Who rates higher all time Jeffries or Dempsey?

I think Fitzsimmons of the first Jeffries fight was better than any version of Jack Sharkey. Sharkey was very inconsistent, not much of a puncher, and couldn't take the best punch. Fitzsimmons obliterated hall of fame fighters in 1901 who was near equals to Jack Sharkey.

 

Boxing Historian Steve Compton on Greb Gibbons fights


The first Greb-Gibbons fight was held in Tommy's home town and was the first fight Greb ever had outside of the Penn/Ohio area and he was fighting the student and chief sparring partner of the best P4P fighter in the world. Gibbons was undefeated despite having already faced several contenders and in fact would continue undefeated for another 5 years suffering his first defeat at Greb's hands. They had two common opponents to that point: Joe Borrell who Greb had lost and drawn with but who Gibbons had defeated and Billy Miske who Greb had drawn with but Gibbons had defeated twice. Greb went into that fight as the underdog and despite this the Twin Cities press lauded his performance and wrote letters back to Pittsburgh telling the press there that he had made a hit and was welcome back any time and not to hold the loss against him. In fact based on that performance he was signed to fight Mike O'Dowd the following month in St. Paul but had to cancel after he broke his arm against Kid Graves. Kid Graves subbed for Greb and defeated O'Dowd as well. I doubt it helped Greb's performance that hanging over his head was the fact that less than a week after his bout with Gibbons he was expected to testify in court against a man who shot one of Greb's friends in the face and who blamed Greb for the altercation. The weights were 158 pounds at 3pm on the afternoon of the fight.


For their second fight in Pittsburgh Greb had suffered a broken hand against Bob Roper in Denver that had curtailed his planned western tour. The hand had not healed 100% by the time he was signed to fight Gibbons and it prevented him from training much more than roadwork. Yet, despite his previous loss to Gibbons Greb was confident of winning and by this point in his career was good enough that he had beaten several fighters while he suffered one or both hands broken. He dearly wanted revenge against Gibbons for the previous loss which he considered one of only five legitimate losses on his record at that point (he had avenged all of the others). Now here is the interesting thing: The contract for this fight called for the weigh in to be at 3pm on the day of the fight with both fighters to weigh 165 pounds. If you look at Greb's record this fight was held on May 15 but it was originally scheduled for May 12. On may 12 at 3pm both fighters weighed in at 165 but later that day, before the fight, rain moved in forcing a postponement of three days. Greb could make 165 easily but Gibbons couldnt. He was already growing into a full fledged LHW. Red Mason argued that Gibbons must weigh again because the contract demanded that the weights be held to the day of the fight. Gibbons refused and Mason demanded Gibbons' weight forfeit. Again Gibbons refused and threatened to walk away from the fight if he had to weigh in or pay. Finally Gibbons was allowed to not weigh. Ringside the weights were announced as Greb weighing 165 and Gibbons weighing 166 but there was no official weigh in so this was merely Gibbons' word. For all anyone knows he weighed 175 pounds. Now, Greb got a beating and a good one. But the next day he was out begging for an immediate rematch. This wasnt lip service either because the first opportunity Gibbons gave him he jumped at it. Now thats the mark of a guy who knows he can improve upon his performance and he did.


When the fighters agreed to face each other in the rematch Gibbons' handling of the weight in the previous fight was a major sticking point. As such he had to agree to make 163 at 10am on the morning for this fight. The problem was that there was no formal contract for this fight, just a verbal agreement. As such when fight time came around Greb weighed 160.5 pounds and once again Gibbons refused to weigh in. Red Mason almost pulled Greb out of the fight but this would have left the promoters holding a heavy loss so the sheriff stepped in and helped to negotiate a compromise. Gibbons would be allowed to fight without weighing in and Greb would be given half of his weight forfeit, which amounted to $250. For this fight Greb had left no stone underturned in training and even traveled to New York to train with Jack Dempsey, giving the champion all he wanted. Greb went in and beat Gibbons fair and square rain or no rain. Before the rain had even started Greb had drawn first blood and hurt Gibbons several times. Every single round Greb picked up the pace and by the 10th Greb was fighting faster than he had in the first round and Gibbons looked confused and utterly bewildered as Greb blasted him around the ring to the crowds amazement. Fluke my ass. Rain my ass.


The fourth fight is interesting because Gibbons always swore up and down that he would knock Greb out in a long fight and this bout was scheduled for 15 rounds. He was now on a 26 fight win streak (his last loss being to Greb). 21 of those wins were by knockout. He was considered the front runner for a shot at Dempsey and the bout was billed by Tex Rickard as an eliminator to decide Dempsey's logical opponent. Gibbons opened an 8 to 5 favorite in the bout and the odds grew in his favor to 2 to 1 as the fight drew near (some reports had him a 3-1 favorite). He was expected to knock Greb out. To date it was the most important fight either fighter had ever been involved in. It was a cross promotion held in conjunction with the Milk Fund (Milk Fund bouts were enormous for a decade to come). Its gate receipts were in the top ten of all time to that point and in the top five (if I recall correctly) for indoor boxing events. The crowd was populated with society from the Roosevelts, to the Astors, to the Vanderbilts. The bout was filmed (now lost) and based on the victory Greb was thrown a massive parade on his return to Pittsburgh, got a vaudville lucrative contract, was asked to write a series of articles to be syndicated for newspapers nationwide, and won the right to challenge for the HW championship by Dempsey's (who called it the best fight he ever saw) own admission. The fight itself was a masterful performance with Greb alternately boxing rings around Gibbons and outslugging him when Gibbons was able to corner him despite Gibbons having every physical advantage. So with everything on the line, with all of the chips down, and with every advantage Gibbons lost. The weights for this bout were 171 for Gibbons and 163.5 for Greb.

 

I have never before in this forums history seen someone argue a guy who lost a world title eliminator deserved the title shot as much as the guy who beat him in the eliminater!

 

Again,

You posted two unnofficial AP scorecards which had Greb clearly winning the title eliminator...then you try to argue Gibbons deserved the title shot just as much as Greb.

Why even have the title eliminater then?