Grebb, Langford, Dempsey and today's boxers

Bear in mind that then as in many other era's, the heavyweight division simply got a lot more media exposure.

 

Ok. Blind stats is all people have to go on and writings of the time.

The same writings that said Dempsey was the greatest ever.

How do we know he wasn't knocking over dozens and dozens of drifters and greasers?

I get you have the hall of famers. One who he beat one out of 5 fights and another who was a welter weight.
My point is guys like Corbett were all time greats back then and he could't hold a candle and would get wipped out by the greats to come later imo.

 

Greb's standing is not based on the fact he called out Dempsey. Like I said twice before, it's his record.

If Tunney admitted Greb was the greatest fighter he ever faced (one eyed, with 200+ fights in his back, who wasn't even a proper sized LHW to begin with) don't you think people would question (rightfully as we do now) how he would fare against him prime for prime and who was actually the better fighter? Tunney was not exactly humble and was as clever (if not more clever) in self promotion as he was in the ring.

As for the writers, a great fighter is not necessarily a popular one. An ugly or unexciting style goes a long way towards making a fighter, if not forgotten, sort of spitefully remembered like he sneaked into the ATGs party. Just think of Saddler. I had a hard time accepting him myself.

 

He was filmed. Several times. Those films have just been lost. As have most of the films from that era.

Its pure happenstance and dumb luck that footage survived on Langford and not Greb. It could have just as easily been the other way around and then you would be questioning Langford's greatness because there is no film. Which is really an asinine argument to begin with because we do in fact have footage of many of the greats Greb beat and they look good. So how do you explain this overrated guy beating greats like Tunney, Walker, etc?

Im not trying to change your opinion of Greb or Dempsey. Im just pointing out that your reasoning behind saying Greb is overrated is badly flawed. As for Dempsey, well, you can buy into the hoopla if you want but he was protected, overrated, ducked his two top challengers for the entire duration of his tenure as a champion, etc. If thats a destroyer so be it but he obviously didnt think so or he would have fought those guys.

The last time someone trotted out the "why is it that Greb is only recently rated so high" argument it took me a few minutes of quick digging to compile this:

