What are the odds of Harry Greb Film ever being discovered?

I will try to be clearer. Fiction films seem to turn up mainly in the archives of European museums.

Is this true of boxing films? Do you know of any which have turned up which were kept by museums? Or do the "lost" boxing films you know of come from private collectors?

The reason I ask is that if boxing films have been or are kept in museums, the chances improve that rare ones such as Greb in action will show up in the future.

 

Why? Does it suddenly invalidate all of his wins?? Mayorga looked like a complete amateur it doesnt change the fact that he won his title by beating one of the best textbook fighters of that era, twice. Plenty of fighters have had great success despite glaring deficiencies. People used to laugh at Marcianos clumsiness and two left feet. He retired undefeated. I could continue but the fact is that guys like Walker, the Gibbons brothers, Tunney, Jeff Smith, Loughran, O’Dowd, Bill Brennan, Augie Ratner, and many more that we have film of look good, skilled, athletic, experienced, modern and we often have them looking like that against other great fighters, not bums designed to make them look good which is what you see 95% of the time today. So the fact that Greb was able to have the success he had against the stellar competition he faced says much more than what he looked like aesthetically while doing it. But yeah, go on believing there is a far reaching conspiracy of fight film enthusiasts who have hidden all evidence of the era sucking lol, that makes a lot more sense...

 

Don't play dumb. If fighters look bad on film, it doesn't help how people view them in the least.

And if they look bad on film, and people try to excuse it by saying "well, he beat this guy and that guy," then the questions become how did they lose to a guy who looks so bad?

If Greb looks like a complete novice, it changes a lot for not only him but the people he fought.

No fighters ever looked terrible on film and it ELEVATED them in the minds of others.

 

I’ll go back to my original post and say Im not aware of too many films coming out of museums. If you mean archives thats different than a museum. Some have come out of archives in the past but yes, it is a much smaller percentage than fictional films. This has less to do with artistic preservation and more to do with the function of the films themselves. Film productions, as in a narrative film, were mass produced so that hundreds of copies could be sent out all over the world to make money (the driving force here right). More copies means more chances for at least one of those copies to survive to the present. Boxing films were nearly as mass produced as studio films. I have no doubt that in many cases there was literally only one print made. Boxing prior to WW2 is even more complicated by the fact that transportation of boxing films across state lines was illegal. Therefore there was little motivation to mass produce them and send them all over the country. They were typically, barring a few exceptions, produced on a limited basis and shown within the state in which it was filmed. There was no vhs, dvd, streaming etc so there was no expectation that these films would make money after their initial run. They are big, bulky, and dangerously flammable so they were often expensive and dangerous to store. Thus many old films were destroyed either on purpose or in disasters. Furthermore, with studio films you had an entire industry around film making. It was their business, their bread and better, and they were much better suited and prepared to distribute, store, and preserve these films. Boxing films were often controlled by the promoter who was merely looking to extend his profits on the event beyond the live gate and once he had squeezed what he could out of the films they were of no use to him. So preservation of fight films, by and large, was rarely a priority. Its really a miracle we have what we have and people would be shocked to learn what weve lost. Not to some stupid conspiracy but simply because the odds were always against most of these films surviving.

 

Like I said, you go on, in your ignorance, believing that people are withholding a Greb film from you to prevent you from thinking less of him. Lol.

 

No,because he has this great record.

 

He never suggested film of them looking ,"like a complete novice," would /could elevate them.He basically said his record speaks for itself.And we have decent footage of many of his better opponents.

 

If you thought that Greb looked bad on film, it would say more about your judgment, than it did about how good he was.

What ever Greb looked like, that is what good is!

 

Yeah, if Greb footage didn't impress you, it tells more about your ability to judge talent than about Harry. Who cares that Greb could fight in "incorrect" way if it's better than anyone ever fought? Maybe all this "he looks good" or "he fights incorrectly" is overblown. I'm sure Greb could fight and look like textbook boxer but he wouldn't be as good as he was.

 

I still wait every september to see if Steve Lott uploads a HQ version of Ezzard Charles vs Lloyd Marshall 2, the lowlights of my time waiting for it or any other murderers row stuff have been no girlfriends and a low key job, such a hard time to be a classic boxing fan.

 

Well look at Carlos Monzon.
I’m not saying he looks particularly bad, but he basically just looks like an upright, pretty unremarkable fighter, fighting in a traditional European style.
Aesthetically he’s never impressed me, and that’s partly probably because I haven’t been able to notice the little nuances he possessed.
It doesn’t stop him being in most people’s picks as one of the top 3 all time middleweights.

 

As I understood boxing more, Monzon DID impress me aesthetically due to those said nuances. At first, I thought he was just an ungainly giant, but he really was an adaptive master. The same can be said of fighters such as Sung Kil Moon (who wasn't adaptive, just destructive).
Function over Form.

 

Spot on, I mean if he was just the straight forward unremarkable stand up boxer I thought he looked like, it's pretty obvious he couldn't have went on to have the phenomenal success he had.
Whatever Greb would look like, I can't see how it can possibly detract from how great a fighter he obviously was.

 

I'll be sure and re-post these quotes next time you guys bash Wilder for looking awkward as he knocks out another challenger.

 

And what have his victims done that makes beating them so impressive?

The looks awkward, but resume speaks for itself angle, doesn't work when you have a two wins over ranked opponents, neither of which have any historically notable wins.