FANTASY FIGHT: Harry Greb vs Joe Calzaghe (15 Rounds/Poll)

None of my fantasies involve Joe Calzaghe.

 

What footage of Greb have you seen?Please show

 

I was talking about his opponents.

 

Somebody once asked me which contemporary fighter Harry Greb was most like, and I replied that from the newspaper reports, he sounds rather like Joe Calzaghe.

So how am I supposed to make sense of this one?

 

That's what I said!

Greb on resume for me. But without footage it becomes quite hard to evaluate. I rate Calzaghe highly.

 

You can of course go with teh old fallback of, "Greb on resume in the absence of anything else to go on."

I also came round to having a high opinion of Calzaghe, and I think that he rates higher head to head, than he does on resume.

 

If not all?

Get real.

Also, Joe wasn’t greatly skilled.

What made Joe great, was his great attributes.

Like Greb.

His fast hands.

His swarming style.

His great engine.

He was awkward.

He was never a southpaw technician though.

He could be wild and scrappy at times. He could cuff with the inside of his gloves. Just like descriptions of Greb.

You make decent posts.

Then you show your ignorance.

Even if modern day fighters in general were better, your only concern should be Joe himself.

You’re looking specifically at him and nobody else from the modern era. Just him.

Just both of those guys.

How you think they’d have matched up on the night stylistically.

You can’t just pick Joe because you think that modern fighters were generally better, and he was a modern fighter.

Now if you’d seen Joe’s career and you’ve read up on Greb’s, then this would have been a great fight.

Joe was bigger. He’d have been a career LHW in Greb’s day.

You can definitely favour him.

But don’t do it just on a lazy generalisation.

 

Greb comprehensively beat Tunney once for sure and possibly twice more based on newspaper writers opinions. Does anyone seriously rank Joe higher than Tunney?

Greb in a slap fest.

 

Oh dear. THE Harry Greb...who threw 20,000 punches against Tiger Flowers and then fought Micky Walker in the bar later that night, only to fight Gene Tunney two days later and call out Dempsey, who was afraid to fight him?

I would be shocked if Calzaghe maintains the 30% he's at now.

 

I am.

I never claimed he is the epytome of skill. My point was that, on average, Joe beat more skilled boxers than Greb, of whom we have no video of in order to be able to make a proper assessment.

I have said this before:
When I judge greatness, I look at how good a boxer was and what he achieved in his era.
So from this perspective, Greb is 2nd greatest for me after SRR.
But when I judge hypothetical H2H scenarios, in 90% of the cases, old timers pre 1930-1940 usually stand no chance vs more modern boxers.
Now, given that I have no footage of Greb that might make me think otherwise, I'm obviously gonna lean towards Calzaghe.

 

More Skilled than Greb???

the man fought 200 fights, you don't think he dealt with some Skill, of course he did and dozens of times.

 

Greb obviously also dealth with skilled boxers, but they were skilled for their era, not for the modern one. On average, their skill is inferior to that of more modern boxers.

 

If anything the opposite is true

 

Greb fought 299 *official* fights, well over 300 when including newspaper decisions.

I agree it is folly to believe that he did not fight many very skilled men.
While some progress is made technically, some styles & methods become lost.

Also some things that look bad may be as a result of rule changes.

 

You can’t be taken seriously if you’re being genuine.

Pep, Dempsey, Tunney, Leonard and Louis etc, could all have had mixed success in other eras.

They could have beaten some modern day fighters, within their weight classes.


Did Joe beat more skilled boxers than Greb?

A 43 year old Bernard Hopkins was Joe’s most skilled opponent.


It’s okay leaning towards Joe.

But do it for the right reasons.


Pick him, because of how you think they’d have matched up on the night stylistically.

Not just because he’s the more modern fighter.


You should do that in any fantasy match up.