Greb and the Heavyweights- Tommy Gibbons

The attached link is to an article from the summer of 1922. This was months after Greb beat Gibbons. Note the following:

1). Proposed bouts with Wills, Willard and Brennan are predominantly discussed. Carpentier is also discussed but is deemed not to have much of a shot.
2). Note that it was well known at that time the problems of putting together a bout with Wills. As I have written but all this HAS been well known the past 90 years.
2). At the very end of the article almost as an afterthought Greb is mentioned and it is mentioned he has beaten some good hwts but emphasis is given to his very small size. The writer compares his chances vs Dempsey as of Carpentier. So after beating Gibbons where is Grebs lofty status as a Leading hwt contender?

Again I can find many articles that would seem to point to Ali ducking a second bout with Foreman. As ****ton does I could post these and then use it to make the claim that indeed this was the truth. However the problem is I lived during that time period and was never more closer to the game. Nothing could be further from the truth. You can find whatever you would like to find in thousands of newspapers over the course of a 5-6 years people. Writers need to write and each and every one has a clientele. This does not mean it was the prevailing thought among the boxing public. However if one wanted to write a book with a twist in an effort to sell said book how about making the claim Dempsey ducked and was afraid to fight a 165 pound 5'8 middleweight?

To think a middleweight, a man lighter and smaller than Carpentier who Dempsey carried and crushed when he liked, would beat Dempsey in a real bout with 4-5 oz gloves is laughable. Dempsey hit like a hammer...literally. Judging a real bout by reading about sparring sessions with big gloves designed to NOT injure is again laughable. Lots of things occur while sparring.....Hearns made Ali stumble, Page knocked down Tyson etc etc etc. Against the best Dempsey the first solid full force blow to body or head ends the bout vs any 165 fighter. Greb was just too small to take the punching power big hwts were afraid of. As an example a 205 hwt Jack Sharkey said of Dempseys power..."I never thought anyone could hit that hard". That's a former hwt champion of the world talking.

http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1922-07-22/ed-1/seq-7/

 

You can post all of the articles you want that think Greb was too small, or all of the posts you want that surmise that Dempsey would have beaten Greb. It doesnt matter. Because the point is and was that you guys rejected the idea that Greb was:

1. A viable contender
2. That there was any money for a Greb-Dempsey bout
3. That any promoters would stage it
4. That anyone thought Greb would stood a chance

Those are absolutes. All I have to do is show that each one of those points are incorrect and that:

1. Was a viable contender and had a lot of support as such.
2. That money was on the table for such a bout, and that money was indeed generous for such a match.
3. That numerous promoters were indeed bidding to stage the fight
4. That there was a lot of support for Greb

I did that. Case closed. What we are left with is the simple fact, that is evident to anyone even before you read everything Ive posted, that Greb beat numerous contenders, several of whom were handed shots at the title, chased down others, made others run, and was considered all over the country as a viable contender for Dempsey and one that was much more qualified and much more difficult than most of the guys who Dempsey fought. Beyond that you are left with the fact that Dempsey avoided his #1 challenger for the entire duration of his championship reign and avoided what should have been considered his logical #2 challenger for the duration of his reign (before that reign even started in fact) despite not being able to fall back on the old color line argument and chose instead to face a series of opponents over seven years who were not only underwhelming but entirely underqualified when compared with #1 and #2. You guys can argue differently until you are blue in the face but facts dont lie.

 

****ton again distorts what the argument was and then modifies his position to suit.

Typical.

 

Greb was never #2 challenger. He was never thought of by the boxing public as a hwt. Greb was a very small middleweight.

The article I posted mentions Greb on the level of Carpentier......too small and an easy ko victim for the hwt champion of the world. When this article was written SHOULD have been Greb at his highest level of public support. Why is Willard, Brennan and Carpentier written in much more lofty terms than Greb? You know the reason.

Greb................5'8. 165 pounds
Dempsey. 6'1. 190 pounds

 

The more you diminish Greb, the more you actually diminish Dempsey, because if Greb was not a legitimate challenger, then no one one Dempsey fought was a legitimate challenger. Brennan lost to Greb four times in 1919, barely even winning a round. The following year Dempsey fought Brennan. That same year Dempsey also defended against Miske, who dropped a lopsided decision to Greb the previous year. In 1922 Gibbons lost a title eliminator to Greb in one-sided fashion. In 1923, Dempsey defended against Gibbons. Tunney's rise to a title shot was based on beating guys like Gibbons, Madden, Wiggins, Weinert and Renault, all losers to Greb, plus Greb himself. Carpentier's only plausible claim to a title shot was beating Levinsky, who had already lost to Greb six times. Firpo's standout wins (besides a comically ancient Willard) were against Weinert, Brennan and Homer Smith (combined record against Greb: 0-6).

