Harry Greb Footage

Let me challenge this a bit.

So I scanned Greb’s record and picked out Harry’s newspaper decision ‘win’ over Tiger Flowers in Fremont, Ohio, in 1924.

A total of 16 papers are listed. Are you saying that Greb cared about the newspaper verdicts enough that he went on tour around Ohio and Pennsylvania collecting copies of the next day’s print editions to see how they all saw it?

There’s one of his fights somewhere in the Midwest iirc where a Florida paper’s score is mentioned. Did Harry have friends in Florida mail him a copy so he could see how he did?

I cannot see that. Some of his bouts were covered far and wide, and if he (and his opponent) cared about those verdicts and used those as a basis for whether they won or lost, they’d have to find copies to read those accounts. There was no newspapers.com or engine to gather all of those.

Harry would most likely see the Pittsburgh papers, and even when other outlets seemed to favor Harry’s opponent, 9 times out of 10 the local writers gave Harry the nod. And he might see the next-day edition of papers local to the venue (like the Fremont papers in the Tiger Flowers bout mentioned above) but no way he tracked down accounts from Cleveland and Akron and other scattered newspapers.

So if Harry did take newspaper decisions as the arbiter of whether he won or loss, how did he go about knowing how everyone who covered the fight saw it? In short, it’s impossible.

Then there’s this: Sometimes we get how the writer broke it down in rounds, but at least as often we get ‘the Morning News said Harry got the better of it’ — so we’re counting that as a ‘decision’ but we don’t actually know if they even bothered to score it by rounds or, if so, how they saw it: 5-4-1, 6-4, 7-3, etc.

I find it hard to put credence in newspaper ‘verdicts’ that provide no score or breakdown by rounds.

Just some food for thought. At best, relying on newspaper decisions (given particularly an account of results changing when more newspapers are found, so a decision can literally be changed 100 years later by people who weren’t even alive when the fight happened) is a murky business at best.

(And doesn’t the whole idea of using those newspaper decisions to settle bets open it up to writers taking a $20 handshake or whatever to report that Fighter A won because a gambler had put big money on Fighter A?)

 

I doubt it. On the whole newspaper reports, including their decisions, influenced public perception of how good the fighters were, which were better than which, which fights they were offered, what purses they were offered, which of them got title shots and were taken seriously enough to determine the outcome in gambling. To say they mattered to the combatants is as obvious as it is preposterous to suggest they didn't.

Same question to you Pat, and at least I know you'll have the decency and courage to answer it - considering the entirety of his no decision bouts that went the distance, do you rank Greb?:

1. Higher than if they never happened?

2. Lower than if they never happened?

3. The same as if they never happened?

 

Let me answer this with another question: If fighters didnt care about newspaper decisions then why did they keep scrapbooks filled with them?

 

Another article on the Gibbons-Carpentier fight from '24.

"Tom Gibbons Outpoints Carpentier In Big Bout Michigan City, June 2—Tom Gibbons of St. Paul, the only boxer ever to stay the limit with Jack Dempsey, restored himself to standing as a contender for the world s heavyweight chaimpionship[sic] Saturday, when he decisively defeated Georges Carpentier, ring idol of France, in their ten round International contest. It was decided before a capacity crowd of 27,000 to 30,000 spectators in the sky-blue arena on the edge of this little resort city. Gibbons, winning from start to finish, perfect master of the situation at every stage of the battle, had his French foe staggering and groggy half a dozen times, and only Carpentier's refusal to battle possibly saved him from a knockout."
A caption below a photo also reads, "Gibbons outpointed Carpentier by a wide margin throughout the fight."

Once again, the fight is characterized entirely as a win for Gibbons & a loss for Carpenter w/ no concession @ all to its status as a "no dec." It also says quite explicitly that Gibbons "restored himself to standing as a contender" by virtue of being recognized as victor.

 

I honestly don’t put a whole lot of stock in them. And I don’t really have a ranking per se — I couldn’t give you my top 10 or top 100, and if I did it would change if you asked me to do it again a month later probably. I don’t have lists of such around.

I tend to put Greb third at middleweight behind Monzon and Hagler. I don’t think the newspaper decisions really factor into it so much.

P4P it’s harder because I don’t put much stock in ‘so-and-so is an old-timer Hall of Famer,’ which tends to be the main thing cited in Greb’s resume — one of Harry’s Hall of Fame opponents was inducted in 2017 (Leo Hauck). Did Harry’s resume really get better almost 100 years after they fought? I don’t think so. It got better because the induction committee finally got around to Leo because they were down to the lower tier of really good fighters from that era and finally got down the list far enough to let him in. There are other similar cases.

But my question was whether you think Harry really saw the majority of newspaper accounts of his fights if it was so important to the combatants of the day? Did someone consult the Fremont Daily News in Ohio (for example) and base his merit for a title shot on that? If they had picked up another paper by happenstance that said Harry lost some fight or other, would that knock him down the ranks?

 

I don’t know that they did. Maybe some of them liked seeing their names in print? Maybe so they could share accounts of their fighting days with their children and grandchildren some day?

