If Greb footage is found and it is mediocre how would it change your view of his opposition??

Well for me it wouldn’t make one iota of difference, in fact it should enhance his legacy. I mean he beat Gene Tunney and Micky Walker just think about it, that’s enough for me and that’s apart from all of his other stellar wins.

 

No one here is doubting he was an astonishing physical marvel and great fighter. The issue is what impact may be made by seeing him and from the endless forced cliches to the constant head butting , if that’s what we see as many wrote at the time, it may shape opinion. It’s a what if …

 

I appreciate all the detail Klompton!
I do not know the provenance, but I was saying that I read when Greb was eye gouging the referee asked what he was doing & Greb supposedly told him, incredulous that the referee would intervene, & the ref was taken aback & did not protest.
You heard of an instance like this?

I said I "wonder if" you can be neutral.
Because even the best historians may fall prey to worshipful attention & always taking the most favorable interpretation, however plausible.
I am not saying you are doing this; I am expressing healthy skepticism on all sides.
Maybe the facts support your aguments completely.

An example of bias AND likely proper scholarship: Bill Jenkinson wrote a book about the Home Run, "Baseball's Ultimate Power".
He combed tons of sources like microfiche & calculated the length of homers even when interrupted by say walls or stands with seemingly sound physics.
He made a very convincing argument that Babe Ruth hit the ball further than anyone-in absolute distance & more often hit monster shots.
Even with much worse training & bat technology.
Had Jimmy Foxx just ahead of Mickey Mantle for the next 2, Mantle the fastest ever...

But he also wrote a book "the year Babe Ruth hit 104 home runs".
Talking about how many he would have hit with modern sized stadiums & the same rules.
That would be fine, but then he went too far & compared the conditions & competition, concluding Ruth would essentially still be the best ever-as I recall implying that maybe today he could hit 104 dingers in a season-not just against those same pitchers!

Which is highly implausible; athletes & hurlers have gotten so much better.
Anyway it is possible Ruth would still be great today (the game does not demand the best trained modern athletes) even reincarnated...

Likewise Greb was so much of an outlier maybe he WOULD be nearly as good today-without the benefit of all the modern sports science let alone PEDs.
He certainly seems an enigma to me.
Just the engine he had while being so active is more than hard work; it seems a Freak genetic ability.
It is not like he had a hyperbaric chamber or EPO or blood transfusions...

 

If he looks the same as he does with the footage we have of him, I'd still call him garbage on the eye. Effective as heck, but not someone that has perfected the sweet science.

 

All that's terrific but I read this as being about what we might see and how it may alter perception .. without film, based on his opposition and newspaper accounts, the following has been branded into our minds : he was tireless, he was exceptionally fast, he had a terrific chin, he was a rough guy and fearless ... if we saw him and he didn't look like any of this it would alter perception. I'd be shocked if and when any film surfaces that would be the case ...

Secondly and to me more intriguing was how much of his effective aggression was amplified by tactics that would not be allowed today ... not just the endless clinching but what would be allowed in the clinching , the head butts, the low blows, the kidney punches, the rabbit punches, the thumbs, etc .. Take the first Tunney fight ... in round one he busted Tunney's nose with a head butt ... today with replays he'd likely be disqualified and his biggest career win negated ... in many accounts this was all part of how he fought and he did it with blinding speed and tireless stamina ... That was his game, blinding speed, volume of punches and lots of rough stuff that befuddled his opposition and kept them on the defensive .. There is no way he'd be allowed to fight with the degree of foul play he exhibited in his arsenal today and to make it seem the rules would allow it is untrue. He could have been a guy that fouled out like a Golota. I'd be curious how effective he'd be as a short middleweight without a big punch having to redefine his game 85% ... I'm not saying he couldn't by any means but I also feel his ability to fight the way he did at the time combined with his inhumane stamina added to his effectiveness and compensated for what he lacked which was size, reach and power ..

 

I have not heard of this instance. Certainly not in any first hand sources off the top of my head.

This is why I cited all of my sources. If people want to try to dispute anything in my book they can follow the breadcrumbs.

Im not really interested in conjecture or what Greb MIGHT have done. Merely in what he did do.

 

This takes for granted the idea that Greb actually fought like this, he didnt. And frankly, are you saying that these tactics were allowed in his day? Because everything you outlined here was just as illegal in Greb's day as it is today and Greb only lost one fight via DQ, again, a fight in which most of the sources say his opponent was just as guilty.

Except the majority of ringside accounts state that it was the first right hand of the fight that Greb threw that broke Tunney's nose. A later clash of heads resulted in a cut for Tunney but immediately after the fight Tunney exonerated Greb of this saying it was an accidental head clash and just bad luck, that Greb could have just as easily emerged with the cut.

Again, your information is faulty and your notion that dirty tactics were legal back then is incorrect. Any historian would know this. But then...

The idea that film show him to be dirty and LIKELY to be disqualified under "todays rules" also ignores the fact that there is just as much chance that film would show his reputation as a dirty fighter to be overstated. We have four films of Fritzie Zivic and in none of them is he this mauling, thumbing, headbutting, groin punching dirty fighter.

 

Same height as Richard Tiger with an inch extra reach.
Same height as LaMotta with 4" extra reach.
Same height as Hagler with 4" less reach.
Same height as Canelo with 1/2' extra reach.
Same height as Valdez with an inch extra reach.
2 1/2' shorter than GGG with an inch extra reach.
Same height as Fullmer with 2" extra reach.
Bigger than Zale in both.

I think his size would hold up nicely particularly given his style.

 

I'm bored arguing with you ... I am quote from what I have read ... all you're doing is the same ... a lot off this is currently in Pollack's new Dempsey book ...

 

I'm not disagreeing but unlike Hagler, Valdez, GGG and Zale he was not a puncher, even grades below Canelo and Fuller ... that's why my question is based on his size and skills less the fouling ... it would be interesting.

 

Fullmer wasn't a puncher. The fouling depends on how accurate Klompy is i guess. Personally i don't think his size is an issue given his style and traits which you've implied.

 

Listen , the sources detailing Greb's tactics are everywhere, Klompton is just reading reports just like Adam and many others , none of them have extensive footage to make first hand observations from . ... I just said Pollack's most recent book details a ton of this because it does .. I think Adam has proven himself to be far more of a historian than any of us with twelve exceptional books packed with archival articles. ... None of this diminishes the exceptional skills Greb obviously had but again I ask if his skills plus the fouling he displayed were part of the sum total of his effectiveness ... I understand Fuller wasn't a puncher but he was a significantly bigger one than Greb as was Canelo ...

 

Surely Klompy has dug deeper than the readily available sources that are available everywhere? The at the time written word is as good as footage basically. Are you able to link me up with contemporary accounts of his dirty tactics?

I'm not sure Fullmer would be a "significantly" bigger puncher, he was pretty average at best. Canelo isn't in dispute which is why i never mentioned him - he's an excellent banger.

 

JT, the most recent and pretty extensive are filled in Pollack's recent Dempsey book , worth the buy and read from far more than the Greb stuff but it has extensive first hand coverage of many bouts ... while I and I'm sure you appreciate the different spins on who felt who deserved a decision pretty much all claim he fought in a very rough style , not uncommon for the days but would not translate today .. that's the point of interest to me ... I know the man was uniquely and extremely talented , almost a freak with the speed and stamina but I wonder how effective he would have been held to less rough housing ..

 

I wouldnt even call Adams book an unbiased source for information on Dempsey much less Greb. You are right, the sources are there, look them up. Dont listen to me or adam. Im confident in what they say.