Greb and the Heavyweights- Tommy Gibbons

Where? When? Was that when you were crying on the phone and begging to be my friend? Or was it later in the same conversation when kept trying to steer the conversation to my film collection? Keep tapping tough guy, Lol.

 

ya but we all want you to put on a wig on your bald head and to put on a dress ...steve klompton u are the perfect little illinios tranny ...:dealwhy dont you just face the facts that you have the brain of a female but were born with a males body you can change that you know .......its called a zexxxx change you would be adorable :deal

 

why dont u just get a zexxxxx change cause you behave womanly face it your brain is feminine and u were born with a mans body ...just go thru with the operation bro ....your anxiety and anger and denial will be so much better dude:yep

 

Tap tap tap "Im a tough guy" Lol

 

your cute and i wanna kiss you on those big lips after your surgery

 

Not attacking anyone. It's obvious you wrote a book based upon a conceived premise. Dempsey at 190 pounds world hwt champion one of boxings all time punchers who many felt (Fleischer and Sharkey for two) hit harder than Joe Louis afraid to fight a 165 pound 5'8 middleweight? Writers search for angles to try to sell a book. Your angle is beyond ridiculous.

The article I posted was written during a time where Greb if we listen to YOU should have been the leading contender behind Wills. In fact his name is mentioned BEHIND that of Willard, Wills, Brennen and Carpentier. Greb BECAUSE OF HIS SIZE is given a Carpentier level chance at beating Dempsey (not very good). Where is his very high ranking? I'll tell you where it is...it wasn't. He was considered a middleweight and too small to give Dempsey a good fight.

Please also note the statement of fact in July 1922 (94 years ago) of exactly the facts as known then and today regarding the difficulty of making a Dempsey Wills fight happen.

 

amen :thumbsup

 

Its funny because thats the exact opposite of what happened. I let the story lead me, which is what a good historian should do. The fact that i was a huge dempsey fan before researching the book and wound up having very little respect for him is evidence enough that i didnt simply reject sources that didnt confirm to a preconceived notion. In fact i anticipated dip****s like you making that claim which is why my book is so heavily cited, features so many notes, and allows the reader to follow my trail of breadcrumbs. If i were worried about some armchair expert discovering that i had cooked the books i wouldnt have done that. Name me one boxing book, one, that utilized anywhere near as many sources as mine. Just one. Even adams books cant come close to claiming he utilizes anywhere even approaching the number of sources that my book does. I wont even go into hagiographies like a flame of pure fire or cavanaughs tunney book that really did start of with a preconceived notion and cant boast of as many sources in the entire book as i use in some single chapters.

If anyone would like to challenge any portion of my book then do so. Youve made a bold statement, a broad, general statement about my specific book now back that statement up. Take passages of my book and tell me why they are wrong and back that up with sources. You cant so you wont. The fact that you will pick ONE article, which is no more than ONE mans opinion and base your entire belief on that, totally ignoring that there were MANY opinions to the contrary is exactly what you are accusing me of doing, despite the fact that ive arrived at my opinion not by closing my mind to alternative arguments but by taking a consensus of opinions, the fact that Greb actually proved himself in the ring (what really matters), had general support, financial backing, and promoters vying for it. Not from just Grebs hometown but from locations all over the country thousands of miles apart. Your stance, that mere opinion trumps acheivement is actually why ratings systems came into place to begin with. It was recognized that champions like Dempsey, Wilson, and Kilbane abused their role and abused this backwards thinking to avoid risking their title at the expense of worthy challengers. These are undeniable, undebateable facts that dont excuse your hero. There were fighters like Greb, Leonard, etc who sought out their toughest challenges. Then there were fighters like Dempsey who were opportunists that milked their status and avoided the stiffer tests. If you really want to argue that Greb and Wills were less deserving, less rewarding, etc than miske, brennan, carpentier, gibbons, firpo, and even tunney, then you are living in your own little world. If you immerse yourself in this era i have no doubt you would either quickly change your mind, or your head would explode because you couldnt deal with the reality of that time vs. the myth youve become a slave to.

 

didnt read ...too long :deal

 

Not to mention it doesnt have pictures and you wouldnt know what the hell we are talking about anyway.

 

Your entire premise is completely revisionist and goes against 90 years of boxing history. Those that lived through that period, unlike you who picked and chose newspaper articles to paint a false history, felt very differently.

Your conclusion concerning Wills is also way off base. You came to that conclusion like the other picking and chosing articles to paint a very misleading and false picture.

 

Harry Greb. 22pages about Harry Greb. Really? Harry Greb? Yep, one more Harry Greb thread in the Classic forum.

Harry freaking Greb.

 

One other final point is that the writer of that article was very highly regarded both in terms of truthfulness and journalistic attributes.

He gained a reputation among his readers and his colleagues as being a straight shooter. As The New York Times opined at the time of his death:

"Even-tempered always, well-informed in all sports and particularly in boxing, to which he paid much notice, he was known the world over as an authority who always told the truth as he saw the events he watched."

"It is a testimony to his integrity that in those days in New York, when the law did not permit the giving of decisions in fights, the wide world was willing to accept the judgment of Bob Edgren in deciding wagers made. When Bob Edgren, in his Evening World column, said so-and-so was the winner nobody complained."

 

didnt read .....but are u getting a zexxxxx change to go with your womanly temper tantrums?

 

And yet no answer to my challenge to refute anything in my book at all. I didn't think so. If you can then do it. If Ive arrived at a conclusion its because I can cite more sources supporting that contention than opposing it. 90 years of history what? If that's the case then instead of repeating "90 years of history" over and over answer my challenge.

You know how reliable boxing history is? Willie Pep won a round without throwing a punch. Didn't happen. Ali got an extra 10 minutes saving him from a knockout against Henry Cooper. Didn't happen. Billy Papke punched Ketchel in the throat resulting in his victory. Didn't happen (in fact the opposite happened). Mickey Walker couldn't beat Greb in the ring but beat him in the street later that night. Didn't happen. Yet all of this garbage has been repeated ad naseum for decades by the same men whose word you take as gospel. When "90 years of history" deviates from the actual consensus of opinion (which was totally unknown at the time given the lack mass communication) then it isn't history. Its simply fiction mixed with the same yellow journalism that the men who wrote that "history" adored. I will take any number of modern historians today like Adam and Springs over a guy like Fleischer who told the same story ten different ways with ten different outcomes every time he told it in order to sell his magazine or himself.

While you ponder this, perry, I will be waiting for you to put together a cohesive argument rebutting my book. Forgive me though if I don't lose any sleep as I seriously doubt you care to address that argument. In the words of Abraham "youd have better luck picking up a turd by the clean end."