Who Ranks Higher Harry Greb or Sam Langford?

I don't have either guy int the top 20.
Greb wasn't rated highly until the 1980s or something

Carl Froch mallets both of them into mulch.

 

Just a quick boxrec count shows Norfolk disqualified 7 times, all in the last third of his career. Seems he wasn't squeaky clean.

 

The accounts are split evenly as to who won the first but all agree that Greb came on over the last half of the fight, wore Norfolk down, and was battering him at the final bell, which suggests its fair that it was awarded to Greb.. in fact Norfolk had to cancel all fights afterwards and spent a nice stay in the hospital.. Norfolk also weighed 20 pounds more than Greb in that fight btw..

In the rematch Greb was out of shape and had been partying hard. He came in at one of his highest weights. This one was less a boxing match and more a wrestling match with both fighters fouling liberally.. After what would be the final round Norfolk hit Greb when Greb turned his back and began to walk to his corner. Greb went nuts and attacked Norfolk. All hell broke loose and Greb was disqualified despite the concensus that it was Norfolk's actions that precipitated the riot.

In fact Norfolk reputedly first kidney punched Greb and then butted, pushed, or threw Greb out of the ring. Despite the DQ loss on Greb's record the commissioner stated publicly that Norfolk should have been DQd and that he expected the result to be changed. So the next time you hear 'Norfolk ran over Greb' in the 2nd one take it with a pinch of salt .. he did nothing of the sort. . He had to resort to every dirty tactic in the book to maintain pace with Greb..

Just an aside, Norfolk was DQd in his very next bout for the same tactics he used against Greb and was DQd several more times in what remained of his career while this remains the only (and highly debateable) DQ of grebs career. Make of that what u will..

 

I rank Greb highrer. based on what Ive seen.

Based on what I've read in books, I rank Langford higher.

 

Lonsdale I agree with most of your opinions on Greb. However I'd like to point out that on the previous page you posted that you rate Greb over Langford partly due to his discipline..."he was rarely out of shape". Yet in the post above you note he "was out of shape and had been partying hard". This sounds more like Roberto Duran between the Leonard bouts than a disciplined boxer. The Norfolk rematch surely was important to his reputation and career; surely he should have been focused on this fight and trained hard. I realize that Greb trained by boxing frequency rather than having 10 week camps.

 

I think you got that the wrong way around.

 

I go with Greb by a very thin margin. I've come to the point I cannot see anyone rated 1 o2 p4p all time except these two men. Greb takes it IMO because for one thing he didn't have a big punch like Langford, he fought part of his career blind in one ye and of course the 1919 45-0 record. Sam is number 2 IMO only by a slight margin the man can't be touched by anyone but Greb in terms of ranking. Ray Robinson is not number 1 all time as the "concensus" tells everyone.

 

This is just silly. Stop being silly.