At middleweight Greb grinds him into the ground just non stop punching and moving. SRR is the greatest but not at 160 he is top 10 but at 147 he is undisputed
Witnesses of both said Robby's speed wasn't a match for Harry's. Walker described Greb as crawling all over him. Fighting him was described as having an avalanche of boxing gloves dumped on you. Harry owned KO Bill Brennan four times during Greb's insane 45-0 1919 campaign. Brennan's reputation came from 49 knockouts in 52 wins, yet newspaper reporters wrote that Harry's power seemed a match for Brennan's. KO Bill was 6'1" with a 79 inch reach. Greb would swarm all over Robby and overwhelm him with sheer work rate, like a giant hive of bees after sugar. The Windmill got the best of Tunney (widely considered to have been superior in their first four contests), 6'4" Martin Burke, Tommy Gibbons, Loughran, Jack Dillon...and he never outgrew the middleweight division. Clear UD 15 for Harry. Burt Bienstock said SRR was the greatest fighter he ever witnessed, but his own father was present at Greb-Tunney I as a huge Tunney fan, and insisted for the rest of his long life (which went into the 1980's) that Harry Greb was the all time P4P GOAT. I'm not aware of anybody who saw both Greb and Robby in action state that SRR was superior.
This. Feels weird to be fairly confident of a guy we’ve never seen, but all sensible logic points to a Greb victory for me.
And even at his smaller peak at 147, well Greb, when clearly past prime with his legs reported to not be what they once were, repelled the awesome challenge of Walker so conclusively that even Mickey in his somewhat blarney filled autobiography did not really dispute the decision against him, an extraordinary concession by the Toy Bulldog. So even at a faster and lighter weight, Robby's not going to get the best of him. (We do have footage of WW Champion Walker going against 170 pound LHW Champion McTigue, which clearly shows why he got his nickname, and WW Champion Robinson looking very much like a stalking Hearns against Angott.)
No footage of Greb fighting makes this somewhat challenging. I pick SRR and I’d like to think I would have even with film of Greb as to my eyes, SRR is about as good as it gets. Sorry I know there’s a whole mystique around Greb but I am picking Robinson. I would not rule out a stoppage, Ray was damn mean.
His sparring footage with Philadelphia Jack O'Brien (then in his mid 40's) does at least show something of what eyewitnesses described, the bounciness, in and out, and avalanche of punches which wouldn't have required that much effort to unload in volume. As there's also footage of him signing a contract with Mickey Walker and shaking the much smaller hand of his jaunty challenger, I must assume the sparring demonstration and handball playing were during training for his final successful MW Title defense, again in a bout where his legs were noted not to be what they once were. We can extrapolate something of what he must have been like in 1919. Also, we do have a couple bouts of Bill Brennan's on film, Dempsey II and Firpo. Considering that Bill was actually ahead when Jack knocked him out for the second time in their title bout (allegedly because Dempsey broke the celibacy rule in training, according to Doc Kearns), then considering that Harry virtually won all rounds in his four bouts with Brennan in 1919, we're considering an extremely formidable fighting machine indeed.