Is there no film whatsoever of Harry Greb in an actual fight?

Sure. I’ll post highlights of those gift decisions when you post a video compilation of Harry Greb’s greatest wins – that way we can see if my choices and your choices contradict each other.

Feel free to break it down even further and include video highlights showing why Greb actually deserved to win that specific round that decided the fight, and I’ll include highlights telling you why he didn’t.

You know, like people do when debating just about every other fight on this site. After all, you’ve seen just as many Harry Greb fights as I have. Right?

What you seem to have forgotten is boxing is a physical act ... for the fighters and the viewers. Everyone sitting around the ring has a different view of the same action. Your “view” of the same action can change your perception of what’s happening.

That’s why the three judges are purposely placed on different sides of the ring, and why they tend to have different scores. They had three different views of the same fight, so one or two saw things the others didn’t. Based on their consensus, you hopefully come up with a fair verdict.

That’s also why reporters who are all sitting in the same section at ringside tend to agree with each other more than the judges do, because the reporters are all sharing a view from the same side of the ring.

That’s why people watching on television tend to share the same opinions, because they are all getting the common view from the network broadcasting the fight, and why their opinions can also vary wildly, because they’re not watching it from the same venue. They could be a bar, sitting quietly in an apartment, or trying to watch it while taking care of screaming kids who are distracting them.

That’s why, in boxing, “seeing” the fighters actually fight matters. Your view of a fight can change everything. The views of a couple guys on one side of a ring isn't definitive. If it was, a boxing ring would be placed on a stage and everyone would sit on one side and share the same view.

With Harry Greb, there is no view of a fight. And any records that we have were written by guys (or in some cases one guy) sitting together, who probably didn’t cover boxing every day, and probably didn’t learn how to officially score a fight any more than the fans in the stands had.

That said, I appreciate anyone who takes the time to try to learn more about periods in history that weren’t well documented. It’s very important to do that. It’s a valuable endeavor.

What I do have a problem with are people who then stand up and say they’ve read all those reports … by people who may or may not have known what they were doing … they have pieced together what happened based on reading those articles, they threw out what they didn’t think was relevant or parts that contradicted each other, and they have presented a completely new narrative that IS NOW FACT.

And they have determined that this person they haven’t seen, based on these sometimes accurate/sometimes inaccurate reports, is the best fighter ever.

And anyone who doesn’t believe this new FACT they’ve put forward is an idiot.

And there is no way possible any video evidence will ever contradict their assertion.

And anyone who thinks opinions could be changed after viewing the boxer on film are idiots. (After all, why believe your eyes when you read a newspaper article.)

At that point, you don’t care if they’ve provided a valuable service or not. Their condescending attitude undermines all the work they did.

Bottom line, I can’t think of a single instance when someone read about how great a pioneering fighter was, and after they saw footage of that fighter, stated: “He’s even better than they said he was.”

On the contrary, he’s never as good as he’s built up to be … because we all have different perceptions of what he looks like, and actual video of the fighter can’t exceed all those perceptions.

That’s why I said Greb’s all-time rating will likely drop – just like the all-time ratings of all his peers has dropped – because actually seeing them matters.

You may not know that. Everyone else does.

 

I don't see an agenda personally. I think this thread, whether you agree with Dubblechin or not, has turned pretty damn interesting because of him.

 

I don't see any rigorous intelligence or logical construction to the crux of his argument. Making contentions such as that Greb only won fights because some guys at ringside said so is just embarrassingly stupid. Maybe a better intellect could make a better Devil's Advocate but he is failing.

 

What I mean is, is that had someone not begged to differ about Greb, this thread would be on page two by now. I've learned a lot from Klompton's posts because of the disagreement and for once (thank God) we have a decent thread not about heavyweights.

 

So from that long ass ridiculous post we can assume three things: 1. You have no proof whatsoever that Greb EVER won a gift decision. You just want to believe he did. 2. You have no faith whatsoever in written word of experts who believe it or not had far more experience than you and were writing their expert opinion from having been an eyewitness to the events. You would rather believe some fantasy youve concocted in your head. 3.You are, for whatever reason, biased and would not be swayed even if footage of Greb came out and he was a revelation in it.

