IMO. Yes- Greb though not DQ'd often was dirty."

What does this rambling statement have to do with the discussion?

"Yes, Tunney was pre-prime, and as he grew to 185 he beat Greb's @ss."

When did this happen? Wasn't in Cleveland when Greb beat a 185 pound Tunney. Oh, you mean in St. Paul when Greb won the first three rounds against Tunney before reinjuring a broken rib he had going into the fight, was 31 years old, blind in one eye, and had over 269 fights under his belt and several car crashes? Yeah, maybe if Corbett got to fight a half blind, rapidly fading, and injured Greb he MIGHT be able to beat him. Maybe. But I thought we were talking prime for prime not old broke down Greb vs prime Corbett.

"Tunney wanted another match, Greb said no! Greb could not punch hard. Once Tunney matured he had little to worry about."

When did Tunney want another match? Sources please. Oh wait, when you lie you cant be bothered with sources. I'll shed some light on this for you: After their fifth fight Greb was approached by Miami promoters to fight Tunney down there in early 1926. He readily agreed. Tunney, who was already fast tracked to fight Dempsey wanted the safer bet in Stribling (who had earlier ducked a match with Greb at Michigan City). Greb was left out in the cold of a sixth fight with Tunney and Tunney eventually nixed even the Stribling fight when talks heated up with Dempsey and he decided to stay inactive until his fight with Dempsey rather than risk blowing the shot. Now, the mental gymnastics you had to go through in order to somehow distill that into Greb avoiding another fight with Tunney that Tunney wanted is beyond me.

"Are you suggesting Greb was passed his prime by age 27 when he first meet Tunney?"

Are you suggesting that a man who has lost the sight in one eye within the past year, is having to care for a terminally ill wife who is literally at deaths door, his toddler daughter, and who has had 220 fights against the best competition in the world across 3 divisions and all of the wear and tear that goes along with it is in his prime?

"Gentleman Jim is a good in-fighter and clincher who would have 4 inches and 25+ pound on Greb. And Greb liked to mix it and fight on the inside. Advantage Corbett in the clinches."

Bill Brennan was a good infighter and excellent in the clinches. So good in fact that he rendered Dempsey (a very strong HW and what would have been considered a monster in Corbett's era) ineffective. Greb manhandled Bill Brennan on the inside and pushed him around in the clinches. He would have been fine against Corbett. Bill Brennan was an inch taller than Corbett, 20 to 30 pounds of solid muscle heavier, he hit much harder than Corbett, and when he fought Greb the first time hed had over 50 fights (his record is incomplete) in six years of fighting. Compare that with Corbett's paltry record over the same duration and its laughable to even compare the two. Now, I know your tactic will be to come back and denigrate Brennan a mediocre while Corbett great but the fact is that if Corbett had fought the Brennan Greb fought it would have been Corbett's biggest, most experienced opponent with the possible exception of Peter Jackson who had so many three and four round matches and who Corbett didn't beat. Put Bill Brennan in Corbett's era and you might never hear of Corbett. So I think that Greb would do just fine in the clinches, after all infighting was perfected in Pittsburgh.

"4 ) If Corbett fought in the ND timeline or 10 or 12 round fights, he beats Fitzsimmons. Just saying."

Why limit it to 10 or 12 rounds? Plenty of locations allowed 15 and 20 round fights, in which case he loses. Oh wait, by limited the length of the fight it helps your argument... What a pointless exercise in conjecture. Your argument supposes that if you change the Corbett-Fitz duration down to 10 or 12 rounds nothing else changes. Nonsense. For all you know Fitz starts faster and knocks Corbett out. Two can play the imagination game.

 

'If his first fight with Jeffries was 10-12 rounds, he might have beaten him too."

Might, shoulda, coulda, woulda. Its also equally plausible that the tank like Jeffries bum rushes him and smashes him because he has a greater sense of urgency. Irregardless Greb wasn't a slow lumbering giant like Jeffries who gave up one of his greatest assets by fighting out of a crouch. He also wasn't a methodical slugger like Fitz who walked his man down looking for openings.

