Did Dempsey duck Greb?

No. Wasn't ducked.

 

He fought the loser of the Greb-Gibbons title eliminator, which says a lot.

Then again, Wills-Norfolk was also billed as a title eliminator by Kearns at the time as well. Oh wait, he fought neither of them

 

It's complicated.

He was not under anything like as much pressure to fight Greb as he was to fight Wills.

 

“The Greb Problem”. Greb “was winning at heavyweight but not in spectacular fashion to generate public interest”. “To think Greb has any chance with the champion is the next thing to being ridiculous”.

 

yet a few years ago someone here on a Thread,
had him beating Tyson and a few other TOP & Great Heavyweights, you're right it IS/Was absolutely ridiculous.

 

Both wore “pillow” gloves. In a real fight with 5 oz fight gloves what happens when the hardest puncher in boxing history hits any 165 lb middleweight?

Think Frazier landing his left hook on Monzon or Tyson hitting Hagler. Does either bout go beyond one well placed blow?

 

Hi Buddy.
You make a valid point re: Frazier / Tyson, only slight caveat I would throw up is Frazier weighed around 210lb, and Tyson 220lb in their respective primes so the weight difference would be substantial, whereas Dempsey only weighed 187 or thereabouts when champ, I would imagine Greb would come in at 170 or more, so the diff in weight is not so great, also HWs held no fear for Greb, he regularly feasted on the best of his generation, and from what I have read about the sparring session, Dempsey was being plastered by Greb non stop during the sessions, failed to land any punches if any significance, in fact any punches at all, once again according to my readings, Greb made a laughing stock of the feared champ in their first session, and Dempsey vowed to make Harry pay for his insolence when next they spar, but that was not the case, the next day Greb repeated his humiliation of Dempsey, so much so, that Kearns pulled the plug on any more sessions, and sent Greb on his way, look I am not saying Greb would have beaten Jack over 15 rounds, mind you will we never know, but I don't think it is ridiculous, that he could, to beat Frazier and Tyson yes, but Dempsey......
stay safe H, chat soon.

 

In two sparring sessions. He deserved a shot more than Gibbons or Carpentier or Brennan or Miske or Firpo...

 

Half of whom were Greb victims and more than once

 

“Deserved” it’s a business Dempsey followed the money like most champions.

 

Oh, absolutely. It's called prize fighting for a reason. And Rickard knew how to get the biggest prize for the smallest risk.

I was speaking in purely boxing terms.

 

Even in pillow gloves Dempsey couldn’t land anything on Greb first time around, second time around still seemed competitive by all accounts but there were a few had Dempsey hurting Greb in the final round. From what I remember, there were still many accounts of that second spar in September 3 that didn’t mention a punch that hurt Greb in the end of the third round so who knows.

What those spars solidified was that Greb had the ability to compete with Dempsey for a short duration at the very least, which was likely due to his experiences with another murderous puncher in Brennan 6 times. Who knows how many times Bill landed on Greb, and how much harder Jack hit