A couple of points to educate you because you sorely need it:

1. Who is to say that every opinion on Greb was rendered from the same vantage point in every single fight he fought. Thats the stupidist thing Ive ever heard. In those days having a press row was the exception not the rule, it usually only happened in big fights, and very often the press wasnt exclusive to press row. Ive found dozens of times where reporters will say "from my vantage in so and so's corner" "Or Jack Lawrence was seated at x across the ring from this writer."

2. Your argument might hold water if it were exclusive to one or two controversial decisions but you are talking about a guy who was remarkably consistent and remarkably dominant over the course of his career. The vast vast VAST majority of reports are all in agreement across those 300 fights. Would you have me believe that every single reporter at every single fight just happened to be lucky enough to sit at the exact spot that Greb looked good from? HA! Ridiculous. Even your analogy between press reporters today, TV viewing fans, and fans in the seats is ridiculous because realistically how often do we see a fight with a massive difference in opinion? Once, maybe twice a year at most? You act like every single time there is a fight on TV the TV audience thinks fighter X won, the reports think fighter Y won, and the ringside fans think it was a draw. Thats ****ing ridiculous, it rarely happens, and it makes you sound like lunatic conspiracy theorist.

3. You can denigrate the opinions of the newspaper writers at the time but the fact remains that they, by and large, literally saw far more fights per year than almost any judge today by far simply by because there were far more clubfights back then, they were often the same men that in a decision fight would be chosen as judges and referees, and finally often had a much longer association with the sport than your average armchair internet expert today who suddenly finds himself a boxing writer. In short those guys opinions were as expert as it gets. If you want to quibble with one or two fine but again, the numbers dont lie. When the reports of hundreds of guys are remarkably consistent across the board you have only two possibilities: 1. That Greb was just that damn good. Or 2. There has been a massive, far reaching conspiracy perpetrated by a secret kabal for 100 years to have a small group of boxing fans believe Greb was that good. Only a nut would subscribe to theory 2: You.

I think your basic problem is that you are uneducated and dont understand the process that goes into good solid research. You assume that research is devised to prove a preconcieved notion because that is what you would do. Thats not what a good researcher does. A good researcher goes where the research leads him. I didnt start out thinking Greb was one of the greatest fighters ever. I just started out wanting to know more about him. But, if I research thousands of fight reports against dozens of great fighters and the vast majority of them agree won those fights and won them handily. Thats impressive. The next step is to determine whether or not it was really that impressive to beat those fighters so you research the fighters and their careers. When their careers come back impressive the multitude of films of people Greb fought support that contention and vice versa (thats what you dont get, film is just a piece of the puzzle, not the whole puzzle). When you determine that they were good fighters or bad fighters you move on and continue to gather information. When all of this information adds up to Greb being a fantastic fighter then its beyond safe to assume he was. What is irresponsible is to do absolutely no research and just enter the equation with the idea that you dont like Greb because there is no film of him and then disregard anything else that might prove to you he was a quality fighter. Thats irresponsible and speaks to your limitations in this discussion.