"Many of Greb's opponents were 10 round fights"

Which is longer than what the vast majority of Corbett's exhibitions and actual fights were scheduled for. Whats the point? You really want to argue durations? Because I'll take that argument in Greb's favor every day and win. Just because he went 61 rounds with an injured man means **** to me. Everyone agrees that from round 25 on that fight was boring monotony so lets not pretend Corbett had all of these marathon fights. He didn't and the one he had stopped being a boxing match just about the same time fights in ND era ended. Greb fought enough 20 rounders that we know his stamina wasn't an issue in long or short fights.

"and he didn't face puncher close to the level that Corbett did."

How do you know? Greb faced plenty of big punchers. The difference was he actually beat them unlike Corbett. And more to the point Corbett isn't one of those punchers so we aren't talking about how Greb would have done against Fitz we are talking about how Greb would have done against Corbett. So nice try but Im not going to let you redirect the argument because you aren't comfortable with the position you've chosen.

"Did Greb face many big punchers who might have caught up to him if the fights were 15-25 rounds? You tell me!"

How many of those guys did Corbett face? How many did he beat? What does any of that have to do with the original question?

"Who outboxed Corbett? Maybe no one until he was very old. Corbett had quick feet and an uncanny ability to avoid head shots."

Who was there to outbox him? Weve already established that the skill level in that era, particularly among heavyweights left much to be desired. Nevermind the fact that Corbett had all of 20 fights and won only 11. Its a bit silly to ask "who outboxed Corbett" as if he toed the line 300 times.




"***We are matching a small 5'8" middle vs a Cruiserweight here ***"

Really? Greb was a small MW? Because one of the biggest complaints from other MWs of that era against Greb was that he was too big for the division, that he was really a LHW. His opponents were constantly watching his weight, eenforcing forfeits, and setting low contracted weights in hopes that they could weaken him at the scales because he was so big and strong for a MW. This is the same "small" MW who was considered by many as a natural contender for the HW championship, even before Dempsey when 6'6" 240 lb Jess Willard was champion. If you want a fun exercise go through Greb's record from top to bottom and see how many fights he had against LHWs or HWs and then compare that with how many of those fights he was judged the loser either officially or by the newspapers then come back and argue me that Greb was too small to compete with a guy who won only 11 fights in a 17 year career.

"Corbett's record vs smaller hall of fame level opponents that range from 160-175 is excellent. He blew out Charlie Mitchel, KO'd Choynski and hold a KO win over McCoy."

Once more for the choir: Choynski had something like 3 fights when he fought Corbett the last time. He ended his career with 79. You do the math. Does Corbett get full credit for beating a green Choynski? I think not. And lets be honest, Choysnki, as interesting as he was, has absolutely no HOF worthy victories to his name outside of his knockout of a green Johnson. Nothing. So Corbett beat a guy who barely s****ed into the HOF in that guys second and third fights of a 79 fight career. Whoop dee ****ing doo. Mitchell was 33 years and hadn't defeated a real heavyweight in a real fight in years. And McCoy took a dive in their fight. And again, this is totally besides the fact that these guys weren't a pimple on Greb's ass in any way shape or form. Not in terms of their accomplishments, impact, skill, wins, nothing.


"Three smaller men, 3 KO wins."

See above.

"The film shows Choynski was fast even past his prime."

Past what prime? When he fought Corbett he wasn't even as good as most amateurs in Greb's era.

"McCoy ( Not a heavy ) was considered a good boxer of the times."

And just happened to throw that fight.

"So why can't we say Corbett beats a vs. a 5'8" middleweight with the little pop?"

Because not all middleweights are made alike. Its a moronic argument posed by a moronic man who tries to insinuate that because Corbett beat a middleweight who wasn't as good as Greb in a fixed fight he could beat Greb. I grant, if Greb threw the fight like McCoy, then yes, Corbett would win. Otherwise your argument has no baring on the discussion.

"Heck yes you can"

No you cant.

"and two of the three guys mentioned hit MUCH harder than Greb"

Aside from the fact that one had two fights when he fought Corbett and the other threw the fight to Corbett, boxing isn't all about punching power. Greb proved that time and again.

"5 ) Corbett beat several hall of fame fighters. Not all of them were passed their prime as you mentioned before. Examples:

Kilrain was 31 years old and 19-0 in gloved fights!"

Kilrain was 31 years old, 20 pounds over his best weight, he was 11 years into his career, and while he was undefeated in gloved contests he had never beaten a man who had even 10 fights to his name in gloved contests. See a pattern forming here? The level of experience was nothing in that era. You could walk off the street, declare yourself the neighborhood champion, and suddenly find yourself padding someones record or them yours.

