Harry Greb Footage

I think you misinterpreted (or maybe I wasn't clear) what I meant by "the opinions of men who were paid to watch boxing matches and then give their opinion on who won", because nothing in your post is relevant to the part of my post that you have quoted.

To be clear, what I was effectively saying is, if you respect newspaper decisions, then Greb has the highest quality and deepest win resume in all of boxing history, and it's not even close.

If quality and depth of win resume are key amongst you're ranking criteria, as they are mine, then Greb is a lock for the top 5 p4p all time and has a good a case as anyone for the GOAT.

Personally speaking, people's opinons, be they writers, trainers, opponents or whomever, interesting as they may be, do not factor into my ranking criteria. Instead I consider only a fighters record and all the relevant context I am aware of around those records. I thereby keep my ranking criteria as objective as possible, accepting the subject matter is inherently subjective as it is.

If your all time p4p rankings heavily factor in the "eye test", then you're right to enitrely exclude Greb from your rankings, as well as many other fighters from distant eras with little (in terms of quality and/or quantity) or no footage available.

 

He'll never get that Greg.

 

And the problem with the eye test is always the eyes being used.

 

There is that, but I also consider an ATG list, based on fighters achievements, who they beat and lost to, how and when, to be distinct from an all time p4p H2H list, which is essentially based on the eye test (which is where the problem you allude to can occur).

I rank Greb at #2 in former and whilst I don't have a list for the latter, if I did, I'd clearly need to exclude Greb, along with many other fighters who competed in distant eras.

 

That's where you lose me.

This is what boxing records looked like until the year 2000. This is a partial record for Gene Tunney.

https://ibb.co/JWJ1pm7F

One of the first boxing websites on the internet, Cyberboxingzone, continued the pattern,

http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/tunney-g.htm
http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/greb.htm

Harry Greb ND 10
Tommy Gibbons KO12
Jack Herman KO2
Bartley Madden KO3
Johnny Risko ND12

It was listed that way because the only official way you could win a no-decision fight was by KO.

Lots of guys had a lot of no-decision fights. They don't show up as NDs on their records because they won them by KO. Or they lost them by KO. Because that's how you won.

And, even more importantly, THAT'S HOW YOU LOST. By KO.

Harry Greb could've had 200 more victories if he scored a KO in all his no-decision fights. And Greb could've had 200 more losses if he got KOed in all of them. Neither happened.

And, as it stood, he still had a great record.

In 2000, Boxrec showed up. And then the guys running it decided to name winner of the no-decision fights.

So they added up newspaper accounts "that they could find" and if they found if MORE accounts gave it to one guy over the other, 100 years later, then magically that guy won.

But, even that changes.

This week, I found an old debate on a forum asking why Greb was named the winner of a no-decision on one site and not on another, and someone who works at boxrec (and apparently you can see who is making changes to records on the site) said Mike DeLisa (who ran Cyberboxingzone, was then contributing for Boxrec, and used to know better) counted more wins for Greb from some newspapers so changed it to a Greb win. Then the guy said another contributor found another newspaper claiming the other guy won, so they changed the result, and then DeLisa found another newspaper, and changed it to a Greb win again.

AND, I'M SORRY, but that is bull. "COUNTING NEWSPAPER accounts?"

Ignoring the enormous problem that a huge percentage of his fights took place in Pennsylvania and those papers make up most of the accounts for his no-decision DECISIONS ...

Leaving that aside, when did it become acceptable to change the rules of a fight 100 years after it took place by counting newspaper accounts? And then results change when you find different newspapers?

I can't abide by that ... for any fighter.

If you wanted to win a no-decision, you should've scored a ko. If you didn't, cyber nerds 100 years later shouldn't be changing the results.

If the rules for the fight were the boxer who won over the most newspaper writers WON the fight, I'd have no problem with counting newspaper decisions.

But that's not how you won them. You had to score a knockout or be Knocked out. There was no mystery about it. You either scored a KO and WON, or you didn't officially win OR LOSE.

 

Yeah, your view on the legitimacy of newspaper decisions is one of the core reasons you rate Greb differently to the majority (based on the survey I linked earlier in this thread) of posters in the classic section of this forum.

To my mind, it's simple, whilst there are both pros and cons to newspaper decisions relative to judges scoring, both are essentially predicated on human beings being paid to watch a fight and call a winner. In the majority of Greb's major wins, either all, or the overwhelming majority of newspaper reports, scored for Greb, and there was typically a lot more than 3 of them, none appointed by the fights promoter. That's good enough for me.

 

Many boxer/punchers today, who know individual rounds are being scored, still will not try to win rounds and just go for the knockout.

They know it's detrimental, but they do it anyway.

In no-decision fights, when you know there are no judges, and no scoring, winning individual rounds isn't the priority. A KO is.

All you are doing is looking for a KO.

In those instances, boxers who don't hit hard may throw a lot to hopefully chop a guy down and get a late ko.

Boxers who hit hard may just wait for openings.

Both strategies work.

Either way, adding a totally separate scoring system to that type of sporting event after the fact, when winners weren't determined that way, isn't in any way correct.

Neither won or lost, because neither scored a KO.

Those were the rules. I'm not out of line.

