Harry Greb vs. Sugar Ray Robinson

Prime Greb handled much bigger men, and beat bigger master boxers like Tunney and Gibbons who proved themselves at LHW and HW.

Robinson is a welterweight, so he runs into the great small guy vs great bigger guy problem. His defence was only average so he has to rely on his great offence to win - but Greb was hard to hit and had a granite chin proven all the way up to HW. Robinson wouldn't stop him in million years. I think Ray would get outworked, out-hustled, bullied and pushed around, and swarmed all over for 15 rounds on the way to a decision loss.

 

Thomas S. Rice of Brooklyn Daily Eagle, for example, was biased against Greb, calling him neither a boxer, nor a fighter.

 

Rice was a bad one. I am not home in front of my articles. When I get home I will show examples of three or four who were ridiculously against Greb. Rice was so bad his paper actually published letters from fans refuting his biased one sided articles against Greb. unless Im mistaken he actually printed that Greb lost the fight against Gibbons in the Garden and the first fight against Tunney. Both of which were the definition of one sided.

 

On paper SRR looks like he had it all and he almost did but Greb was a rhythm breaker and a speedy guy and durable. I can see this being a tough fight for Ray and out of 10 fights I think its ebb and Flow

At 160 I favor Greb, prime to prime

 

Why does Greb having sucess against bigger men translate into him having it easier against men his size or littler? Fighting bigger men is different to fighting smaller men, and some fighters find it easier one way or the other.

Could you break it down?

Turpin's awkward head movement and punching style also played apart, but he was not like Greb in that department.

I think the Fullmer fight is more an indicater for the sucess Greb could enjoy.

You need to post more.

See above Burt, how does this effect the match up?

I actually think this is a very interesting bout, I like Greb here. He was awkward, fast and explosive in his movements he could keep Robinson off-balance, like Fullmer but instead of using a jab he would step in with sharp combo's IMO. I think this is the general swing of the fight, Greb keeping Robinson off-balance and Ray struglling to get his balance and poise to tackle Greb.

 

Excuse me
Rice, Having never seen Greb prior to the 4th Gibbons fight in MSG picked Gibbons. When Greb whipped Gibbons Rice proved himself a sore looser.

 

:good thanks

 

Smoking gun on the bogash fight. Onna of the 3 Newark paps sports editorial in the days after...."The ny boys seem to have it in for Harry Greb. Last week he was here whipping Bogash handily and they reported a loss or draw"... all 3 Newark paps reported Greb winning as did my late rinside pally Natie Liff who was more or less the Ray Arcel of Pitt. One of the few accurate snippets of the first greb book "give him to the angels" was the ny boxing writers asking Harry and Red Mason to grease their palm only to meet with Harrys fury. The Bogash fight amoung others became Harrys consequence.
inho
Harrys first nyc fight vs london 1917 Harrys wins by tko. Harrys performance was widely dammed by the ny press.
Its just my gut feelings this was the begining of Harrys problems with these guys. He laid a hellva impressive beating on London by all pitt accounts.

 

Not to mentioned London had been a former amateur champion in NY and Greb had to face him on short notice when his original opponent couldnt fight. His original opponent was a middleweight and London was a LHW. Greb easily beat London and the papers still had nothing nice to say about him. It wasnt until he fought and impressively stopped Johnny Howard who was a well known contender later that year that he got some decent press. The bottom line is if you werent from new york and were trying to come in and make a name for yourself you either had to grease some palms, be connected somehow, or suffer some terrible treatment from the press, managers, commission, and promoters and the press was the sounding board for the latter three and by all accounts got paid handsomely for it.

 

JJ your analysis sums up to me how a fight between these two alltime greats
would pan out. Greb would be too strong and rough for Robinson,both at middleweight . Beautiful style doesn't necassarily translate to victory.
JJ you summed it up :good

 

Welterweight Soldier Bartfield didn't have that problem despite being outweighed by about 20lbs and in a 6fight series beat and drew with Greb. He was said to have given Greb problems with his speed

 

True, but those are the types of fighters Greb gave the most problems to. Greb tied technical boxers into knots with his unorthodox style.

Hard to say. But he fought many more fights and many more rounds against a lot more fighters (and greater ones at that). That sort of on the job education has to be considered when comparing the two.

 

Greb has a must chance as a snowball does in hell.