Greatest Middleweight once and for all- Greb? Monzon? Hagler?

You don't seem to get it do you... hence why you didn't address my Duran Analogy either... If Greb or the guy he was fighting weighed MORE than the MW.. HOW THE F.. does that count towards Greb's MW record? Why because the fighter he beat at one point was a MW and has weighed in as much? Really? Sorry that isn't how it works. You also not understanding another basic point that pickbacks off the point above.... Fighters fight at a number of weights throughout their careers... Numerous examples of such.. Sam L, Duran, Money May etc etc... Just cause Duran had a few fights at MW doesn't mean that was his prime best weight.. and in the example of McTigue... MW WASN'T HIS BEST WEIGHT. Why you say, oh I don't know, maybe cause he won a belt at that weight.

 

And what did Tunney weigh?

 

We're saying monzon and Hagler achieved more in the mw division but Greb achieved more in his overall career.

 

Considering he won his belt at light heavy, while a miidleweight id say it clearly supports his middleweight status.

You completely ignorr the reasoning behind catchweights matches.

I dont adress all of your points because you dont know what you are talking about. You keep comparing apples to oranges.

 

My point is that a middleweight beating bigger fighters adds to his middleweight legacy.

Nobody considers Roy Jones a heavyweight discussing his bout against Ruiz and he weighed more in that fight than jack demosey ever did.

Had hagler whipped spinks weighing 162 would we be discussing how great he was as a light heavy? Nope. Wed say it adds to his legacy as a career middleweight.

 

No beating a lightheavyweight adds to your lightheavyweight legacy.

Jones beat Ruiz in a heavyweight fight, does squat for his achievements at lhw.

Had Monzon beat Spinks he'd have been LHW champ, that helps his LHW legacy not his MW.

Floyd beating DLH and Cotto is not a benefit to his WW legacy. Same way Greb beating Tunney affects his LHW greatness not his MW greatness.

 

LT.You are 100% logically correct...If Harry Greb under 160 pounds in his prime beat the likes of Mike Gibbons, Eddie McGoorty,Brian Downey, Frank Moody,Tiger Flowers, Johnny Wilson, George Chip, Buck Crouse, Frank Mantell etc, all terrific MWS, Greb should somehow be discredited for
heroic feats of whipping some alltrime great Light heavyweghts in history,while weighing a few pounds over 160 pounds. ? If a Monzon, a Hagler beat the best of the middleweights of their time and had the courage and skills to challenge 175 pounders and beat them, why wouldn't
Greb, Monzon, Hagler or Joe Blow , give in to a little more eating, a little less roadwork, a little more pleasures ,and indulge themselves whilst coming in at over 160 pounds ,and still get the job done....? Harry Greb was a MW when he started and after 290 bouts or so still fought under 160
pounds whenever he HAD TO...

 

He isn't discredited!

It's just that I see him as a top 3 lhw as well as a top 3mw.

How anyone can call that discredit is a discredit in itself!

 

If Greb beat the best middleweights of HIS time, and to keep money on the table, was great enough to beat HOF lightheavyweights repeatedly,
shouldn't that give him points over any middleweight including Monzon
or Hagler, who were as big or taller than Greb, but knew their limitations
challenging the top lightheavyweights and hws of THEIR TIME ?
Shouldn't the fact that Greb had the unique abilities to beat bigger and more powerful great fighters than he, show that he had remarkable talents that allowed him to whip the best fighters at catch-weights, whilst still
beating a Mickey Walker at 158 in his 290th bout. ? On this feat alone Greb has to be #1 as MW, H2H...

 

H2H he's nowhere as we cannot see him fight so cannot gauge his skillset.

Those wins over lhw fighters make him a great lhw. Those wins over mw fighters make him a great mw.

Hagler achieved more in the division, Greb achieved more in his overall career from mw to hw.

 

Marvelous Marvin Hagler
Sugar Ray Robinson
Stanley Ketchel
Mel Greb
Carlos Monzon

Note: In five to seven years time Bernard Hopkins & Sergio Martinez will close in on my top ten greatest middleweights of all time!

 

This. Most of those fights above the MW limit were against fellow MWs doing the same. They were not considered LHWs, just MWs fighting a couple pounds above. Greb fought against many fellow middles in which one or both contestants weighed in above the MW limit, yet neither the press or anyone else considered these bouts to be between "two LHWs". This includes his bouts with Jeff Smith, Gus Christie, Joe Chip, Jimmy Darcy, Fay Keiser, Brian Downey, Tiger Flowers (first fight), Augie Ratner, Johnny Wilson (one of them), Allentown Joe Gans and many others. ALL were considered MWs fighting at catchweight. None were LHW contenders when Greb fought them. They were MW contenders

These wins should not be counted as achievements at LHW.

 

I just dont understand how it cannot be a benefit to his legacy as a middleweight when the guy was a career middleweight, fought his last bout as a middleweight in an era of same day weigh ins, and managed to fight successfully against much larger fighters.

I will say again, nobody considers Roy Jones heavyweight, even for that one fight against Ruiz and he weighed 199 pounds. They use that fight, against one of the weakest heavyweight champions in history, to enhance his legacy in the lower weights. The difference is that Greb did the same thing, much more often, and against better fighters.

I agree that he should also be considered a light heavyweight. I have no problem with that. But the fact that he basically vacationed at light heavyweight and heavyweight so successfuly while a middleweight means this was one terrific middleweight.

Just because he didnt dry out a few extra pounds does not mean he magically grew in to a light heavyweight for a few fights and then magically contracted back into middleweight body.

I'll take that over two guys whose biggest wins came by feasting on smaller fighters.

I also find strange the idea that if Hagler weighed 162 and beat Spinks we would suddenly consider him a light heavyweight, or somehow bisect that one fight from his body of work and say that somehow he had two careers, one as a light heavy and the rest as a middle.

I still say it shows real lack of understanding of the conditions of the sport back then. These fighters fought often, full time. They did not have the benefit of six months away from work and three month training camps to make weight. The made weight when the had to and the rest of the time it was all about putting on good, competetive fights for the fans. Something sadly lost today for the most part.

Had a man like Greb had 36 hours between a weigh in and a fight, six months between fights, and all the perks they have today I dont doubt that he could have been a junior middleweight or maybe smaller.

The way I see it is some fans of Hagler, Robinson, Monzon and others realize that Greb set a nearly ridiculous standard to try to stack up against and really the only way to compete against that is by saying "wait a minute now, if you split Harry Greb's wins apart along strict lines of what weight class his opponent was fighting in and whether Harry Greb weighed a pound or two over the limit, and a lot of other standards we dont hold any other fighter to, then suddenly his middleweight record doesnt look as impressive." Meanwhile they are willing to use the exact opposite logic in regards to Walker to take away from his win over Walker.

To that I say, if you look at Greb as a career middleweight, which he was, and look at his stellar competition against whom he won far more often than not, its pretty hard for anyone to say this wasnt arguably the greatest middleweight in history. Its hard to argue that Monzon and Hagler's accomplishments dont stand deep in the shadows of Greb's.

 

Has anyone seen greb training? Cuz that wasn't atg

 

Post of the month :happy