Which explains the full page adverts he took out begging for the opportunity to face Dempsey, the good four years of his career he spent chasing Dempsey and the Dempsey Inc position of avoiding Greb like the plague while facing guys Greb already kicked the ever loving **** out of. Gotcha. Last I looked, Bethea was #8,471 on my list of all time greats. Greb is always #1 or #2. Absolutely. A prime Gibbons, Tunney and possibly Miske would have excellent chances. Hey brother, no one has picked Greb over the championship distance. But there are other things to consider. Marciano has awful footwork in terms of speed and agility. Greb had insane footwork. Pretty much every Hall of Famer he defeated (13 of them?) commented on this. He would often end up behind opponents after throwing punches and his use of angles and moving in and out was legendary. If this is a truncated fight or 6 or 8 or possibly 10 rounds, Greb would tie Marciano in knots for most of it.
Seamus, Marciano threw over 100 punches against Archie Moore in round 6. He also threw 100 punches against Charles in rounds 6, 10, and 15 in their first fight. I think the version of Walcott who knocked out Charles to win the title, would batter both Gibbons and Miske. I also think the 1955 Archie Moore who flattened Harold Johnson in round 14, would outclass Gibbons and Miske. I favor the 1954 Charles slightly over both Miske and Gibbons. As for Tunney, Greb went 1-3 against him. Were those versions of Moore, Walcott, Charles capable of 1-3 record against a Prime Gene Tunney? Absolutely
That's what surprised me in this fight when I first saw it; Marciano was looking to counter Jersey Joe and vice versa. They both picked their punches and it was a much more technical fight than people have been led to believe.