I can respect your ranking, and your reasoning. Pre 20's, hell pre 30's I'd probably have Johnson #1.
To Hookie,and all the other exponents of the "latest is greatest"....I'm an oldtimer,and darn proud of that fact...There reasoning that"well after all I never saw Greb, Gans, Leonard, etc,so how good can they be"? Is flawed and silly...Well I never have seen Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill,and other acknowledged great men, but I know them by their deeds,and words...To bring up the films just found of Greb fooling around with his then trainer old Phil. Jack O'brien,then in his fifties in 1925, as an example of the immortal Greb's ability, makes me sick...Hookie. how the hell would YOU act for the new fangled camera in 1925,sparing with your old uncle who incidentally owned the Gym in NY in 1925? I go by the word of my father who as I have posted saw Greeb/Tunney,in 1922,and also saw the likes of a prime Sugar Ray Robinson in the 1940s, as I have...What he and I ,have seen with our eyes in boxing history, you can't even imagine...In the course of human evolution,100 years is like a grain of sand in a desert.. What makes one boxing era better in general then othereras is the amount of active fighters,how often they fought, and how good were the trainers of their time...From the 1920s to the 1960s there were probably 5 times the pro boxers,fighting very often, learning their hard craft, in much tougher and less pampered times, than today...Thus in general,a better crop of fighters...One final point...By your reasoning...If perchance if the human race survives a hundred years from now...A boxing fan from the future watched a film of Robinson vs Ralph Tiger Jones in 1955, he would deduce from that film "Hell this Ray Robinson legend wasn't that good"..That statement would be false and silly then, as you and todays"revistionists" are now...Keep punching though....
If you think that I am a person who thinks that the "latest is greatest"... you are very wrong. I love all things boxing, past and present. I know as much as anybody and more than most. The only division where any of this really matters is HW. For example, a LHW is still a LHW. A prime Ezzard Charles would be a great LHW anytime in history. Sugar Ray Robinson, Henry Armstrong, Willie Pep, Benny Leonard, Mickey Walker, Barney Ross, Harry Greb, Stanley Ketchel, Joe Gans, and so many other great P4P fighters would be great fighters in any era. I'm just not convinced that some of the smaller Heavyweights from the past like Bob Fitzsimmons, Tommy Burns, even Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey and Ezzard Charles (who I think is top 5 all-time P4P) could beat some of the bigger HWs who were not only bigger but very talented like Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Holmes, Tyson, Holyfield, Bowe, Lewis, either Klitschko, etc. It has nothing to do with things being better today... trust me, I'm not one of those guys. As for the smaller HWs? Some of them would make great CWs. Ezzard Charles, Jimmy Bivins, Archie Moore, Pattterson, Machen, and Folley as CWs in todays game? Damn, that would be nice!
Human memory is often the least reliable of evidences, in trials a witness will often be convinced that an innocent man is guilty, because the memory is not accurate. Then you have rose tinted glasses, imagining something was the best, because it was a happier time. Add to that viewing fights live unless ringside usually gives a horrible view and the atmosphere of a crowd and general crowd feeling will alter your sense of perception All sports have generally progressed, its not the evolution of man but standards increase, its normal, nothing wrong with celebrating pioneers though
Oh well...I always like being in the minority!!!! Everyone keep's telling Hookie to disappear or to go and expletive himself...But I hope he stays around! His post history isn't bad or as agenda laced as some of the trolls who frequent our board, and while I don't necesarily share his sentiments he surely has the right to convey his thoughts! Hopefully the classic forum will impact him as much as it has myself and many others who over the course of time gain new insights and a better depth of understanding (Not implying that he does not have a suffecient knowledge already!!!!) from debating and listening to first hand accounts and debates to better understand certain positions we might hold! Hookie good luck, it seems the numbers are against you, hopefully that does not drive you away as it has some in the past! I would only encourage you to devour as much information on the past (and present) to give you a better total overall understanding...irrespective of how high or low your current understanding is! PEACE!
This is the legendary Harry Greb? A bit underwhelming I must admit. Kind of like when I realized the tooth fairy and Santa Claus didn't exist. Honestly, I think I could take him.
Nah, I'm not going anywhere. Like I've stated before, I've been doing the boxing forum thing for over 10 years. I still frequent other forums, I prefer talking about the legends of old on this forum though. What's funny is that in the past I was looked at as being an old timer even though I was in my early/mid 20's at the time (I'll be 36 later this year and have been a boxing freak for damn near my entire life). I would always talk up the old guys in order to educate people about them. To be honest with you I didn't feel like I had to do that here. I felt like most of us here knew enough already. I've grown older and I feel that I'm discussing with my brain more than my heart now. Sometimes you have to give a man his due. I used to hate on Lennox Lewis during his reign but now I have a ton of respect for the man. I feel like some of you guys could come around on some of the more modern fighters. That's really all I'm trying to say... be more open minded people! Some fighters gained respect toward the end of their career or after they retired like Michael Spinks, Virgil Hill, and James Toney for example. To say I have no respect for the old legends is insane though. I am a boxing freak. When most kids were studying for tests I was reading boxing books and Ring magazine.
I can see how someone would struggle with this. I rate boxers on how they box. Newspaper articles and sixty year old accounts aren't very reliable evidence. For example, I've heard many people tell me how talented boxers like Joe Calzaghe and Zab Judah are....but there's video footage of them, and I've seen it....it's like someone insisting that you're seeing something that you're not....kind of insulting really. Unfortunately, people will tell you what they would have you believe....not neccessarily what they know to be the truth, or even what they believe to be the truth....and they'll present it as if it's common knowledge and become verbally abusive if you don't agree. I believe that welterweight Robinson and Greb were probably great boxers, but I haven't seen them box, so I don't know.
You are on of my favorite posters I've seen since I joined the site You guys have to understand, that the Art of Boxing may have been around since the days of Ancient Rome. Like Burt says, 100 years is NOTHING to the human evolution. Same with boxing. If boxing was around for 1000 years, then how significant can the last 100 be in terms of people learning the sport better. If anything the art is diminishing in many aspects, and teachers of the game are getting worse! Many trainers in gyms do not even teach kids how to punch these days. They just teach them the different punches, but they don't teach the art of punching. Many great boxers used to have an arsenal of defensive and offensive moves to make. Many boxers of old would learn at least 3 different techniques in how to catch a jab. They would learn how to block and parry from all angles, for all different types of punches. These days we still call it the Sweet Science, but back then it really was a science. So yes, I'm sorry if you don't enjoy the thought, but if John L Sullivan was here today, all you would have to do is throw him a pair of our modern gloves, and the heavyweight division as we know it, would be done for.
In the same boat as Harry Greb then arent they :yep John aLco Sullivan would be knocked out in a round by 100s of boxers today. Boxing hasnt been common for a 1000years, it was semi-pro through allot of the 1800s-early-1900s