Harry Greb Best Man For Carpentier Bout, Says Edgren

Then after beating Gibbons in 1922 Greb spent the rest of his career fighting at mostly lower weight divisions.

 

Right, so Greb wasn't on anyone's radar, but Bill Brennan, whom he thrashed four times, was.

 

This thread:

http://www.boxingforum24.com/showthread.php?t=562238

particularly posts 256 and 257 show this not to be the case.

 

Brennan was a hwt. Greb was not.

The thread does not prove anything except that over the course of many years looking at daily newspapers from every city you can find articles that point in many directions. An objective individual would take ALL points of reference not just the ones that point in only one direction. Many felt Greb was NO MATCH vs Dempsey simply because he was a small middleweight. The article I posted written by the most widely respected boxing writer at that time is an example of the other Very prevalent viewpoint.

 

How can Greb not be on the publics radar but promoters, fighters, are discussing the match and offering up big purses for it? That doesn't make sense to me. Those articles are a reflection of the fact that a significant portion of the public were interested in seeing Dempsey and Greb in the ring together.

 

The question is how many articles like the one I posted took an opposing viewpoint? Second question is why would anyone cherry pick only the articles that expressed one point but ignore the articles from very solid sources that exhibit a contrary viewpoint?

Again I can find many articles regarding offers, discussions, sites where the fight would occur, purses etc of a proposed second Ali Foreman bout. The bout never happened. I can find those articles and form a discussion that shows Ali ducked Foreman. Unfortunately it is not only very deceptive its historically inaccurate. THIS is the trouble with not being fully inclusive of all data AND how history can be easily distorted especially after everyone who lived during the period in question are long dead. I lived through the 70's and of course Ali did not duck Foreman but yet looking at articles a case, an historically inaccurate case, can be made.

 

The fact that there were a lot of articles written about a proposed fight between Dempsey and Greb over years and thousands of miles should be enough to show anyone that Greb was on the publics radar. Those articles don't get written in a bubble. They are reflections of the public opinion.

For instance how many articles can you find today showing promoters attempting to match GGG and Wlad, or even someone like Huck or Lebedev? Those articles don't get written because your statement that those fights aren't on the publics radar would be a true statement. Its not in regards to a fight between Dempsey and Greb. You might find articles saying that Greb wouldn't make a good contender for Dempsey, but you could find dozens of articles in 2002 stating that Mike Tyson didn't deserve a shot at Lennox Lewis. Those are two different arguments. The fact that some people didn't think Greb would be a legitimate challenger does not mean he wasn't considered a legitimate challenger by others. That means that he was on the publics radar as a challenger. And how could he not be if writers were writing articles both supporting and opposing that position? When you see a total absence of articles suggesting Johnny Kilbane as an opponent for Dempsey or even denying his credibility as opponent that's where you have someone not on the publics radar.

I would venture the idea that even if you had 100 articles stating that Greb wouldn't make a good Dempsey opponent, and only 1 saying he would, that the fact that you had so many people writing articles about Greb in the light of a Dempsey opponent means that the discussion was being had and illustrates that Greb was on the public's radar. The fact that the opposite is true, that a lot of writers, fighters, promoters, and public were discussing Greb favorably as a Dempsey opponent only adds weight to this idea.

According to the OP those articles start in 1918 and continue on at least up to the Gibbons fight. If Harry Greb was not on the publics radar until after he defeated Tommy Gibbons in 1922 why all of these articles? Im willing to listen.

Your ****ogy to Muhammad Ali and George Foreman doesn't make sense because nobody questioned George Foreman as a legitimate challenger to Ali. The fact that you can find a lot of articles, offers, discussions, or what have you of this proposed fight only illustrates that it was a topic of discussion and that Foreman was on public's radar as a legitimate challenger, just like Greb.

 

I don't think Ive ever seen a more loaded "survey."

You took a database that is very limited and then limited the search even further by forcing to engine to search exact phrases like "jack dempsey - harry greb."

Can you imagine an instance where an educated writer of the age would fashion an article the same way you would write a 21st century boxing forum post?

Just for grins and giggles I typed in "jack dempsey - luis firpo" into newspapers.com. Newspapers.com has a much larger database and goes beyond 1922. It pulled up a whopping 161 hits for a fight that actually took place and was hyped to the heavens. Do you really suppose only 161 articles were written about that fight in the millions of pages archived in newspapers.com?

The moral of the story is that I think your lack of hits is chalked up more to user error than to any fact that nobody was writing about that fight.

A better exercise would be too widen your search by accessing a larger database and then cast your net further by typing "harry greb" "jack Dempsey" into the engine. Then work your way back through the results to see how many actually discuss a proposed fight between the two. Newspapers.com brings up 9,909 hits for this search, and even newspapers.com is limited, none of these databases has every newspaper in the country of note. That's a lot of hits to weed through but its also going to give you a much more accurate picture. I look forward to your results.

 

Greb beat Brennan. Four times. How does that translate into Brennan being a better opponent for Dempsey?

 

Does not matter. Selling a fight pitting a 5'8 165 pound middleweight going in the ring with a monster like Dempsey would be a hard sell.

 

The ****ogy regarding Ali Foreman 2 carries great weight since the point is ....,,was one fighter afraid or ducked the other?

You are accepting that the worlds hwt champion was afraid or ducked a middleweight based upon newspaper articles where YOU DO NOT QUESTION how many took an opposing viewpoint. In five minutes I found an article five months AFTER Greb beat Gibbons in 1922 that played down greatly his chances in the ring vs Dempsey. Willard, Carpentier, Brennen and Wills were all painted in more glowing terms. This article was written by the most respected boxing writer of that time. WHY is Greb not given much of any chance vs Dempsey even though he just had beaten Gibbons? Why? He was a middleweight.

My point is I can find many articles that one can then use to paint a picture Ali was afraid or ducked a rematch vs Foreman. The REALITY is if you lived through that time period you would know it's a false conclusion based upon skewed data.

 

Greb was 172 3/4 when he fought Kid Norfolk.

Dempsey's real weight in Toledo, according to Roger Kahn and other sources, was 180.

Shocking difference.

And I love that this line of argumentation comes from the crowd that purports that 185 pound fighters would decimate today's 240 pound superheavies...