Do we have some kind of empirical evidence that all or most fighters of those days kept scrapbooks? And that they included every account of their exploits, whether the clip favored them as winner or not? And that they did so … so they could know what their record was? I kind of doubt it.

Hank Kaplan, a journalist, amassed the largest collection of newspaper clippings on boxing in history. Basically everything he could lay his hands on. I doubt his motivation was ‘because I put so much stock in these being the true way to determine who won.’ I think it was more ‘every account of every fight is a chronicle of history.’

 

I don't know what proportion of the newspaper reports from his fights Greb read.

What I do know is that on the whole, newspaper reports and decisions most certainly mattered to the combatants, for the reasons given in my previous post.

Imo, if you disregard, or largely disregard, Greb's 100+ no-decision fights that went the distance, you won't have as a sound a grasp of his career as someone who factors them into their appraisal of his career.

 

Well you clearly hold them in higher esteem than I do.

How much stock do you put in a newspaper saying ‘Greb got the better of it’ with no actual score by rounds? And having no idea if the person who wrote it knew anything about boxing? And not knowing what criteria they used to determine who won rounds … if they even scored by rounds?

I simply cannot take something like that and say ‘well I guess Harry beat that guy pretty good.’ There are also newspaper accounts that make it clear in some fights that Harry backed off and allowed the guy to go the distance (and Greb isn’t the only one to have these).

How am I supposed to consider that a real fight if both aren’t trying to beat each other and instead of coasting so both could fight again somewhere a week or two later? That’s not a fight … it’s a gentlemen’s agreement, like you don’t usually try to take out your sparring partners. Which makes it sound more like sparring than an actual fight.

I know you’re using vague terms like how newspaper decisions mattered in general perception of fighters, etc. But can you cite me examples of someone getting a title shot because they won a newspaper decision (and not because of anything else)? Because I can danged sure give you hundreds of examples of fighters getting title shots solely because of winning a single fight by KO or judges decision post-newspaper era.

 

Tiger Flowers certainly saw his popularity increase after his showing against Greb in Fremont and his manager certainly used the newspapers that gave him positive reviews to publicize his fighter. Id say that answers your question.

 

And by the way, I knew Hank Kaplan and I know he put a lot of stock in newspaper decisions.

 

& here's an account of the man himself vs. fellow great Jack Dillon:

"JACK DILLON LICKED BY HARRY GREB OF PITTSBURG
PITTSBURG, July 31.—At the local National League ball park, Harry Greb of Pittsburg won a ten-round bout from Jack Dillon of Indianapolis last night. Greb forced the lighting all the way and had the best of each round."

Once again, Greb is entirely credited w/ having "won" or "licked" Dillon - there is zero concession whatsoever to the fight's result being a "no dec."

 

So was it not a real fight when Henry Armstrong backed off and let Barney Ross go the distance??? Should we now start considering this an exhibition or a fixed fight? Should Armstrong not be considered a welterweight champion? Or is it just when there is an official decision that these instances dont matter?

 

If you look in the Greb biography for this fight Dillon himself is quoted as saying he got beaten by Greb and that Greb would beat everyone. Why would you admit to being beaten if it wasnt a real fight? If it didnt matter? If nobody could say you legitimately lost? Why not just go on about your merry way?

 

Newspaper decisions, scored by multiple writers, none of whom were appointed or paid by fight promoters, often cited the score in rounds.

Many official fights in this era were scored by only the ref, not on a round by round basis, just whoever he felt got the better of the action as a whole.

Official Judges scored Lewis vs Holyfield 1 a draw (including one scoring a round for Holyfield when he was well and truly dominated). Newspapers for Lewis. Which do you think was correct?

Did Greb pay off ALL the hundreds of newspaper writers that scored fights for him? Or were they all incompetent scorers and it's just a crazy coincidence that they almost always scored for Greb? Or perhaps, on the balance of probability, do you think Greb genuinely got the better of the action more often than not?

With no TV, the overwhelming majority of boxing fans didn't see each of Greb's fights. The only information about them in the public domain was in newspapers reports and scores. Are you suggesting newspaper reports and scores didn't impact public opinion? Or if you accept they did, are you seriously suggesting that the fighters didn't care about public opinion?

If both fighters aren't trying to beat each other, why did Greb, and many others win such an overwhelming majority of their scores? What explanation do you have for this bizarre coincidence?

Neither official decisions nor newspaper decisions are infallible. Both can easily be undermined.

For no decision fights that went the distance you can either ignore newspaper reports and decisions, and rate the fighters exactly as you would do if the fight had never happened, or, you can factor them into your appraisal of their careers. It's that simple. It's binary (the extent to which you factor them being non-binary). I know which makes VASTLY more sense to me, to the extent I consider it utterly bizarre to adopt the alternate view, as do, so it seems, the vast majority of people posting in this thread.

 

I knew Hank too.

Are you saying he saved thousands and thousands of clips from well after the days of newspaper decisions had ended so he could determine the outcome of fights where judges determined outcomes?