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

Here's how I see his opposition .. he fought every white middleweight, light heavyweight and heavyweight that would fight him plus Norfolk , Flowers and Blackburn , three exceptional black fighters ... this is that I am aware of ... I don''t know another white fighter from the first half of the 20th Century that can make a claim close to that ...

 

Perfecting boxing is similar to any way you can win.
You could make a case that if someone like Wilder has a one hit quitter & has not perfected vboxing-not that anyone literally has-but he still is a World CLass fighter in any era.

Difference is, Greb's very busy unpredictable style is NOT one freakish ability-that is a form of near-perfecting The Sweet Science.
Assuming his can do it without drugs (that is sure) & could in other rule sets...

He is a Superb Talent.
It matter not one 'lil bit how "pretty" for conventional he is.

 

Yes you are! You use what he did to argue about how great he was & how great he could have done.
For example claiming he did not cheat/foul much before his eye injury opposing those who claim otherwise + using it as an argument for his likely effectiveness under other & modern rule sets.

Which is completely fine to say.

 

Im not claiming anything. The sources are simply as thin as air for a guy with as many fights as he had all over the country to say he was a dirty fighter UNTIL after he injured his eye and, again, the most frequent accusation against him AFTER that injury was holding and hitting. In fact, prior to his injury there are more accounts noting his good sportsmanship than talking about fouls. If you think you have the sources to dispute this then by all means lets compare notes.

 

I continue to be mystified by the question you and Grant keep posing as to whether Greb could fight his style under different rules. Nobody has been able to answer me what rules have changed since his era that would somehow hamper his style? Grant pointed to hitting low, headbutts, thumbing, excessive clinching, etc but those things were illegal in Grebs era as well. What else?

 

The way they used to fight back then is generally very different and might look silly as such to some. I doubt many of the people on this forum will describe it that way, but will appreciate it for what it was and the fact those guys were tough, so no matter how weird their style might look, we know their knockouts and the damage they inflicted or were inflicted is real. Not to mention the duration of some fights. So no - won't change my mind on Greb or any other if such footage is found. But even if found, the footage will be with poor picture quality and frames, so we'll have to imagine a bit how it really looked.

 

It would make me think that my Granddad was right, even more than he realized, himself, and Gene Tunney was indeed crap, and, therefore, Gene's only claim to fame was beating the hollow shell of Jack Dempsey. Hmmm.

 

I doubt it would change my opinion on him. Ability wise, I am not impressed by his peers (with a few exceptions), so I doubt I'll be impressed by him. In terms of greatness, he might go up a place or two, but he'd have to look exceptional to knock off SRR of top spot.

 

I do NOT have the sources, I read about things second hand, did not see sources listed, & thus ask you.
You are making claims based upon your evidence-which is fine & may well be completely correct.

 

Your question does not at all respond to the post you replied to-where I wrote about how good Greb is & how "pretty" is irrelevant.
I do not doubt he could "fuight bhis style", my question in another post was would he be as effective?
Due to my understanding that he was a very dirty fighter, not being unable to handle other guy's cheating.

But you keep saying he was only dirty-& then in a limited way-after the eye injury, & I have no specific info to dispiute that.
It is something I never heard before, so thanks for that.

 

If you were to see footage of Greb and didn't not think he "looked good" you should not then question the level of his opposition but rather question your conception of "looking good".

 

I think you would need to see footage of a number of fights to get a fair representation of him. And just seeing a few bits where he's not all that would not reflect his whole career either, every fighter has had moments in their career where they might not have looked that special but others where they blow you away. But as others have said footage of his opponents already exist.

 

Honestly not much. It is very very difficult for me to rate a man who we don't have actual footage of them fighting. As unpopular an opinion that is on here.

 

If I'm not mistaken, Klompton said that Greb started to fight dirty later on his career, due to vision/eye problems.
So ir order to form a proper opinion on the man, we'd need footage from his prime, say 1919 for example, when he won 40+ fights if I'm not mistaken.

 

I agree with this. Ill give a couple of examples. Freddie Steele looks great on film. However, the longest film we have of him which is the theatrical version of Steele-Risko which is most of the fight. Steele doesnt look as good as he does against Lesnevich and Dundee because in that fight he opted to play it safe, fight very conservatively in order to ensure a title victory, and some say he carried Risko on the orders of Riskos mob handlers. If that was the only film of Steele, and you didnt have any context around it you might have a lower opinion of Steele. Likewise, Texdy Yarosz has a very good record and is highly thought of. He doesnt look that good in the complete film of his fight with Dundee and yet even his hometown papers described that fight as a subpar performance for Yarosz. The two most likely films to survive of Greb are Mickey Walker and Ted Moore. The Walker fight was supposed to be a great fight and great performance by Greb. The Moore fight was considered a relatively uninteresting and uninspired performance. If you are ONLY basing an opinion of Greb on what you see (which is ridiculous if you ate throwing out all of the other evidence) then your opinion would largely be colored by which of those fights you saw.