 

Clearly, I disagree. Fighters were acutely aware that human beings were paid to watch their fights and give their opinion on who won, just that it was writers giving their verdicts in papers published the next day, not the verdicts of 3 judges being announced immediately after the fight in the ring. Boxers, including Greb, challenged individual papers for scoring a fight against them, there can be no doubt that how newspapers scored fights mattered to the competitors themselves. In Greb's greatest year, 1919, 21 x no decision fights went the distance. The cumulative total of newspaper decisions from these fights were 47 in favour of Greb vs 1 against. In many of those fights, papers from different states, go into great detail, painting similar pictures of the bouts that they scored mostly the same. I, as is the case with the fighters at the time, choose not to completely disregard how newspaper writers scored bouts.

That said, if you wish to completely disregard how newspapers scored fights, that is of course your right, and frankly no concern of mine. I don't know if you have an ATG p4p ranking list, but if you do or ever compile one in the future, I recommend you limit your rankings to fighters who debuted from around 1930 onwards. Newspaper decisions accounted for over half the contests of many fighters before then, you just cannot accurately gauge their careers if you disregard over half their fights, so fighters pre (roughly) 1930 are best excluded entirely from your all time rankings.

 

Fighters were aware, because they were the rules of the no-decision fights, that you won or lost by KO.

And they fought accordingly.

The newspaper decisions had no bearing on anything but betting and gamblers who bet on who won more rounds (in a fight where the winner was not determined by who won the most rounds).

Maybe Harry liked to bet on how many rounds he'd win if he was going against someone he knew liked to wait around and look for openings and he got mad if some writers didn't agree. But winning rounds had no bearing on the official result.

NONE. You won with a Ko. That's it.

They had zero impact on a fighter's record, if it went the distance, which is why there were so many.

That's why they were listed simply as ND for 100 freaking years.

Those were rules.

 

If only we had footage of Bach composing we could compare him to the Beatles & Ed Sheeran LOL

 

Again, I have different views on this subject than you, and that's fine, to be candid, the relevance you place on newspaper decisions to your ATG rankings is unimportant to me.

Newspaper decisions represented over half of Greb's, and many of his peers, career contests. You simply can't disregard them and accurately appraise their careers. Therefore, my suggestion to you, is that instead of taking umbrage with people who do factor in the reports and newspaper scores from no decision bouts and who rank Greb amongst their top 3 or 4 p4p ATG's, as is the case with the combined view of the classic section in this forum (or at least those who participated in the survey I posted a link to earlier in this thread), you limit your own rankings to fighters who competed in the post no-decision era.

 

Newspaper decisions in ND fights were another avenue to gamble on fights where the betting was limited.

It was no different then than now where legalized gambling like Draft Kings allows you to bet on different aspects of the game other than the official result.

Today, if you pick an NFL team to run for more yards, or pick the QB to throw for more yards ... you may win all your bets, but the only way to officially win the game is by one team scoring at least one more point than the other team.

The official result stands, no matter how well either side does statically.

In no-decisions, you had to score a KO to win. That's it.

If no one did, the official result was a ND.

Changing the results of a no-decision a century later because someone landed more punches in this or that round, according to one newspaper here or there, is no different than changing the official results of a NFL game because one team ran or threw for more yards.

Running for more yards may win you a bet, but the team with the most yards at the end doesn't get the win.

There's only one way to win. And most yards isn't it

Just like there was only one way to win a ND.

And the number of newspapers who said you won more rounds compared to the number of newspapers who said you lost more rounds wasn't the way.

A KO was the way. And everyone involved knew that.

 

We're going round in circles.

Again, I have different views to you on the relevance newspaper decisions have on ATG rankings, as I've already explained. You're of course welcome to your views on the matter, they're unimportant to me.

Again, if you disregard newspaper decisions you should exclude fighters who competed in the no decision era from your ATG rankings, for the reasons I've already given.

 

How many of those Hall of Famers are only in as old-timers/pioneers? There’s a difference, as those guys get passed over time and again until they finally get all the guys above them and then they’re a shoo-in simply because time has passed.

Obviously tons of time has passed for Greb, but which of those HoFers he fought were greats who were legitimately in when they came up (Tunney, Walker, for instance) and which were merely good, among the best of their day but they just got grandfathered into the HoF? If a guy wasn’t a champion of his day and is in the HoF, I have to say it’s suspicious … maybe a great posthumous honor, but not one his contemporaries would necessarily agree with.

I don’t personally rate by ‘how many guys a man beat who eventually got into the HoF due to passage of time’ because it’s impossible to compare resumes. In 100 years, who knows how many of Julio Cesar Chavez’s opponents will reach HoF status? Will Greg Haugen and Roger Mayweather and Juan Laporte eventually find their way in as old-timers? Will they add a new category of years that might get them in?

 

Here's a gem for ya fellas.. one of Grebs great rivals Tommy Gibbons..

This content is protected

This fella doesn't look crude or old timer at all, the footage does but not the boxing ability on display.. he moves well , technique is good, he's quick & fighting well both inside & at range... The idea that these fellas are dinosaurs by todays standards is horse **** to me.. boxing evolution LMAO.. You think Devin Haney is progress?! Gibbons just from this footage alone looks like he could lace them up & compete at LHW today no problem.. & let me remind you that Jack Dempsey said Greb beating Gibbons was the best display of boxing hed ever seen..