Jim Corbett vs Harry Greb

That is true.

 

That was Fitzsimmons an all time puncher who flattened much bigger men.

How much of a negative is this in your book? Sound like a big one MR. Double standard so Jack Johnson was also KO'd by a similar sized guy with a far less KO % !

 

Correct. Jackson had great hand speed and a good punch too.

There is a noticeable split on this board between those who researched or read about fighters pre 1910, and those who have not.

Siler, the premier referee of the times and an author on boxing said Peter Jackson was the best black heavyweight by long odds, over Jack Johnson and Sam Langford circa 1907.

 

Originally Posted by PowerPuncher View Post
I'd be picking decent 14yo amateurs to beat these 2, they're shockingly bad. I doubt many well schooled amateurs today lose to either man.

He'd lose his house.

 

Who did Greb beat over 180 in Corbett's class? NO ONE. He lost to taller and larger men with skills.

And you know this from watching the films? I'd say Corbett hits harder and has a proven chin vs Heavyweights. The larger men Greb fought with skill were not punches for the most part.

You have absolutely no concept that size matters, Klompton. People today cry out about Canelo vs Kahn, but Corbett would have an even bigger size, and weight advantage over GReb.

You alluded to it, but here's your chance to describe what technique he had.

.

Ditto!

Accomplishments at middleweight or light weight, NO because that's where Greb fought. But accomplishments at heavyweight Corbett > Greb. Again, we are matching a short, no punch middle vs a heavyweight champion. Are there any examples of a guy giving up that many inches, and having no punch beating a heavyweight champion in his near-prime or prime? NFW! Translation No F'n Way, and over 120 years have passed. Yet you think Greb, who you never seen is the one exception?

Okay we know. You don't like Boxing pre 1915 and hate modern fighters. Golovkin not even a real fighter? Um okay buddy. He's was a highly accomplished amateur and is the best middle weight today, perhaps in the past 20 years. Even modern trainers said GGG was better than Hopkins and Toney. See a not so distant Ring Magainze article, and *****s like Atlas were part of the vote voting against GGG.

Based on who GGG is and how he fights, I have a hard time seeing shorter no punch guy beating him, regardless of how good his skills were. Let them trade, and we'll see what happens.

 

Originally Posted by Mendoza View Post
I actually think the No decision-era that Greb fought in was a terrible time for boxing and definitive results. It's my newspaper is better than yours in too many cases. Or my manager had better connections than yours.



Just because there were less full-time fighters in Corbett's day does not mean they were not good.

The extremely quick fighters that are hard to catch often have low hands and lack textbook technique. Corbett's speed and reflexes even past his fighting days on film are very impressive. One can wonder how he was in his prime.

As for Greb ring skills, you have not seen him on film in the ring. His training video is decent.

He could have been a durable grinder type, simply outworking and out landing the other guy ( mixing in some rough stuff ) with top hand speed, but little power.

Greb never beat anyone great over 180 pounds. I think size matter here, as Greb was no puncher and short. Corbett was 185-188, and much taller. Had Greb fought the heavyweight version of Tunney, he's in for some trouble.

The last Greb vs. Tunney match, 1925. Tunney 181, Greb 167.5

167 is over the middleweight limit, and Greb could not punch hard at all. Other than that you nailed it. Now if you think Greb hit hard enough to KO Corbett, the floor is yours.

 

Dubblechin post 75

"most people in the world never saw movies until well into the 20th century."

Undoubtedly true, but it seems more might have seen boxing films than any other films in the early days.

"Even if the fight were filmed, there weren't theatres in every town."

Certainly not movie theatres, but a movie can be shown in any theatre or large meeting hall, or even some makeshift venue like a saloon or even a church.

The Fitz-Corbett fight opened in New York at the New York Academy of Music and in Chicago at the Grand Opera. Both had thousands of seats.

I am interested in movie history and have heard that the Fitz-Corbett film was a watershed movie. The comments caused me to do some further research and it indeed does seem to have been a watershed in both movie and boxing history.

1--It was the first widely shown feature film (and perhaps the first feature film period). The running time was certainly at least 71 minutes. Some sources cite 90 minutes.

2--It was the first widescreen film, with an aspect ratio of 1.65 to 1

3--It was the first blockbuster, or big hit, grossing over $1,000,000 in ticket sales. Tickets went as high as $1--a high price for 1897.

4--It's success made boxing much more respectable with New York legalizing boxing for a number of years. From here on, there would always be major venues for major fights in the USA.

There is an excellent article on the history and exhibition of the film at the J Rank Encyclopedia. Excerpts--

"The program was seem by enormous numbers of Americans, not only in large cities, but in smaller towns. Distribution was frequently handled by sales of territory on a states rights basis. By fall, approximately eleven companies were touring the United States with The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight, usually performing in crowded theatres."

"In remote parts of the country, veriscope exhibitions continued to be given, albeit with decreasing frequency, until 1900."

The article mentions the film was also shown abroad, including, of course, London. And shown in every state except Iowa which passed a law making the showing of fight films illegal.

The estimated profit was $120,000. The producers got 50%. Each fighter's cut was 25%.

Newspapers commented that the film was surprisingly popular with women at matinees.

Off my knowledge, the next film to gross $1 million in the USA would be From the Manger to the Cross in 1912.

*how 71 or a bit more minutes. The original film had an introduction by John L. Sullivan which ran several minutes. There was about five minutes of the men entering the ring and preparing for the fight. The actual action (with the one minute rest periods also filmed) ran about 55 minutes. There was an additional nine minutes of film of activity inside the ring after the fight.