"Mitchel was 32 years old and 27-2 in gloved fights!"

Mitchell was 32 years and 17 years into his career. As stated above he hadn't beaten a real heavyweight in a real fight in years. Was Greb in his prime in 1926?

"McCoy was 27 with a 71-4 record. "

And threw their fight.


"6 ) If you want to use a tale of the tape, compare Corbett vs Greb. Without checking, I'd guess Corbett owns almost every measurement."

Luckily fights aren't won and lost at the tale of tape.

"7 ) Which 185+ pound quality opponent did Greb beat? How about ZERO. So it's not even proven if he could!"

Quality is subjective in this case considering there were dozens of fighters who weren't considered all time greats that were bigger and better than Corbett on Greb's resume:

Norfolk, Tunney, Weinert, Brennan, Renault, Levinsky. Even guys like Miske, Larry Williams, and Martin Burke look better than Corbett on film and are just as big if not bigger. But really the more accurate question is did Greb ever beat anyone as big and good as Corbett: Yes. Ive already illustrated that. Did Corbett ever beat anyone of any size as good as Greb? No. Not even close. Not in terms of experience, accomplishments, impact, level of competition. Nothing. You can say that about Greb. You can unequivocally say that he beat men more accomplished and more skilled against a higher level of competition than Corbett.

"8 ) I don't have time to fully research it yet, but Greb was not Roy Jones on the score cards."

Then maybe you should make time because this statement really shows your ignorance. The monotony with which Greb dominated his competition regardless of size or style made some chapters of my book difficult to write without droning into repetition.

"His style put him in harms way"

That depends on which style you are talking about. You are really showing a complete lack of knowledge on Greb who was considered, in his prime, incredibly elusive and difficult to hit. It was considered a pointless exercise to try to land a blow to his head which was described as a cork bobbing on a rough sea. His legs were so fast and tireless that they were compared to steel springs. The reports of him fighting terrific opposition and only getting hit half a dozen times are legion. His sport, not his style, put him in harms way. His skill kept him out of it. To pretend he was just some mindless face first slugger is exhibition an appalling lack insight and makes we wonder why you have chosen this subject to argue since you really don't know it at all.

"and when faced vs a bigger skilled man ( Tunney as he matured, or Gibbons ) we saw the results."

Did we? He beat Tunney two out of three and dominated Gibbons when Tom was at biggest and having the best run of his career. And again, that's against two fighters who were more skilled than Corbett and had a hell of a lot more experience.

 

Heenan specialized in what was essentially a standing guillotine choke. He tried to strangle Sayers in their 1860 match, which was the biggest LPR match until Sullivan fought Kilrain. The same choke appears in 1860s manuals, and I think I've seen it later.

More to the point, the headlocks and throws stay around until the end. They force the same stylistic adaptations as the chokes do.

It's correct if you fight under his conditions. Most of the middle range punches that we use today are useless under LPR, because a middle range didn't really exist. You were either trying to feint your way in at long range, or you were grappling. That's why the footwork's so linear.

We can get into the details of why the modern stuff doesn't work very well, and I can even show you how boxing moved AWAY from a modern style as the 19th century wore on...but I don't know how convincing you'd find my statements.

I guess the only way to settle this is to actually put a modern professional boxer against a professional 19th century boxer. And the latter don't exist anymore, unfortunately.

There are backyard boxers who use more modern technique than Corbett.

But since modern technique isn't optimal for LPR boxing, they're actually even less "skilled" under bareknuckle rules than they are under Queensberry Rules.

OK, so you're saying that the technique sucked because the talent pool was so small.

First, Boxing in the 19th century was a large and robust sport. Amateur boxing was extremely popular because -- as you point out -- there wasn't much else to watch. There's an explosion of boxing manuals during the latter half of the 19th century. We have 10,000 recorded fights on boxrec during the 1890s when Corbett was fighting, which is only about an eighth of the 1970s total, but still plenty big. Considering the early date and occasional illegality, those records are likely the tip of a much larger iceberg. When Edison wants to test his kinetograph, what acts does he choose? Vaudeville and boxing. He knew what sold.

