How Techniaclly Skilled was Harry Greb?

Ray Robinson started at 130lbs and went all the way to 175lbs, Greb started at 160lbs and went upto 200lbs, Robinson was outweighed by Lamotta by 17lbs on occasion

Do you think james Toney is more fearless than Robinson to?

 

NONSENSE-As a pro Robinson started out as a 5ft11 1/2 lightweight.
The only 175 pound fighter he ever fought was the feather punching Joey Maxim, who didn't hit any harder than middleweights...
Harry Greb started as a 5ft.8" welterweight, who as a young pro ,was fed no softies in Pittsburgh, and eventually fought as a 158-60 middleweight.
Yes, Robinson took on Jake LaMotta, who outweighed Ray by 13 pounds four times. Ray was heavier in the last fight.
But remember Fritzie Zivic at Robbies weight 147 pounds ,fought LaMotta also four times, with mixed results.
But the COLD fact is Robinson wisely avoided the top hard hitting lightheavies of his time.Ray though the best all around fighter, never even
took on the powerfull punching 175 pounders, that Harry Greb did in his own time...That is a fact that cannot be denied.....Not at all....

 

i think there resumes are comparable in terms of quality but greb did seem to take on the "bigger" physical challenges and sought out everyone in any weight class. robinson was more prone or likely to dominate the weight classes which he settled in (lightweight, welter, middle). like you said the only time he strayed was at 175, where his advantages in skill, technique and physicality MAY not have enabled him to succeed. more instance, could robinson have beaten moore?

 

You are both wrong. Greb started out weighing 138.

 

According to boxrec Greb weighed 170lbs as a 20yo, Robinson at the same age would weigh 135lbs, thats a massive difference in natural weight. Greb was not really undersized at LHW but was optimally a MW, he was naturally a much much bigger man, most of his fights he weighed over 160lbs. Robinson would have been LW champ if Angott had agreed to fight him at that weight. He grew into a WW but MW was not his division whatsoever. Robinson was more undersized at MW against than Greb was at LHW, being outweighed by 16lbs in 1 fight. Robinson never outweighed Lamotta either

Greb's weight hopping is no more impressive than Robinsons and both fought in the same number of weight classes. Saying Robinson didn't dare to jump weight as much as Greb is disingenous

BTW your also wrong about Robinson not having the balls to fight Archie Moore, he negotiated a fight with Moore offering Archie 70-30 deal, Moore walked away from it wanting 50-50

 

He weighed 170 because he hadnt been training, was pulled literally out of the audience to fight on no notice and possibly even weighed with his clothes on. The fact of the matter is that in 1913 Greb weighed 138 for one of his first fights.

 

Those days a lightweight was up to 134-5 pounds. Anything over that technically was a welterweight..Barney Ross at welter was 143-5 pounds.
Robinson at almost 6 ft, always had a reach advantage over his shorter opponents. Ross could no longer make 135 pounds, so he gained a few pounds, to compete with the 147 pound class...

 

And as soon as he hit 20 and wasnt starving anymore he never weighed significantly below the MW limit again, while in fighting shape. He was clearly 15lbs bigger than Robinson throughout the 2 mens careers

 

If Ray truly wanted to fight Moore ,he could have. You know that.
Or why not Ezzard Charles, Lloyd Marshall, Jimmy Bivens, and other 175 pounders ,he never tackled.? Harry Greb at ANY time of his career, could have and DID make 160 pounds, come what may.If Greb didn't have to make 160 lbs,why torture himself in sweat baths to make 160 ?
What weight hopping did Robinson do ? When he was younger he fought at 147 pounds, except for tackling La Motta, and Artie Levine, who at 156 dropped Robbie like a sack for 17 seconds as the ref ,walked Levine to a neutral corner, without picking up the count,and Georgie Abrams who gave
Robinson hell ,losing a controversial decision.
But later on Robinson fought at 155 or so tackling other middleweights.
So, the FACT remains Greb gave away more weight @ 160 than Robinson ever did. Opinions are one thing ,facts are facts....

 

but bb, i think some fighters are naturally inclined and capable of weight jumping based on physical gifts and their styles. i'm not disagreeing but i don't think that fighting larger fighters or across more weight classes is the most important aspect of greatness.

robinson's gifts and style were such that they didn't always lend themselves to fighting larger fighters...greb's stamina, toughness and style was such that he could dominate larger, but sometimes cruder fighters. sometimes dominating larger and highly skilled fighters

in the end, robinson and greb were very different, greb fought beyond his weight and fought anyone, often getting ducked.

robinson firmly established he was the greatest in the world at lightweight, welter and middleweight, proving he was likely the greatest welter ever while greb was the greatest middle. their accomplishments, while different, and on a relatively even plane to me based on the GREATNESS of the fighters they each beat, irrespective of size

 

What weight hopping? You mean fighting linear champions from lightweight to light heavyweight isn't enough?

Robinson fought MWs weighing 142lbs. We have footage of the Abrams fight and Robinson looked to be handling him quite easily. There is no footage of the Levine fight, but all fighters go by the refs count, not 'seconds' thats something some find hard to grasp.

Greb was often around 168 for his LHW fights, no small weak LHW, Greb wasn't outweighed as much by Tunney as Robinson was against Lamotta and Maxim

 

J, I find it hard to not call Ray Robinson the best P4P fighter ever.Truly hard. Why ? Because I saw him at his very best several times ringside...
But to use an analogy- In horse racing to see who is the greatest racehorse, they put extra weights on certain horses [akin to boxers fighting heavier men]. This extra weight handicap, Harry Greb did better than Ray
Robinson, in his career...To argue against this fact as a few others do is
to me like pushing a safe up a mountain. Pointless.
J,one more point : I am convinced that at his best Harry Greb would have licked EVERY ONE of Ray Robinsons opponents.All of them... But I am certain Sugar Ray Robinson,could not have beaten the likes of Gene Tunney, Tommy Gibbons, Tommy Loughran, Jack Dillon ,Gunboat Smith ,
Maxie Rosenbloom etc. Ray knew better.And Harry Greb licked HEAVYWEIGHTS to boot. And a good part of this with one eye,lest we forget.
They were both phenoms in my book.Cheers :good

 

Thats why Gene Tunney said,
"Harry possessed a ring cunning far beyond estimates made in the ringside press"

 

Id have to go back and check but if Im not mistaken I believe Edgren was one of Greb's earliest and most dogged critics. For whatever reason he simply did not like Greb's style.