I dont need fight film to confim Grebs great abilities

Did you guys hear? Hurricane Katrina was a borderline disaster...

 

For the record.

If I got a career boxed set of Greb's fights tomorrow and he apeared to be the worst of all the lineal middleweight champions on film, then I would still have no hesitation in saying that he was the best p4p.

His resume is so far ahead of his closest competitor, that there is not much left to argue.

Acomplishments in the ring trump looking good on film.

 

What a useless assessment.

 

Who do you have him ahead of?

 

I don't think anybody uses that footage to confirm his ability. I think you'll find his greatness is judged on his resumé for the most part. It's unfortunate that we don't have footage of Greb, but that's the case and it is with others. Deal with it, we can't simply not rate him considering he may very well be the greatest fighter ever, we can make a logical assumption of his skills based upon reports and who he's beaten and what we read.

 

You beat me to a very similar post

 

Are you trying to tell me there aren't controversies in fights were 3 judges render a decision? That there were never controversies when the ref was the only judge?

You seem to think there was only one newspaper covering a fight back then, when in reality there were probably close to a dozen if not more. (in close fights people and newspaper are going to differ in their opinions on who actually won the fight. On top of this "official" has nothing to do with one all time great fighting another. The offial record shows a draw for Chavez-Whitaker, yet we know who really won. Tito got the nod over Oscar yet there is huge debate to who actually won. Tunney "officially" beat Greb in their second fight yet fans and newspapers were divided. So how exactly does that take away from who Greb fought, beat,lost, to and had close fights with? Anyway you slice it the guy was fighting the very best fighters and doing at at a top level day in and day out. Film or no film cannot change that.

 

I know the newspaper men were very corruptable in those days, and could be bought to write bull**** reports, and often were.
But the accounts of Greb's dominance are so consistently overwhelming it would be a stretch to think he had the entire press wrapped up so easily.

I still think there's a reasonable debate to be had over whether a ND fight can be "won" or "lost" on a newspaper decision though, or whether the aim would be to KO the opponent to win, or go the distance to avoid losing.

Anyway, Greb was one of the greatest. Everyone who saw him and fought him agreed, and that's many.

 

TommyV...take a look at the thread title and the original post please

 

you don't need film footage of any great or top level fighters - there is so much footage of other greats one need only "cross" record check to see who fought who, how well they did, circumstances around any loss - questionable or not, weight drained and such things, and last if said fighters stepped up against top fighters out of their own division competing well.

all this is proof enough for those top men we can't unfortunately see footage of!

 

I have Armstrong, Pep, Louis, Ali and Robinson all ahead of Greb.

After Greb, I have Langford, Gans, Leonard (Benny) and Moore to complete my Top 10.

 

You can use film for:

1. Verifying how good his opponents were when he fought them, ie were they green/faded
2. Whether decisions/roberries occured
3. Look at how dominant he was
4. Assess his strengths and weaknesses

 

Not a chance Pep, Louis or Ali can rank ahead of Greb by judging who they beat.

 

It would be a tough case to make, to be honest.