Most athletic clubs had boxing instructors at that time. Even exercise manuals considered boxing to be part of a balanced fitness regimen -- right up there with weight training and track & field. More popular than weight lifting, actually. Many of the exercise science "professors" from that period taught boxing as a fitness tool in the same way we have exercycles.

There's also the time dimension. If you argue that 19th century boxing sucked because there weren't many boxers to figure out the "correct" technique, you need to account for the fact that it had already been running for ~200 years.

Okay, maybe each generation didn't have tons of fighters. We'll even grant that for the sake of argument.

Doesn't matter, since I doubt that 200 years of competition by professional athletes (which they were) would produce a style so poorly suited to their own sport.

You don't see that in any other combat sport. Karate goes from blocky ceremonial katas to modern kickboxing in about 20 years (with a talent pool of only ~300 tournament competitors). Judo evolves from ritualistic jiu-jitsu to something that looks more or less modern in about the same time frame. And Kano isn't exactly starting with a huge talent pool either. Neither of these are even professional sports. Same deal with freestyle wrestling, which evolves into a recognizably modern style from its local predecessors in a couple decades. Kyokushin goes from traditional karate to Muay Thai lite in the same time frame. Heck, Gracie Jiujitsu evolved into something recognizably close to what we have today within a few decades, and it was designed by a single family (who fought other styles in private gym wars).

In fact, I can't think of a single combat sport where a talent pool of professional competitors failed to adopt a style relatively suited to their rules for two hundred years.

Maybe you can. If so, I'd like to know which one.

Otherwise, I think Occam's Razor suggests that Corbett's style worked.

 

A lot of boxing was going on in the US in second half of 19th century. Just because it's not listed at boxrec, doesn't mean there was little or none. New York Clipper and New York Herald reported boxing bouts, exhibitions, sparrings, amateur tournaments, etc, on a regular basis in the 1850-1870s. Then in early 1880s many other newspapers around the country started reporting boxing, lots of it.

 

I'm not saying a lot of boxing wasn't taking place in New York between 1850 and 1870. But New York in 1850 and New York in 1910 were no where near the same place.

There were 500,000 people in New York in 1850. There were close to 5 MILLION living there in 1910.

 

I'm not saying the technique sucked because the talent pool was small.

It's because every town might have some tough guy who's the baddest guy around, but it's not like any of them grew up watching people who were good at the sport practice it.

They just slugged it out. Nobody taught them how to fight properly. Or throw punches properly. It wasn't a lack of numbers, it was a lack of sharing good information.

If you were a hard guy who could take it and dish it out, you were probably fine.

It changed, when millions of people were actually living in cities and could go to a local gym and learn from each other and pick up, for lack of a better word ... best practices.

This works. This doesn't. If he does this, you do that. And on and on.

Also, people didn't routinely visit athletic clubs. The only people in the 1800s frequenting athletic clubs were the idle rich or people who trained the idle rich.

If you were working 18 hours a day to survive doing manual labor jobs, you didn't spend your nights at the athletic club. If there even was one in the town you lived in.

Also, the sport didn't change much over 200 years because you didn't often fight other men who knew what the hell you were doing.

If you started off winning, you didn't need to pick up any new skills. Fighters weren't handled like current pros where you take a guy and gradually match him a little tougher each time, and show him different styles, and you picked up ways to deal with each style.

If a guy in one town challenged you, and you thought you could win, and people wanted to bet on it, you fought him. Jack Broughton was a trainer for the Duke of Cumberland. And the Duke liked to pit his trainer against the other wealthy guys' trainers. And they'd make bets.

It was about as simple as that. It wasn't like they were all fighting highly skilled pros their whole careers. You're looking at it from a modern viewpoint. If they fought one other guy in their whole career who knew what the hell he was doing, maybe he might've picked up a new trick or skill.

Corbett, bouncing out of range and DUCKING a punch was considering AMAZING. So that tells you prety much about the "skills" of guys for the first 200 years.

