Harry Greb, head to head vs. the great middleweights

I don't know why people keep telling me about his CV. I know how good his record is. But he looks **** on film, that is it.

 

I would suggest that you might do better to look at his oponents of who there is high quality footage of them actualy fighting.

Judge his style by what it worked against, not what you think he might have looked like based on footage of him shaddow boxing.

 

But we don't have any film of him fighting.

 

Exactly, so my point can't really be argued against. No one knows how he looked in the ring, other than reading these reports. There is footage, and in said footage he looks pish.

 

Seeing other people's styles won't make me think any differently. I know this is a blasphemus comparison, but for example, in years to come and all recorded evidence of Ricky Hatton fighting was lost, but there was film of Kosta Tzsyu available, would you be able to judge how technically sound Hatton was by the fact that he beat him?

 

Its not so much for me that he didnt look impressive on that clip, like you say you cannot really come to any conclusion based on that taped, which he was playing around in.

Its just that you get idiots like fleaman all over threads, saying things like, "In brief moments on that clip you can clearly see his immense ability, and why he would be favoured as the no.1 p4p of all time."

 

Would it matter how he beat him?

If you had a portfolio of footage of Kosta Tzsyu, then it would be reasonable to infer from the fact that Ricky Hatton beat him that he would have had sucess in other era's.

Now if he has beaten one fighter like that you might chalk it up to an off night or said fighter being outside their best.

If he had dominated a whole myriad of fighters of that quality with different styles, then you would have to conclude that he either had Roy Jones level superiority of reflexes, or was verry technicaly savy, or that a combination was the case.

If you are dominating the best then you are a force to be reckoned with whatever your style.

 

Missed the point. Hatton looks ****, but with no footage and him beating Tsyzu, people would undoubtably assume he was better technically than he is. Hatton was effective (to his own limitations), and obviously Greb was effective. Doesn't make him a fantastic technical boxer.
He looks **** on the only footage available. I'll stand by that until proven otherwise when some mystery film of one of his fights is unearthed somewhere.

 

I can imagine Greb slipping punches in the way Benny Lynch, fast movemts, just enough to let the shot pass by then throw leather from any angle possible.

Just from the reports of course. And hypothetical matchups involving Greb are completely pointless IMO, unless you say 'he wins a workrate decision' based on the fact that, just by reading up on Greb it's pretty unfeasible to imagine him getting stopped in hypotheticals up to light heavy. But without actually seeing him you cannot get a glimpse of his style, but I stand by my statement that you get a small glimpse into his style with the shadow boxing, but even then he's pretty loose and just working out more than anything. Still, I have seen some of his key opponents and know for a fact that they were **** hot.

Greb is my no1 p4p of all time and looking at the way resumes are built nowadays, I doubt there will ever be a fighter that can top him, barring revising the rest of my top 5 and being enlightened on a facet of one of their resumes which I wasn't aware of before.

 

Because there is footage available of SRR which shows him looking impressive. Greb has no footage bar him working a speed bag, some shite shadow boxing and some sparring. That is my only argument, but people are too quick to jump into the snobby boxing historian mode and slate my opinion which is based on fact. Greb looks **** on film.

And on your second paragraph - you keep on missing my point. I'm not dismissing Greb as fighter, I'm just saying he looks **** technically.

 

OK well lets look at some things that we can pick out about Greb's style.

He is often described as a swarmer, indeed this is a fair description, but his style seems to have been miscelaneous. He would attack like a swarmer but worked best at long to medium range, and seems to have been almost impossible to hit cleanly.

He ocasionally abandoned his whirlwind style and boxed in an orthodox technical manner as he did when he won the middleweight title from Wilson. It was never clear why he somtimes did this.

His results when deployiong his whirlwind attack were somtimes staggering-

The first time he fought Gene Tunney he won every single round and absolutely dominated Tunney. Tunney had to be caried out of the ring and he required a blood transfusion after the fight. He also had his stomach pumped to remove all the adrenaline and whisky that his manager had fed him to keep him from going down. It took Gene Tunney three fights to produce a clear win over Greb and some historians think that Greb won the series 3-2!

Bill Brennan was a top heavyweight contender before he fought Harry Greb. Jack Dempsey had got himself a shot at the title by beating him and Fred Fulton. Brennan would later challenge Jack Dempsey for the title and lead on the scorecards untill he was stopped in the twelfth round. Between the two fights between Bill Brennan and Jack Dempsey, Greb fought Brennan four times. In all four fights Brennan did not win a single round!

I could go on........

 

Okay. He still looks like horse**** on film though.