Greb is pretty much top 5 middleweight on everyone's list.. Also known as perhaps boxings dirtiest fighter ever So dirty he wouldn't get out of the 1st round without being DQ'd if he used them today. My question is ..If he were around today.. Would he be the exceptional fighter he was back then under our current restrictions?? I mean dirty tactics helped got him his win over Tunney the first time. So i think dirty tactics probably helped him get the win over a lot of guys..Would not being able to fight dirty like that make him seem less of a world beater..if fighting today?? Was his shredding, windmill style did it depend on dirty tactics.?? Was he throwing so many punches, at such frenzied pace, at a moving target, while he was moving to..That he was unable to control some of them landing foul??
I think the dirty fighter thing gets overplayed to be honest. He was, but there is more of a mixed picture, than people think. I today, he would be good at getting away with it.
Truly, if Greb was as "dirty" a fighter as you paint him to be, wouldn't he have many disqualification on his record ? No doubt he was "mean" and "rough", coupled with a frenzied all out attack from round one which came from all angles which as one opponent aptly described " as I felt that the ceiling opened up and gloves came pouring down on me"... Seldom if ever disqualified was Harry Greb in 300 bouts...Give this great fighter his due, much like his later Pittsburgh welterweight Sir Fritzie Zivic who I had the pleasure to see as a youngster...
Fritzie Zivic could be dirty and he did not get DQ, did he? I think Greb blended in some questionable stuff with his whrilwind type of attack, but because he was moving forward and making the fight, the fouls didn't look premeditated.
Greb's dirtier techniques didn't emerge until he himself was blinded by Kid Norfolk's thumb. After that, he had a hard time with depth perception and had to change his tactics in part because of his disability and in part to meet his opponents' tactics.
Really experienced boxers can do a number on you...without having to be considered overtly "dirty" in their actions
Greb was not considered a dirty fighter until late in his career after he was blind in one eye and lost his depth perception this necessitated the foul that he was most commonly accused of: holding and hitting? In an era when John Ruiz became a HW champion would Greb be considered a foul fighter? I doubt it. In his own era he was DQd one time in 300 fights and that was considered a very controversial DQ that was almost overturned. And for the record I think Zivic's rep as a dirty fighter is overplayed as well. It wasnt helped by the fact that Zivic seemed to revel in it later in life and played it up for publicity sake.
