Jack Dempsey and The Color Line...

Since Greb lost his title in Febuary 1926 and was dead in October of that year,and Wills was kod by Sharkey at the end of May 1926.I find it highly unlikely.

 

Wills himself decades later did not blame Dempsey. He blamed those that controlled boxing. Of course since he is the man and he lived through all of it his opinion should be paramount. This entire circumstance had nothing to do with Dempsey as per Harry Wills. That should end the argument.

Could Grebs reputation for constant fouling be a reason the fight never came off? Fleischer wrote the following in 1923 after Greb beat Tunney...

"The question arises as to what constitutes a foul, according to the rules. Holding and hitting is a direct violation of the Walker Law, viz:

Sect. IV—Fouls.

1. Hitting below the belt.

2. Hitting an opponent who is down or getting up from being down.

3. Holding an opponent or deliberately maintaining a clinch.

4. Butting with the head or shoulder or using the knee.

5. Hitting with the inside or butt of the hand or using the elbow.

6. Holding an opponent with one hand and hitting with the other hand.

7. Hitting or “flicking” with the open glove.

8. Wrestling or roughing on the ropes.

9. The failure to obey the referee or any physical action which may injure a boxer except by fair sportsmantlike boxing.

Harry Greb in his battle with Tunney and every other in which he has taken part used the above tactics, as shown in Rule 6."

 

You can only chalk so much up to the Rickard hype machine, because he didn’t control the entire media.

The Carpintier fight did not draw the first million dollar gate in history, because people thought that Dempsey was fighting a complete stumblebum.

 

Carp was mentioned as a title challenger right after Jack beat Willard. Carp was a known entity In the early 20's. Multiple title holder lt hwt and Europeran hwt champion.

 

Id like you to show when Greb was ranked number 2 at heavyweight as you have stated in your underlined post.

Since The Ring had a policy of not ranking fighters in 2 divisions Greb could only have been ranked at heavyweight after he had lost his middleweight crown to Tiger flowers in February 1926. From April 1925 until he died in October 1926 Greb fought just 2 heavyweights Quintin Romero Rojas who had lost his last 4 fights and would lose his next 3,and Soldier Buck 11-11-1,who was never remotely on the radar as a heavyweight of note.
Greb as I said ,lost his 160lbs crown in February 1926, this gives him a timeline from then until October 1926, ie 9 months to be rated as a heavyweight contender. Greb did absolutely nothing during this time to justify a heavyweight ranking.

After losing to Flowers Greb had 3 more fights.
He beat:

Art Weigand167.25lbs 28-6-9
AllenTown Joe Gans 157.50lbs 38-9-8

Then he lost again to Tiger Flowers
who , as it was for Flowers middleweight crown scaled under 160lb for that fight
Furthermore Wills was not the number 1 contender in 1926, Tunney was. Wills was ko'd by Sharkey in May 1926.

So when exactly was Greb number 2 at heavyweight to Will's number 1?:huh

 

Greb was not ranked by Ring as a hwt in 1926.

 

I dont believe Greb was ever rated by the ring at HW due to the reasons I and McGrain outlined above.

 

According to Mendoza he was ranked number 2 behind Wills, I have asked him when this was? Don't hold your breath for a reply.

 

beyond having film of greb i aint that interested in greb v dempsey, wills is the missing name so comparing carpentier and greb is kind of pointless as both were inferior challengers to wills.

 

Soldier Buck wasnt a HW.

You are correct. There would have been no reason to rank Greb as a HW even up until the second Flowers title fight in August. Prior to that Greb had a signed rematch clause that he was actively pursuing and Flowers was actively ducking so the writing was on the wall that for all intents and purposes Greb had unfinished business in the division and wouldnt be rated anywhere but there. He basically retired in secret after the Flowers fight and so given the fact that he spent 2/3 of 1926 at MW thats where he would have logicaly been rated. Even then, while he was still pretending he was going to carry on his career, there was talk of matching him for the LHW championship. So he still wouldnt have been rated at HW.

Also, Wills was rated, up until his loss to Sharkey (which was in October 1926, not May) as the #1 by Ring, the NBA, and the NYSAC.

 

I know nothing of Buck except his weight is given as 190lbs for the Greb fight, just looked at his record, you are right again, he was a middleweight, that gives Greb one win over a heavyweight in the year and a half prior to his death.


Yes I saw Wills was number 1 during that time.

Having read your info on the proposed Greb v Dempsey matches you have to assume Dempsey , Kearns or both, did not want Harry in the opposite corner. It would have been a no win situation for Dempsey maybe that was his rationale ,or maybe he was just leery of him?
The question remains ,where did Mendoza get that Ring rating for Greb from?

 

This shows that ,rightly or wrongly Carpentier's name was linked with Dempsey's immediately he ko'd Becket. The other article on the page has Dempsey licking his lips.

http://oregonnews.uoregon.edu/lccn/sn83025138/1919-12-05/ed-1/seq-16/