 

Greb was never thought of as No 2 challenger for the hwt championship. The article I posted which should have been Greb at his zenith as a hwt....he just beat Gibbons. Yet Willard, Wills, Brennan and even Carpentier are talked of in more lofty terms. Why? Greb was considered a middleweight. You wrote an entire book on an imaginary premise.

 

Thats a nice lopsided stat except it ignores the fact that Greb often weighed in the 170s while Dempsey weighed no more than 188 for most of his reign and as low as 185 when a fight between he and Greb was first discussed. It also ignores the fact that size didnt seem to bother Greb against any of Dempseys other opponents. It also ignores the question that if we are disqualifying Greb because he was shorter and 15 pounds lighter then why did Dempsey ever get a title shot against a 6'6" 245 pound fighter. Because if size where everything youd never get a girlfriend. The bottom line is that size only mattered to Dempsey when it was a convenient way to duck a dangerous opponent, just like color wasnt an issue for him until his most dangerous challenger was black.

 

You ignore the great equalizer. Dempsey was not only a true hwt but one of Boxings most brutal punchers. No 165 pound middleweight could take those kind of blows. Remember Jack Sharkey a 205 pound former hwt champion...."I never thought anyone could hit that hard". He went on to say Dempsey hit harder that Joe Louis. You think Greb could take those kind of punches?

See what happened to Carpentier when he fought Dempsey? That would be Greb.

 

For what some think was Grebs most important bout in terms of gaining a fight with Dempsey he weighed 163.50 lbs.

Greb. 5'8. 163.50 pounds
Dempsey. 6'1. 190 pounds.

 

Punchers throughout history have been beaten and beaten easily by faster, more elusive fighters beyond count. Power is not boxings only equalizer.

And yet Sharkey wasnt knocked out by a punch but fell to the canvas clutching his groin. Sharkey is the same guy who was knocked out (legitimately, not by a low blow) by Quintin Rojas, who Greb had dominated easily in a bout. I wonder if Sharkey thought Rojas hit harder than Dempsey seeing as how Rojas actually KOd him legitimately and Dempsey couldnt do a thing with Sharkey above the belt. Whether Greb could take Dempsey's punches or whether Dempsey could even land them is something we can debate from here to eternity because at the end of the day Dempsey avoided Greb who was chasing him for years. That was Dempsey's choice. Had he really believed that no 170 pound fighter could take his punches (and his own words state that any 170 pound fighter is big enough for any HW) then he should have fought Greb to collect an easy $100,000 and a percentage of the gate. It was Dempsey who chose not to.

Yeah I do and more to the point I dont think Dempsey could land those punches. I think hed be too busy swinging at air and after five rounds hed be too tired to be effective.

Carpentier wasnt scared of Dempsey. He was scared of Greb. Nuff said. Had he fought Greb you would have seen a bloodied and bedraggled Carpentier quit and try to win via DQ like he always did when he was in over his head. Carpentier wasnt a pimple on Greb's ass, certainly not when he fought Dempsey. That point isnt even debateable. Greb's record from MW to HW ****s all over every one of Carpentier's best wins. I dont blame Dempsey for fighting Carpentier. There was too much money not to. But dont sit here and pretend beating the foppish, delicate, protected fraud that was Carpentier is anywhere near the same plane of existence as stepping into the ring as Greb.

 

For what some think was Dempsey's best performance he weighed 187. For the first fight where promoters tried to match Dempsey and Greb and Dempsey set a career long precident by fighting the guy Greb beat to get a Dempsey fight he weighed 185. A couple of months after that Greb weighed 178 pounds, just a 7 pound difference.

Its funny that to prove your point you have to cherry pick figures two years apart. What was Dempsey's weight in early 1922 when Greb fought Gibbons? Oh wait Dempsey was inactive that year, most of the year before and most of the year after... You know, 1922, the year two big eliminations were fought in New York promoted by the same promoter that fanboys think owned Dempsey, one electing his best white challenger and one electing his best black challenger, and Dempsey fought neither. :happy In fact the record is pretty clear that Dempsey colluded to avoid both and he even admits it for Wills. Now thats one brave man killing legend right there. A regular Paul Bunyon. :-(

 

When Greb fought Tunney the final time he scaled 167.50 pounds to Tunney 181. Tunney had blossomed physically scaling the highest weight of their five bouts. Tunney thoroughly beat Greb. Greb stated the following after the fight:

"That's the last time I'll fight this guy," Greb told Referee George Barton in his dressing room after the fight. "He's getting too big and too strong for me to handle. I could lick him at one time but not anymore. Tunney is really getting good."

Tunney years later stated Greb in a clinch whispered in Tunneys ear. "Gene please don't knock me out. Let me last"