I wanted to put together a little list of examples that in some areas Greb had always been though of as one of the greatest
fighters in history and that his
Joe Williams writing in 1924 picked Greb as the greatest middleweight of all time. Williams started out in Cleveland and had
actually seen Greb fight as an amateur in Cleveland before later becoming a syndicated columnist.
[url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...5186%2C2295160[/url]
Mickey Walker in 1949 rated Greb the greatest fighter of all time
[url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...1782%2C3721058[/url]
Billy Prince, writing for the Bridgeport Herald in 1950 rated Greb the greatest MW of all time
[url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...4706%2C7494771[/url]
In his March 29, 1929 syndicated column Grantland Rice called Greb the best "little good man" I ever saw.
In the February 20, 1926 issue of Colliers Rice wrote an article about Greb titled "The King of all the Marvels" in which Rice
literally gushes about Greb's faculties as a fighter.
In his March 5, 1936 article Rice called Greb the fastest fighter he had ever seen and said that Joe Louis would have as
difficult a time with him as anyone. Teddy Hayes, Dempsey's old trainer is quoted as agreeing with this assessment.
In 1944 Grantland Rice called Greb the greatest fighter pound for pound he had ever seen (I believe this is before that title
was supposedly made up for SRR)
[url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...4706%2C7494771[/url]
Rice continually rated Greb above Robinson. Here is just one example:
[url]http://news.google.com/newspapers?id...=6118%2C740942[/url]
Gene Tunney often called him one of the greatest if not the greatest fighters to ever live. There are too many sources to even
cite this.
In the Pittsburgh Press of January 24, 1924 Cuddy DeMarco rated Greb the greatest fighter he ever saw.
In the February 7, 1958 edition of the Binghamton Press John Fox called Greb the greatest fighter ever. He prefaced this by
saying that if Robinson won the upcoming Basilio fight (which he did) people would be once again calling him the greatest
fighter ever. "Not me..." He begins.
In the November 17, 1948 issue of the Winnipeg Free Press Gene Tunney is quoted as saying that greb is possibly the greatest
fighter pound for pound he has ever seen.
In the December 30, 1937 issue of the Lethbridge Heral Soldier Jones rated Greb the greatest fighter of all.
In the March 17, 1941 issue of the New York post Jack Kearns stated that Greb was a sure shot to beat Dempsey if he had been
"Sucker enough" to accept the match.
In the August 1929 issue of the Geneva Times Maxie Rosenbloom says Greb gave him the toughest fight he ever had and admits
that Greb could have knocked him out if he wanted. I have another quote by Rosenbloom where he calls Greb the greatest fighter
ever but I cant find it and if I remember its just a clipping without a date or source name to cite. These are rare moments of
candor from Rosenbloom who more often tried to pass off the myth that he beat Greb.
In the July 12, 1951 issue of the Cumberland Evening Times Charles Einstein picked Greb to beat Rocky Marciano and Rex Layne
in a mythical matchup.
In the May 24, 1955 issue of the same paper Tunney picked Greb to beat Marciano saying Marciano wouldnt lay a glove on him.
In the september 9, 1929 issue of the Montana Standard Tommy Loughran rated Greb the greatest fighter he ever fought
In the November 14, 1951 issue of the Troy Times Record veteran fight manager Tom Walsh ranked Greb as the greatest fighter
pound for pound that he had ever seen.
In the November 4, 1947 issue of the Tucson Daily Citizen Jimmy Slattery credits Greb with giving him his toughest fight.
In the February 13 1951 issue of the Cumberland News C.V. Burns calls Greb the greatest middleweight ever.
In the May 13, 1951 issue of the Salt Lake Tribune veteran fight handler Babe Culnan rated Greb the greatest fighter ever
pound for pound.
In Chuck Wiggins obituary in May 1942 he is quoted as always saying Greb was "the greatest I ever met"
In the December 28, 1952 issue of the Cumberland Times Fay Keiser calls Greb the greatest middleweight and says he would have
"beat the life out of Conn"
In the November 8, 1953 issue of Knockout Jimmy McLarnin calls Harry Greb the greatest fighter he ever saw. McLarnin had
fought on one of Greb's undercards and spent the rest of his life talking about how great Greb was.
On May 29, 1941 (the newspaper this is from is cut off) Bill Corum called Greb one of the greatest fist fighting men of them
all
On September 4, 1932 writing for the Universal News Service Ed W. Smith, legendary referee and newspaper reporter, wrote how
Dempsey could not beat Greb. Keep in mind that Smith was closely associated with both of these guys.
In the 1951/52 Weekly Sporting Review Xmas and New Year Annual E. G. Hammon lauds Greb as one of the greatest middleweights of
all time.
Red Mason, Greb's former manager called Greb the greatest fighter of his weight that ever lived. Maybe a biased opinion but
Mason was as expert on boxing as it got.
John McGarvey, matchmaker for Motor Square Garden ranked Greb with greatest middleweights of all time
Patsy Scanlon, lightweight boxer, ranked Greb as greater than Dempsey at his best.
James J. Long of the Pittsburgh Sun ranked him as one of the most outsanding boxers of all time.
E. W. ****erson, longtime boxing expert for the Grand Rapids Herald called Greb "The greatest boxer of his weight and inches
the ring has ever known."
George Barton, one of the most respected boxing experts in the country for decades, called Greb "one of the best fighters of
his weight that the game ever produced" and stated it would be "a long time before we will see his equal, all around ability
considered."
George Engel, another of Greb's managers who ended on bad terms with Greb called him one of the greatest fighters the world
has ever known
Jack Farrell, writing on October 31, 1926 (the newspaper is "the News" but I dont have where its from) called Greb "one of the
greatest in the game" and said his record was probably one of the greatest ever compiled.
Chet Youll writing for the Buffalo Evening News July 25, 1927 wrote: "Greb in my opinion was one of the greatest fighters of his weight that ever lived. Greb fought everyone and everybody any place and anwhere... ...Greb had recieved little credit as a heavyweight boxer -his best weight was around 160 pounds- but there was no heavyweight during his heyday who superseded him in ability."

I could literally keep going and dig through my files from Greb's lifetime when contemporaries rated him as highly but frankly Im wore out. I think the point is that in places Greb was always rated as one of the all time best.

 

Who was this one he beat only once out of five? Because if your referring to Tunney you should go back and do some research. He beat Tunney's ass in their first fight. Beat him almost as bad in the second only to get robbed in what the vast majority considered one of the worst decisions ever seen. And beat him again in Cleveland in a ND bout. By my count that three out of five that he won against a younger bigger guy who went on to beat Dempsey in 19 out of 20 rounds.

