Harry Greb Footage

Thats not what I said. What I said was that he put a lot of stock in newspaper decisions. Are you disputing this?

 

OK, you’re going completely strawman now. I’ll post this and leave the discussion. I thought you of all posters could have a reasoned and rational discussion.

Where the **** did I ever say Greb paid ANY newspaper writer, much less ALL of them? Strawman. Completely made up.

I said a gambler who is going to collect depending on a newspaper decision would have incentive to sway the person from the newspaper rendering the decision. If newspaper decisions were used by gamblers, they surely knew which newspaper(s) were going to count — they weren’t going to scour the country to find every account and add them up. So they might say ‘the fight is in Philly, so whoever the Philadelphia Daily News gives the verdict to determines which side won the bet.’

Point by point:

1) Yes, there are bad decisions. But you know in the case you cited how each judge scored every round and included an example. That’s not the case with many newspaper decisions. We also know the judges were trained as judges and given four criteria upon which to score — we know their names and can look up their past history in rendering decisions.

Yet we don’t know who most of the newspapermen were. We don’t know how many fights an anonymous writer from Massillon, Ohio, had even seen. We don’t know what rounds he scored for each man. We don’t know upon what he based his decision — what he tasked himself with in deciding a winner. But let’s take his word for it?

You say newspaper decisions often told how many rounds (but not always which rounds) they favored for each man. Guess what: professional fight judges ALWAYS (not often) tell not only how many rounds each won, but which rounds each won. Which has more transparency?

Did I say all newspaper scorers were incompetent? No, I did not. But we don’t know how competent any of them were and we can say with surety that they weren’t trained in how to score a fight.

2) So on the one hand you say ‘newspaper accounts are sacrosanct’ but on the other when we have accounts of a fighter letting his foot off the gas so an opponent could finish on his feet without too much damage and fight again a week or two later … now these newspaper accounts cannot be trusted?

If both aren’t trying and there’s a gentlemen’s agreement to get to the finish line, if Harry backs off then the other guy is probably happy to let it go that way — it’s not like he’s losing a fight, since the official result is no contest if it goes the distance. If Harry was getting the better of it and backs off, it’s entirely possible that if he kept pressing instead that the other guy, fighting for all he was worth, might have struck a lucky blow and won by KO or caused a massive cut that could have ended it in his favor — but if Greb lets up in a gentlemen’s agreement, the other guy is probably going to coast too.

Clearly from accounts of the day, this happened often.

I saw Larry Holmes fight an exhibition after his retirement. He clearly won every round. He also didn’t press his advantage when he rocked the guy, literally stepping back and letting the opponent recover before resuming. If a newspaper related that, should we now add that as a win to Larry’s record? If not, why not?

3) It’s binary to you because you choose to make it so for you. That doesn’t bound the rest of the boxing-watching world to say ‘well darn it, I must consider every newspaper decision the same because a guy on a forum said so, or I must dismiss them all out of hand.

One could say ‘I trust these outlets to be fair and just’ (which I consider the Pittsburgh press suspect in assessing Harry’s performance relative to his opponent, so I guess I am not allowed because you say so?). The press in Argentina held Monzon up as a minor god, but when he fought in the U.S., critics (as in sports writers) were less impressed. I tend to think the U.S. press, which wasn’t treating him as a national hero, was closer to the truth.

One could also say, ‘I question the qualifications of a reporter in Reno, Nevada, rendering a verdict on a fight on the East Coast because I literally have no idea nor proof that he was even there, and didn’t instead get that info from a ticker tape.’ Or ‘I seriously doubt a writer from Chillicothe, Ohio, who has probably never seen a big-time fight in his life, is credible in his scoring.’

You dismiss a Lennox Lewis decision but then tell me I can’t dismiss some newspaper decisions. Which is it?

Thanks for the part of this discussion where you actually seemed to want to talk about it. But when you start with the strawman stuff, that’s it for me. To try to paint it as if I said Greb paid off reporters (ironically, Klompton says Harry didn’t get rave reviews from the NYC press because he wouldn’t pay them off, and that they conspired for years after his death to keep his legend under the radar, as if every fighter who ever got a positive review in New York did so because they paid for it) is beyond a low blow.

 

We never discussed it. But did you not suggest that fighters kept scrapbooks because they considered those newspaper decisions to be real and binding? So Hank clipped fights through the 1970s and ‘80s, at least, and I was giving an example of how people scrapbook for other reasons.

 

This is the mentality we're dealing with here.. arguing the toss with someone who thinks Wilder KOs Foreman

I feel unclean

 

No strawmen on my part.

I never claimed you said Greb paid newspaper writers. I asked if you thought he did.

I never said you thought all newspaper writers were incompetent scorers. I asked if you thought they were.

When I asked you if no decision fights that went the distance, impacted your appraisal of the combatants careers, or whether you rank those combatants exactly as you would had those fights never happened, you responded "I honestly don't put a whole lot of stock in them".

I took that to mean as you either literally, or virtually, rank fighters exactly as you would had they never contested no decision bouts that went the distance. So I was asking what reasons you had for either entirely, or virtually, disregarding hundreds of eye witness accounts.

Talking of strawmen, you have attributed a quote to, in inverted commas no less, that I did not make. I never said "newspaper accounts are sacrosanct". Furthermore, I have literally stated the exact opposite, that newspaper scores aren't infallible. Which is where the rubber hits the road, I can't summarise my views any more concisely than below:

1. As is the case with official decisions, I don't consider newspaper decisions infallible.

2. Factoring in hundreds of eye witness accounts into the appraisal of a fighter's career, makes more sense to me then ignoring them.

 

LMAO......Foreman by murder.

 

Yes but there are accounts in newspapers of fighters like Mike Gibbons and Jock Malone carrying their scrapbooks with them as they travelled and showing them to reporters or promoters to give them an idea of how the fighter performed previously. Clearly these reports mattered to everyone involved.

They mattered so much that in Comptons book he mentions how a fake report was sent out from Bill Brennans manager saying Brennan beat Greb. The real newspaper reports were produced to refute this and Greb challenged Brennan to a rematch in order to prove the point.

Look, you are going to believe what you want. Thats clear so there is no point in discussing it further. I think its clear that you and Dubblchin are in the minority though and arguing against cold hard facts.

 

He's questioning the legitimacy of Greb whilst sat proclaiming Deontay Wilder an all-time great

Im crying

 

Im done. I didnt realize this is what I was debating.

 

Apparently he beats Frazier too

 

Joshua, Fury & Wilder all beat Liston

 

In all fairness hypothetical matchups are a opinion.

 

& If i were to sit here criticising Harry Grebs standing all day long whilst calling Deontay Wilder an ATG HW who would beat all of Alis opposition barring Holmes what would u say about my opinion? Because that's what our friend has been up to.. yes we're all entitled to them.. but some just abuse the privilege. Come on.. this is a fkin joke.. Dumping on Greb yet hyping Wilder to be one of greats..

 

Well, in fairness to our friend, in his mind half of Grebs fights either never happened or dont count however he reconciles no decision bout.