Which Gibbons was better?

Mike Gibbons was the better boxer.
Tommy a better puncher probably.

 

I would say Mike...Never seen extended footage, but Mike looks very slick, excellent footwork.

 

Mike.

 

Apples and oranges. They were both great fighters. But not to be redundant, my eyes were opened when i saw a film of an older Tommy Gibbons flattening Jack Bloomfield in London
in 1924-5. Gibbons looks sensational in his punching power. It was a film on youtube 1 year ago.I 'd love for the owner to put it on for the ESB fans. It will open YOUR eyes too !

 

Tommy was always emphatic that Mike was superior, and they certainly sparred enough.

Common opponents included Greb, George Chip, Wiggins, George KO Brown, Gus Christie, Joe Herrick, Moha, Silent Martin, Vic Hansen, Willie KO Brennan, and Clay Turner. Some of these adversaries took on both Mike and Tommy multiple times. It's hard to imagine that nothing was published at the time about any of these rivals comparing the brothers Gibbons.

Tommy's current overall record (including NWS bouts) according to boxWRECK:

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He sustained four official defeats, to Greb over the championship distance in Madison Square Garden on March 13, 1922 (when Tommy was officially

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), to Miske via a dubious ten round DQ in the same venue that October, to Dempsey in Shelby, and when Tunney retired him.

On May 15, 1920, at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Tommy bested Greb in a ten round no decision bout, taking it 7-3-1 in rounds according to ringside reports. This was the first time anybody had gotten the better of Harry since he challenged O'Dowd for the middleweight crown in February 1918.

Greb's 45-0 1919 campaign is rightfully fabled, but he did not square off with Tommy during his banner year. He sustained three significant defeats to three prime ATG opponents, all after he had passed 30 years of age. The one NWS loss to Greb occurred when Tommy was 29. If Tommy had squared off with Greb (over three years younger than Tommy) in 1919, would we be taking about a different P4P GOAT candidate for that era?

As boxWRECK currently has it, Mike's record stands at:

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Officially, Mike was decisioned near the outset of his career by veteran Jimmy Clabby (hardly an embarrassment), at the end by O'Dowd (who really should be in the IBHOF for successfully defending against Gibbons, Greb, Bartfield, and Kid Lewis, not to mention going the championship distance with Johnny Wilson in their rematch while suffering a hernia!), and strangely by getting decked twice in losing a ten round decision to Tommy Robson on November 25, 1921 in Boston, breaking a three fight losing streak by Robson. Mike was officially

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at the time. Tommy would lose his next seven.

Robson W10 M. Gibbons must rank with Tiger Jones W10 SRR as one of the most unlikely results of the last century. Robson had some good wins on his resume, and he dropped Jack Delaney from the unbeaten ranks earlier in the year, but he'd never produce a result like the win over Mike again, and he'd only go

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after pulling off this shocker. I'm inclined to forgive Mike this one. Anybody can have an off day, and Mike was 34 at the time, but advocates for Tommy might be inclined to use this result in his favor, as he was never beaten by an opponent the caliber of Robson, and was never floored until Tunney did it.

 

Mike Gibbons was undoubtedly better pound for pound.

 

Mike by far and Tommy would have admitted it. Mike would have (and did) say that Tommy had more potential but that potential was never fully realized. The one thing that gave Tommy such a leg up early in his career was that he was tutored by Mike who at the time was arguably the greatest boxer in the world. This gave Tommy a wealth of knowledge at such an early stage and it showed.


And a side note to Duodonum: Its debateable that O'Dowd got the best Greb. the papers were split as to who won (and keep in mind those are O'Dowds hometown papers) O'Dowd would never agree to fight Greb again while he had the title.

Furthermore, whats the point about Greb not facing Tommy in 1919? Tommy's 1919 doesnt even compare with Greb's and he was by no means the "name" at that point that Greb was. Tommy didnt start coming into the limelight until he ran up his impressive KO string of 1921/1922. He was at the height of his career and powers when he met Greb in 1922 for a 15 round match (and the only decision of their four) and was dominated.

