Back in the old days (60s I think) someone got the bright idea of showing writers, trainers and fighters footage of the turn of the century greats, they weren't impressed. One yelled at the screen "who are these bums?" Well, they were Fitzsimmons, Corbett and others. They'd passed down stories of these greats but when they finally got to see them they thought they sucked ass. A lot of people put Greb on the top of the pile, sometimes even on p4p lists, based entirely on what was written about him and we all know how unreliable writers can be. In 1970 Nat Fleischer ranked Jack Johnson, Jim Jefferies and Fitzsimmons his top three heavyweights with Joe Louis a mere 6th place! Was Greb really that good or are we hyping him up way too much? I mean, we have footage of him sparring Philadelphia Jack O'Brian and it didn't look that impressive. If one day we found fight footage of Greb and it's just as unimpressive would that change where you'd rank him?
No, it was based on how he dominated the best fighters in the world for years. We have footage of most important Greb opponents and they all look good - Tunney, Gibbons, Walker and others. Also, I don't understand why people keep saying that Fitzsimmons looks unimpressive on the tape.
The resume is undeniable. There is also footage of his opponents, and they all look good to great H2H. Ask Klompton if you wanna know about Greb.
Also, O'Brian was a 52 year old man, and Greb, who was notorious for his odd style, was play sparring him. Greb did not have a fundamentally aesthetic style. But the reuslts were undeniable.
And for the record, I also find Corbett and Co., mainly Corbett, unimpressive. Fitzsimmons is a more difficult case, though.
Greb is underrated as hell elsewhere. Seems to be accurately rated here. Some people on r/boxing dont have him top 10 (then again those suspects usually rank Mayweather as the goat so consider the source)
Yes. Results trump how good a fighter looks on film, every day of the week and twice on Sundays. If you thought that a fighter with a resume like Greb looked bad, it would say more about your judgment, than how good the fighter in question was!
Reminds me of Sung Kil Moon. Awkward, aggressive style. No flash. But concrete hands and chin. His results were undeniable, in the Ams and Pros.
Corbett was pretty much a good athlete who knew how to use his speed to outland opponents and stay away from hard punches. He's not boxing master some called him back then, he's just very talented guy. His resume is also far from ATG, though he has some nice wins. Very good fighter at his best but not all-timer in my opinion.
Actually Fleischer developed his all time rankings in the 1950’s publishing them in 1959. There really is very little footage of Fitzsimmons and Corbett. What there is the quality is very poor. Not enough to make a true judgement.
Guys like Jack Johnson or Fitzsimmons wouldn't have fought well in any other era. At that time they'd just been transitioning to gloved bouts, fights were still long chess matches with little in the way of combination punching. Those guys wouldn't have been champions in the late 20s or 30s. Maybe the same can be said of Greb? He might have been able to pulverise guys in his day but how would he fare against a Hagler or a Robinson? We might have footage of Tunney, Walker etc. but we have no idea what their skill set was really like around the time they met Greb. Just look at Archie Moore when he fought Ron Richards and the old Archie that we know and love. Fighters change.
