Harry Greb, Sugar Ray Robinson, Willie Pep, Henry Armstrong, Benny Leonard, Sam Langford, Joe Gans, in any order you wanna put them are the Goats
while mostly true, and a salient point, I'm not sure Greb even thinks he was 3-0 vs. Flowers if my memory serves me right, so I'm not sure about arguable...
So you're troubled by two split decision losses against an all-time great while blind and in his final five fights - of almost 300? And why does a newspaper win not count? The fight still happened, and in the eyes of those scoring, Greb won. Do you also ignore fights with supplemental scoring because it's a different system to today's?
Great call, I have to agree! Langford and Ali get close for me, but after lots of reading Greb seemed to be on the wrong side of a lot of controversial decisions (a couple of the fights with Tunney and Flowers). So it seems like he might have deserved a few more wins over great fighters that he wasn't credited for at the time.
What? If newspaper decisions don't count you'd have to have to shave a good three quarters of grebs fights of his record, from most fighter from then too.
It says on the internet that he successfully defended his Worlds middleweight title 4 (Four) times Bryan Downey 1923 He failed to beat Lou Bogash x2 Lost to Frankie Shoell Beats Tommy Robson for a shot at Greb who completed a hatrick of losses Johnny Wilson 1924 He won three fights in 1923 Ted Moore 1924 18 fights in the year only losing to Dave Shade & Harry Greb Mickey Walker 1925 His last win as champion vs perhaps the greatest fighter he faced? With a bum eye too Why the lack of title fights from when he won the title vs J Wilson? 60+ fights which includes a fair few cowboys (Ray Nelson who lost his opening 3 fights by KO before facing the mighty Harry Greb who KO'd him in the 3rd before retiring,Should this even be on his record!) and plenty of good and great fighters until he lost the title to Tiger Flowers. Why wasn't the first Flowers fight for the title? Was there any other outstanding white or black middleweights shouting for a showdown? Seeing as every Jack Dempsey thread i read mentions Harry Successful Title Defences Jack Dempsey 5 - 4 Harry Greb
Uh, he did beat Flowers in the first of their trilogy. And the man was blind in one eye and a couple hundred fights into his career. Anyone who can pummel Tunney into the hospital could beat Flowers.