Mikes loss to Robson had a lot more to do with his fading vision (and thats something you dont hear too many people talk about) than anything Robson did. That being said Robson was a lot better than his record indicates and was a very good puncher. His problem, much like Gibbons, was that he was naturally too big for WW and too small for MW.


Swarmer: It was said that Mike was so slick in regards to his footwork that it looked like he was on rollerskates. And sure enough when you watch him shadow box he definately looks like hes on skates. His timing and accuracy was incredible and he was extremely quick thinking. In the O'Dowd fight of 1919 he gets a cut eye and its bleeding pretty bad. Whenever the blood starts to bother him he clinches and waits for the ref to part them then he leans over and wipes his eye off on the refs shirt. Its awsome. He was such a smart fighter.

 

Yeah. He certainly did. Even mike criticized him after his loss to greb saying that he had gotten away from the st. Paul style that made them great.

Mike is underrated as a hitter because he didn't have a killer instinct. He didn't want to hurt anyone. But he was so good at setting up punches and walking guys into punches and had such good timing and accuracy that he could get a guy out of there if he went for the kill. He just had a mentality that wasn't geared toward blowing guys away. A lot more patience and respect for what he saw as his craft. The one time he lost his temper was against young ahearn in their rematch. Ahearn and his manager had really been laying into mike in the press and gibbons really wanted to hurt this guy. He went out a damn near knocked his head off. I have photos of gibbons pealing him off the canvas after he was counted out and you can see the fear in his eyes. He was really scared he had killed the guy.

 

An excellent point. Mike begat Tommy.

Here, I'm deferring to what boxWRECK describes as a 7-3 advantage in rounds for O'Dowd in this ND bout, but Klompton, never forget than I'm the one to typically refers to this source as issboxWRECK. (I realize that my 1957 Ring Record Book and decrepit paperback 1933 Everlast Record Book (stored in a Ziploc bag) are hardly infallible, but at least I know what's on those pages won't be changing from day to day or even hour to hour. (And for my previous post, it was an enormous convenience that the records of Mike and Tommy were on facing pages.)

Because Harry was so awesome in 1919, one of the challenges is to speculate about who would have been able to beat him at this time, or at least hold him even. Among Greb's actual previous opponents, Tommy may have had the best chance to pull it off in a head to head showdown. I'm not saying he would have succeeded, but they had an excellent back and forth in both Forbes Field showdowns during 1920. Tommy turned 28 in March 1919, while Harry reached the quarter century mark in June.

Dempsey, Willard, Fulton and Wills may have been a bridge too far for Harry in 1919, but would've been interesting to see. (Logistically, the height and reach of Fulton and Willard would have presented headaches Greb never really dealt with in competition.)

Still an odd result in light of the quartet of quality wins Mike had before him, and the way Robson was sputtering immediately before and after. Still, it should be acknowledged that for a span of over 115 bouts covering a ten year period, nobody stopped Robson. (And the bookends of that streak were Silent Martin in February 1915, and Flowers at the end of January 1925. George Chip, McTigue and Wilson were three champions he had gotten the best of in earlier bouts, and he'd hung with Britton, Kid Lewis, Greb, Slattery, Bogash, Bartfield, Strib, Colima and others, usually on multiple occasions. A tough hombre.) But if Mike wasn't his biggest scalp, even if aging and diminished, then who was?

While everybody wrings their hands at the dearth of Greb footage, I marvel at the fact we can see these two in action today. How the hell did THAT ever survive into the present day?

 

It survived because odowd paid out of his own pocket to have it filmed and kept it all those yrs. He then gave it to mike gibbons because odowd had no heirs and felt gibbons deserved it for all he had done for st. Paul boxing.

 

I wish something like that happened for Greb...:-(