I have film of Ali clowning in Ziare, beating up a stuffed toy. He looks terrible. The thing is manbearpig, if that was all the surviving footage, you'd be telling me Ali looks **** on film. You'd be telling me he wasn't as good as the newspaper reports say, you'd be saying trust your eyes. Greb was every bit as mercurial as Ali in terms of style and execution. I don't doubt that for even a second. I'm absolutely sure about it. He was also likely better. That, i'm less sure of though.
I'm not saying he's not great though. A fighter can be really, really good, yet look like absolute shite on film. See Ricky Hatton. I've made this argument before. The whole "we can see from his record that he was great, and people he beat look good on film, so he must have looked great on film" argument doesn't hold with me. If there was no footage of Ricky Hatton, but we had his record, and film of guys he beat, like Tszyu, Castillo, Malignaggi, it could be assumed that Hatton had a pleasing style as well. To re-emphasize, I'm not trying to downplay Greb at all, and I don't think I ever have. The only comments I've ever made on him is how he looks horrible in the clips we have.
I think the Harry Greb sparring footage features him sparring against a 46-year-old Philadelphia Jack O'Brien, a respected champion who had been retired for over a decade. (I think it might be at O'Brien's gym too??) Of course we can expect that Greb to be fooling around in such a situation, just playing. He's hardly going to beat the old man up in front of the camera. It's called respect.
Obviously the sparring wasnt a serious session. But it is a glimpse to his posture and movement. And it looks ****ing ridiculous.
Well said U. Phil. Jack O'Brien was 47 years old, and the owner of the gym in NYC ,where Harry Greb in 1925, trained for his fight with Mickey Walker as the film shows. I have a film of the entire sparring session taken in the afternoon on the roof of O'Brien's gym. It clearly shows Harry Greb playing around with O'Brien, as an adult spars with a child in front of a camera. For silly Greb detractor's,to imply that this how Harry Greb licked the great assortment of Hall of Famers in his career is laughable. What did they expect Greb to unleash his windmill avalanche on this elder owner of the gym ,Greb was training at ? Yipes ! But Harry Greb did later on unleash his windmill attrack on a PRIME Mickey Walker,a week nor two later. Who else but a Harry Greb [almost at the end of his career],and half blind, could have licked this Toy Bulldog.? Almost all the British fight experts who saw Mickey Walker flatten their popular champion Tommy Milligan in London,and saw Randy Turpin fight Ray Robinson, PICKED Walker OVER Ray Robinson,were they to have ever met, at their bests...And lil ol Harry Greb easily whipped a prime Mickey Walker, though Greb was close to a shell of his former self, in 1925. For what it's worth...
On a H2H basis it's all debatable of course, I personally don't think so as much of a Hagler fan I am. On a P4P basis I've got him around 30.
Hes a lock for the top 5 middleweight. My number 1 on h2h basis at middle dont know where i rate him p4p