 

Nobody is saying boxing didn't exist but the question is the level of competition and the quality of the participants. There was a lot of boxing going on in Deadwood North Dakota in the 1870s and 1880s but that doesn't mean there were any legends there. Just because two miners, or two sailors, or two cops, or two stevedores lace on gloves or fight fisticuffs doesn't necessarily mean the sport was anywhere near the level of what it was in 1910s and 1920s and this is really proven out by the number of fighters in Greb's era that had 100+ or 200+ fights. That's not really that uncommon. Can you find anyone from the 1870s to the 1890s who had 100 fights, (real fights not three round exhibitions)? We complain today about how few fights top line fighters have but even todays fighters are far far more experienced than just about anyone from the 1800s. It was just a different era. The money wasn't there for anyone outside of a Sullivan or Corbett to really be a professional fighter. Fighting was almost a hobby, training, when it even took place was little more than an after thought at anything but the very highest level of the sport, a career could consist of no more than a dozen fights and it didn't take much more than a brave guy declaring himself the toughest guy on the docks to get reputation. How many real fights against real seasoned well trained professional athletes did guys like Paddy Ryan or John Flood have? A street fight, as we all know, is not a boxing match. Take the baddest street fighter you've ever seen and match him in a boxing match against a mediocre fighter and even give him a weight advantage and I bet your streetfighter gets his ass handed to him. How is it any different when a Jim Corbett who actually did train and belonged to an athletic club and had some amateur experience matched up with the dubs he fought? Look at their records? He failed to win almost half his fights. He only had twenty. Half the guys he fought had less than 20 fights themselves. Most of the men he fought had most of their experience in short three round matches. We know all of this and to top it off we can see him actually fight in his prime and we can see his rudimentary skills and yet some on here want us to believe he looks bad (while being called a master) because of the film? Im supposed to ignore what my eyes tell and what I know to be true of both him and his level of experience and pretend the guy was some Sugar Ray Robinson virtuoso? No. He was an important phase in the evolution of boxing but you take that man and the style he fought in and pluck him from his era and drop him anywhere from 20 years later and beyond and tell him he has to fight a Harry Greb, or a Jack Dempsey, or a Joe Louis, or a Fred Apostoli, or Steele, or Moore, or Charles, or Hopkins etc etc and he would be absolutely lost. He would get would wrecked. And frankly its unfair to him and that's been my point all along. The guy was perfectly fine and great within the context of his day but in his day was so different from later eras its not even comparable and we have ample proof to back that up.

 

There is a write up in one of my old books from a guy who covered the Sullivan-Corbett fight from ringside.

At the bell, Sullivan "swung with his left" which Corbett ducked. (Sullivan didn't jab, because nobody jabbed. Sullivan just swung a left.)

Sullivan, still moving forward after missing his swinging left, then threw a "swinging right" which Corbett "hopped" away from. But Sullivan missed so badly he fell into the ropes and had to balance himself with his left glove on the top strand.

And it goes on from there. People POO POO the Courtney exhibition, but other than being a lot smaller than Sullivan, sounds like Courtney didn't fight much differently than Sullivan.

It was just swing with a left. Swing with a right. Swing with a left. Swing with a right. Everything telegraphed. Nobody ducking (except Corbett).

And the crowd booed when Corbett ducked. Because nobody ducked. I guess you were just supposed to let everything hit in you the face unless you could block it with a glove.

That's the "style" that was developed after 200 years of prizefighting because, frankly, nobody was really learning from each other or passing good information along to the next generation.

That didn't happen, until millions of people started to live together in cities, and boxing become the primary sporting activity among the masses.

 

Exactly.:good

 

I have just watched all the films of Corbett. I do not see the same fighter who sparred with Tunney and McCoy in his bouts with Courtney or Fitzsimmons. Not close. What you are seeing in both Tunney and McCoy sparring sessions is an old former champion fooling around in the ring.

Note during the Courtney exhibition Corbett checks Courtney's right and then throws two good straight rights to the jaw. Not bad.

 

That's how ludicrously low the bar is for judging someone like Corbett. He throws two straight rights and hes "not bad." Nevermind the fact that one point he "blocked" Courtney's rush by literally sticking both hands straight out like a little girl, turning his head away from his opponent, and leaned back and off balance on one foot... A few seconds after that he swings a straight arm left wide around like a barn door and does it again a couple of other times. How many rules of boxing did this "scientific master" break in that 40 second clip that would have gotten absolutely clobbered by guys just a couple of decades later?

The McCoy thing is clearly staged and not an accurate representation but against Courtenay hes definitely defending himself and throwing punches. We see some of the same movements and tactics aganst Fitz.

 

While I agree that Greb will probably beat Corbett. Though I don't think its wise to completely discount Corbett. The man obviously had great mental strength that would see him through just about anything.