You can have whatever pre conceived impression you want of Greb. It doesnt really matter because you know what: Mickey Walker looks as modern as it gets on film fighting anywhere from 150 to 200 pounds and Greb whipped his ass. Gene Tunney looks like a classical boxer on film and Greb whipped his ass. Tommy Loughran looks like a classical boxer on film and Greb whipped his ass. George Chip looks crude and guess what, these papers that didnt know what they were talking about called him crude back then and he was still MW champion, Greb whipped his ass. Augie Ratner looks good on film, Greb whipped his ass. Frank Moody looks good on film Greb whipped his ass. Roland Todd looks good on film Greb whipped his ass. Battling Levinsky looks good on film, Greb whipped his ass. Jeff Smith looks good on film, Greb whipped his ass. Even Bartley Madden looks good on film and he was considered a human punching bag and Greb whipped his ass. Tommy Gibbons looks good on film, Greb whipped his ass. Larry Williams, one of Greb's lesser wins, looks good on film. Bill Brennan looks good on film, Greb whipped his ass. I could easily keep going but the fact is that Greb beat all of these fighters, some were better than others, some were all time greats and some were just club fighters but he beat him. Thats what counts. In beating them you havent been able to show me a whiff of controversy so we take the words of eye witnesses at face value. In light of this we can only accept that Greb was a great fighter, maybe the greatest, not the theory you subscribe to: That everybody who saw Greb fight was wrong and you (who has done NO HOMEWORK ON THIS AT ALL) are right and that the footage of Greb's opponents only looks good because we want it to so it really doesnt matter that he beat them. Cookoo.

 

I am going to keep this. Classic.

 

You should. Take those words to heart and better yourself.

 

I will. I'll have to read your book on Pottery after I finish the one on Fungi. Did Harry Greb throw pots, too?

:hi:

 

Harry Greb threw everything at opponents.

 

Just like Soldier Jones could knock down a building full of pottery with a single blow.

Got it.

 

Just like if it isnt on film it didnt happen...


The south will be glad to know they didnt actually lose the civil war, theyve been bitching about it for 150 years.

 

grebs life story would make a good feature film

 

I'm sure it would. But Klompton would come on here and tell us they were doing it all wrong because they're all idiots and he's spent years fantasizing about how Greb fought and they weren't doing it like he imagined.

"Where are the BUZZSAWS? We need more BUZZSAWS!"

I'm done with this. Have a good weekend.

 

I actually dont know if Greb's life story would make a good movie. How would you frame it? People like to see an underdog like Rocky or James J. Braddock, or a tragedy like a top guy falling from grace. The thing about Greb's career is that it could easily become one long monotonous slog through fight after fight that he dominated. Despite all of the wild stories about him most werent true and his personal life was relatively limited because he spent so much time fighting, training, and travelling to and from fights. Youd almost have to take a snapshot of his life, a certain segment/time frame that had drama and human interest, and build your story around that. A standard biopic wouldnt work IMO.

 

--Let's toss out the work of all those historians who arrive at the same or similar conclusions about the greatest generals of antiquity. After all, we've never seen them in action for ourselves; we only have reports of witnesses and contemporaries and should assume that they were all unreliable.

Well, by this reasoning, the testimony about Gettysburg is no more reliable than the testimony about Greb.

Shall we scrap the textbooks and hope film turns up?

Here we have Dubblechin burning history down to the ground. There is no such thing as "an expert," says he. There is no such thing as an "authoritative source" or "reliable research."

Anyone examining the historical record is hereby disallowed from proclaiming anything as a FACT. A FACT is beyond the realm of human understanding and must be treated as sacred and out of reach of academics and amateur historians alike. Let's burn down the universities.

Of course you can't. You've already drawn your line in the sand. Langford surprised me. Kid Norfolk looked more powerful in that Tate fight than I read he was.

Define "good." And be careful when you do, because you're liable to get hanged with your own rope.

Seeing them matters more than their accomplishments? This is where your whole argument takes the ten-count.

You've been arguing that the eyewitness testimony of Greb's contemporaries is unreliable. Those witnesses were ringside with Greb, worked the corner for Greb, and were in the ring fighting Greb. They saw Greb in full context, understood his context more than any of us, saw him in blazing color, heard the leather landing and the crowd roaring. And there were legions of them saying the same thing about how great he was.

And yet, your eyewitness testimony would matter more than theirs'? The best you or any of us will see is silent, grainy, poor quality film from about the 10th row. But let's say he does look like a jumping-jack fool. What would it mean? That he beat 15 Hall of Famers a multitude of times, defeated 12 division kings --because he was lucky?

In sum, Greb -has- been seen. And those who saw him are considerably more reliable than you, perched in front of your laptop watching grainy snippets through your biased lens.