Is Harry Greb a top 3 light heavyweight H2H?

Everyone who has studied the great fighters of the past knows when you list great LHW fighters you have to include Greb, Tunney, Charles and Langford.

This has been understood for many years now.

 

No one is saying those fighters and many others should not be on an ATG light hwt FIGHTERS list.

However lists such as these are more often than not titled ATG light hwt CHAMPIONS. Since none of those fighters were light hwt CHAMPION they would be excluded from the list.

 

This is not list about champions, read the thread title.

It has long been understood by the great historians that Greb is a great LHW fighter,

 

Except for the five times he actually fought for the title and failed to win it!

Plus, I am not really sure at what point he became a better fighter than Tommy Gibbons. They split there series 2 all and it seems to me that any fight they had at any point in time, would have at best been a toss of the coin. If Greb is top 3, then Tommy Gibbons must also be a top 3 heavyweight. Possibly top 2.


Looking back at Grebs career, obviously he was capable of winning a light heavy tile if everything aligned. But..., At first the title was held by Jack Dillon. Dillon did fight and lose to Greb twice, but this was after he had already lost to Greb. Losses by Greb to Tommy Gibbons and George Chip suggest he wasnt really in the picture. Not to mention that les Darcy at this early point would have knocked him senseless.

Next up is Battling Levinskey. He defended 5 times against Greb, but despite Greb doing well, and some newspaper reports giving him the verdict in those fights, Greb actually failed to win the fights. Modern rules and scoring would have seen Greb a light heavy champion (probably) but who knows, levinskey may have changed his style. Levinskey had quite a few Newspaper verdicts go against him during his reign but retained his title because he did not lose the official verdicts. The first "loss" seems to have been Tommy Gibbons, who to this point at least seems to have been really hard done by in terms of not getting the title. When Gibbons did finally get around to fighting Greb in 1920, he beat him again, which to this point suggests that he was the better fighter for this period. This was Greb's best period of career (probably) and his record was astonishing, but still he did lose to Tommy's little brother Mike Gibbons and was only 2-1-1 with Soldier Bartfield. Given the 5 chances Greb had, i am pretty sure that Foster, Fitzsimmons, Langford, Spinks, Jones Jr and quite a few others would have emerged as champions.

Interestingly, it was Georges Carpentier of all fighters who didnt need any chances and defeated Battling Levinskey. Greb continued his astonishing run, but lets be honest, can anyone really criticise Carpentier for concentrating on the Dempsey fight? Greb probably emerged as the clear contender, although Gibbons and he were neck and neck. He would need to fight a lot better than he did against Jeff Smith who seems to have been a bit of a thorne in his side with 2 draws (or at the very least pretty close fights). Whether this would have been enought to beat Carpentier, who knows. Greb was better than Battling Siki who ultimately stopped carpentier but i doubt Greb could have KOd Carpentier (he hardly kod anyone) so this would have been a completely different fight And carpentier cant be counted out.

McTigue had already lost a couple of Newspaper decisions to Greb by the time he won the title. Greb, himself seemed to have been taken over by Tunney at the very least, and it does seem as if some of the younger light heavyweights were starting to become the better fighters, even though Greb was still performing brilliantly.

All in all though, I am not sure that Tunney was a top 3 light heavyweight of his own time, much less a top 3 atg light heavy. I do think that head to head he would have beaten some of the very best. In a round robin tournament of the best light heavys ever, he would have had several huge scalps and if he fought often enough he probably beats every light heavy champ at least once. But head to head or otherwise he is not top 3 of all time. In fact, I think it would be very reasonable to rate Tunney, Gibbons and Darcy above him, head to head during his own time.

 

How was he never given the chance to fight the lineal light heavyweight champion 5 times (i havent checked maybe levinsky wasnt champion for 1 or 2 of these)? Greb didnt win any of these fights, although he did probably do the better in them.

Greb beat Tommy Gibbons twice and lost to him twice. How is one asserting dominance over the other? Much is made of Greb dominating the last fight. Quite possibly Tommy had his eye and mind on an upcoming Dempsey fight and was uncharacteristically below his best?

I may have had a slight agenda by suggesting that Les Darcy would knock him senseless lol. Though even Grebs biggest supporters would have to admit that Darcy would have started a favourite (at this point in time). Also, just because he isnt a top 3 atg Light heavy, doesnt mean he wasnt still a very, very good Light heavyweight.

 

Greb was not a knockout puncher so the no decision fights he had didn't suit his style. In all the fights he had with current champions he always left the ring as the man who performed better in the fight.

He did lose to Tommy Gibbons twice but also beat him twice, the two were in all likelihood a good stylistic pairing and would have gone .50 in a series of fights.

Not arsed about any 6 round losses, they tell us nothing.

 

no, Greb was not even a lhw and he was not the lhw champion, added to it you don't have any film of his fights so you have absolutely no tangible reason to rank him that high at lhw

 

What is a LHW?

The best LHW sized fighters didn't hold the championship, strange but true.

I don't rank Greb at all, but when discussing greatness he is clearly one of the top dogs at both MW and LHW, more so at LHW for me.

 

stop smoking

 

How many LHW fighters have a better resume than he in your opinion?

 

my answer was because first you said..
" i don't rate him" and after you said something similar to
" everybody should rank him in the top at lhw"
it is not coherent

 

I said don't rank him at all. Which I don't.

I then said when discussing greatness he's clearly one of the top dogs. Which he is.

 

losing to nobodies like tiger flowers, and being badly exposed by ko against another bum like joe chip in 2 rounds,losing against a mediocre like joe borrel or losing 3 times against genne tuney don't help him too much in his legacy at lhw