 

Dempsey came out of a 3 year period of inactivity, was past it and still got jobbed with the long count against Tunney.

What about his other loses.

Early stoppages loses to Kid Graves and Joe Chip. Who are they?


Tiger Flowers was getting beaten by everybody but he was able to beat Grebb twice??

 

Dempsey was awesome but he definitely had weaknesses. Langford by all accounts was terrifying to fight, even when he fought much bigger men, and Greb's style was unique and borderline physically-impossible.

I'm not up on the history, but those two as far as I know weren't thought to have any weaknesses. Dempsey could be knocked down by just about anyone and could definitely be outboxed by a good fighter.

So my knowledge is that Dempsey had known vulnerabilities while Langford and Greb didn't really have anything standing out as a weakness.

They also had the advantage of being able to fight in multiple weight classes while Dempsey obviously couldn't. Dempsey also lost points for ducking and inactivity.

 

Predicting the outcome of fights is notoriously difficult, even when the fighters share an era and common opponents.

That aside, it is perfectly reasonable to infer that Langford Greb and Dempsey would all have been successful fighters in any era.

 

Round by round descriptions by ringside journalists and hysterical eulogies are hardly the same thing.

If that was right (which is not) it would overlook the fact Greb was one-eyed (at least by the second fight, might have been since the first), a bloated MW, hitting the 200 mark fights in his bag, the overwhelming majority of which went the distance (consider what that means to a fighter who was basically speed and stamina).

What Corbett has to do with Greb or Langford? And you keep talking as if we were following the noise around the fighters instead of the fight reports.

Look if you're just saying you refuse to judge a fighter without footage I'll accept and leave it at that. That's a position I can at least understand.

 

Actually refer to my other recent post which categorically disproves that Dempsey was jobbed against Tunney in any way shape or form:

"The rules for the Dempsey Firpo fight (which had been in effect since mid 1920, not 1921 as I had earlier stated) state clearly:

When a contestant is down his opponent shall retire to the furthest corner and remain there until the count is completed should he fail to do so the referee may cease counting until he has so retired.

Dempsey was clearly in violation of the rules on multiple occasions against Firpo.

On page 26 of the manual of rules of the Illinois State Athletic Commission, the set of rules by which Dempsey-Tunney 2 was governed, it states:

#87 When a contestant is 'down' his opponent shall retire to the farthest corner of the ring and remain there until the count is completed. Should he fail to do so, the referee will cease counting until he has so retired.

#88 When a knockdown occurs the timekeeper shall immediately arise and announce the seconds audibly as they elapse. The referee shall first see that the opponent retires to the farthest corner of the ring and then, turning to the timekeeper, shall take up the
count in unison with the timekeeper announcing the seconds to the boxer on the floor. Should the boxer on his feet fail to stay in the said corner the referee and timekeeper may cease counting until he has so retired. At the tenth second providing the termination of the round has not happened in the meantime, he will strike the gong twice.

Now, at the rules meeting the day of the fight, when the pool of referees was selected a conference was had because it was realized that there was a conflict between these two specific rules. One saying the referee would cease the count and the other saying he would pick the count up from the timekeeper. It was specifically asked "what happens if a fighter fails to retire to a corner. It was decided that the referee was ultimate authority on the count and that the timekeeper was merely an "auxilliary" meaning that the referee could halt the count as he saw fit. This was agreed upon and attested to by the commission and supported later by the NBA.

As you can see, Barry did nothing wrong and followed the rules to a "T" Dempsey had nobody but himself to blame and could have easily been DQ'd in the Firpo fight."


Kid Graves was a welterweight champion and Greb broke his arm in that fight.

Joe Chip was a MW and the chief sparring partner of the MW champion of the world who Greb was fighting in his first bout above 145.

Tiger Flowers had never lost a fight to a decision when he faced Greb. Who were all of these guys that were beating him? Jack Delaney? Who would win the LHW title in a few months? Mike McTigue whose decision over Flowers was considered so bad that they gave Flowers a title shot off it? Who else?

Any more questions you need answering?

 

atsch Aww 5hit.

Kid Graves? Stoppage? The one he broke his f*ing arm? And Chip? In his first year as pro? Do you even bother looking your 5hit up?

Except hid didn't. And yeah Flowers was getting his ass kicked by all those bums the like of Norfolk, Panama Joe Gans & Jack f*ing Delaney.

 

Boxrec warrior strikes again!