**why the discrepancy between 71 or so minutes and 90 minutes--one explanation was that there were four 4 minute reel changes which would push the total show to close to ninety minutes.

***the film was promoted as a chance to see and judge if Fitz won by cheating. Wyatt Earp (!) as a ringside correspondent sent out a report claiming Fitz hit Corbett when he was down with a left hook to the jaw. Corbett took up the complaint. Fitz denied it. Fans were encouraged to buy tickets and judge for themselves.

The success of the film shows there was a lot of interest in boxing.

 

Johnson weighed about the same as Choynski at the time ,and he was green ,not the reigning heavyweight champion. That's you demolished yet again! Fitz's ko% is 56 Choynski's 48 ,wow that must mean Choynski couldn't punch, despite
Fitz
Jeffries
Sharkey
Corbett
Johnson
All naming him as the biggest puncher they faced.

You are a f*cking joke on this forum.:-(

 

How many times are you going to repeat the same tired ****ing song. Doza? You want everyone to believe that a 20 fight veteran with 11 wins to his name, most over shot fighters or nobodies, who we can see on film had no skill by modern standards and who wasn't that big for a HW was this gigantic phenom of a fighter akin to Ali. He wasn't. He was no bigger and certainly no better, than Tunney who Greb beat three times. You can pretend that somehow a Greb from 1925 who was 31 years old, had over 250 fights, was blind in one eye, and was fighting with a broken rib was somehow indicative of a prime Greb but anyone with half a brain (which excludes you) knows that's not how prime for prime hypotheticals work. Otherwise lets just compare a prime Greb to the 30+ yr old Corbett that got his ass handed to him by Tom Sharkey, who wasn't a whole lot bigger than Greb. No? I didn't think so. Nobody but you (because you love to argue lost causes) believes Greb never beat a great larger fighter. Period. Now, ask anybody if Corbett ever beat a great fighter when they were great. He didn't. Ask them if he ever beat anyone anywhere near as formidable as Greb. He didn't. Its simple. You can imagine him gliding around the ring like Ali, hitting as hard as Tyson, as durable as Holyfield, and as big as Carnera but that's fiction. Period. Like most of your rambling imaginings that you post on here. Just like the minority here who want to argue the sport never changes, never improved, never evolved, and that in Corbett's day the fact that there were almost zero fighters, zero venues, zero clubs, etc had absolutely no impact on the quality of the sport. That's laughable. Ask any athlete whether or not competition makes them better or whether they think they could reach their true potential by striving against mediocre competition. Its silly. It goes against everything we know to be true about athletic competition. When you compete against better athletes in any sport it makes you better. It challenges you and forces you to excel. We can see even in modern times that when there is a lack of talent in a division the level of competition and quality of the skill dips. That's an undeniable fact to anyone but some racist moronic fantasist like yourself.

Ask yourself: When you have Jim Corbett and Joe Choynski taking part in a legendary encounter that was well known and publicized and together they don't have five fights to their name exactly how deep is the sport? Its absolutely ridiculous then to go around and say how wonderful Corbett's win over Choynski was at that point because when Choynski retired he had 70+ fights. If somebody managed to beat Sugar Ray Robinson in his second fight (and Robinson was already much more experienced at that point than Corbett and Choynski together) would people be lauding it as a great victory or a victory against a wet behind the ears novice? Because I don't hear anybody talking about Al Iovino being able to beat any all time greats despite holding a knockout over Henry Armstrong...

 

You know Jackson was fast and a hard puncher from watching his film footage?

How do you know how hard Greb's opponents hit? How many of them have you seen?

 

You and the word research should not be allowed in the same country.atsch

 

First people claimed that a decent 14 year old could beat Corbett.

Then it was a decent amateur.

Then it was 15 year old Mike Tyson.

Now it’s apparently adult Mike Tyson and/or Rid**** Bowe, who outweigh Corbett by 40+ pounds.

If this thread goes another couple pages, I’ll be hearing how Corbett couldn’t beat the American 1st Armored Division under London Prize Ring rules.

The bottom line is that Corbett was a talented fighter with a style that suited his era’s rules. Any modern amateur close to Corbett’s weight gets pulverized if he plays by Corbett’s rules.

That doesn’t mean Corbett can beat an ATG champion two freaking weight classes above him from a talent pool ten times as large.

 

What combinations do you imagine would be thrown? Turn of the century refs allowed jab n' grab with very few breaks. You got your first punch or two in if you were lucky, and then it was clinch-wrestling.

Again, what specific adaptations do you think a modern boxer has to make for Corbett's rules, or LPR? And why?

A modern fighter with zero training in wrestling is going to choke a guy who trained with wrestlers to prepare for rules that allowed wrestling?

Unless the modern fighter has a significant size advantage, I doubt it.

 

Im still waiting for cross trainer to explain to me these different rules in the 1890s that put a modern fighter at a disadvantage against Corbett. His silence is deafening.

 

Peter Jackson was a good puncher. Sources say so, and he has a good KO% vs class guys. You are an utter embarrassment and need to twist words to make your points. No one here except for you thinks Choysnki hit harder than Fitz.

I have seen a few of Grebs best opponents. Tunney, Loughran, Walker, and Gibbons to name a few. All of the above either beat Greb or gave him a good fight.

Tunney might have been the hardest skilled puncher Greb fought, and when Tunney grew into his body, he beat on Greb badly in their last fight. Tunney wanted a 6th fight. Greb said no way, Tunney just too big for me at 181 pounds!

But my point is Greb wasn't close to a puncher so Corbett who was between 185-190 if we are taking each man's best weight hit, at least, has hard as say Loughran who drew with Greb at 168 pounds.