I've seen all his results etc. Only ever seen one or two clips of him messing around on youtube. Was he really as good everyone says? No video evidence available. If there is please post below for me
There's some sparring footage. In which he looks Horrendous. There were reports he was playing up for the camera's and his sparring partner, Philadelphia Jack O'Brian, was nearly 50 years old. There's plenty of reports if his style tho. And on the topic of Sparring apparently he gave Jack Dempsey a hiding
Thanks George, I seen that clip also and although he looked like he was messing he still looked awful
There are a lot of ATGs who looks odd, but were very successful. Some people question if Rocky Marciano was any good. Yet we all know how good fighters he beat.
There's some footage of him standing around Some of him doing warm up dynamic stretching And one of him playing around with O'Brien Nothing really hinting at anything. Methinks Reznick owns Greb-Tunney 1 and is currently at war with whoever owns Greb-Walker. Rez won't release the fight until he has the other footage to make the ultimate Greb montage After which Hanza retires from YouTube in shame, Roosterman comes back from the dead, inspired to make a video on Marciano vs Greb, and Seamus goes back on his modernist ways to admit Greb beats Lennox Lewis
I would reccomend reading Springs Toledo, Bill Paxton's and of course Steve Compton's books on Greb. They are absolutely comprehensive.
let me talk to you about an almost forgotten fighter for a moment... I'd like to add a little background info and one more quote to this interesting discussion, if I may. The quote is from Jimmy McLarnin and here is what you may not know about Jimmy. Jimmy McLarnin (19 December 1907; County Down, Ireland 28 October 2004; Richland, Washington, USA), was an Irish Canadian professional boxer who became two-time welterweight world champion and an International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee. During his career, he beat 15 (thanks for the correction Mr. Turner) world champions in an era with only 8 weight classes and only ONE world champion per division - no alphabet soup and 17 weight classes to cherry pcik from! In 1996 Ring Magazine voted Jimmy McLarnin the fifth-greatest welterweight of all time. Jimmy McLarnin, one of boxing's best, once told an admirer, "If you thought I was great, you should have seen Harry Greb."
Greb was an unorthodox fighter who threw blows from all angles constantly. He never let an opponent get set. He could fight 15 rounds non stop. He was as tough as nails. He was a serious bad ass. He also fought a who’s who of boxing greats. Really the greatest record in boxing history and he almost always won. You can be a fool and conclude Greb was “awful” just by watching a 5 minute shadow boxing/training clip but you would be terribly wrong. They don’t make now nor will they ever again make a fighter as great as Harry Greb.
And while it is true that there is no film of Greb actually boxing there IS film of people he beat. Many of them are Hall of Famers and look outstanding on film. When you gaze at - perhaps - the greatest resume in all of recorded boxing history do you really care how Harry Greb "looks" when to the judges, almost all the time, he looked like a winner!
My apologies Mr. Turner72 I had decided to substantially change my post while you were quoting and correcting it. Thank you for the insightful addition sir.
I've often seen this quote, but I'm curious when and where he saw Greb fight. Perhaps Klompton can shed some light on this.
McLarnin probably saw Greb fight in LA. McLarnin was based in LA (if I’m not mistaken) already by the time Greb fought in Vernon a couple of times and Hollywood.