more on Harry Greb

I personally feel he is, as do many other posters.

 

He and Monzon duke it out for #1 on my list.

 

Grebs resune is superb ,he fought top men like
Klaus
ODowd
Mctigue
Smith
Wilson
Flowers
Walker
M Gibbons
And bigger men top boys like
|Rosenbloom
Norfolk
Loughran
Gibbons
Slattery
Levinsky
Throw in decent heavies like Brennan,Renault,Roper,Madden,and of course Tunney.Can you imagine if Monzon had fought Foster,Conteh,Galindez,or some of the heavies like Ellis,Patterson,Bonavena.We would be talking about him as though he were superman.

 

300 recorded bouts, not 303

 

Steve, I received an email from an individual the other day concerning my book about Sam Langford. He told me about a quote attributed to Harry Greb that was revealed in a letter to the Ring magazine in one of their 1946 issues. The letter was reportedly from a Fred R. Whedon and in it he said that at one time he asked Greb why he didn't fight Langford, and that Greb replied, "Do you want me to commit suicide?"

Had you ever heard of that quote? I'm going to track down the 1946 Ring Magazines and look for it. I'm also going to see if I can find any information on Fred R. Whedon.

 

Ray was up for a fight with Archie Moore,had him round to dinner to discuss it but it didnt come off.

 

"Highly possible."

Yes.

 

If you ever get around to it, Longhorn, that proposed fight between Moore & Robinson was discussed in length in Teddy Brenner's book, "Only The Ring Was Square", which, while not a very long book at all, it is filled with a lot of quality information and great stories throughout.

I haven't read it in a few years, but from memory and according to Brenner's account, a new promoter in the business (I believe it was Bill Rosensohn of TelePrompTer, as Brenner mentioned it was a closed-circuit guy and Rosensohn would certainly fit the bill) originally went to Robinson in early 1959 and offered him a million dollars for him & Moore to split the way they seen fit, but when Robinson had Moore over for dinner to discuss things with Archie, Brenner's account said something along the lines of Robinson wanting to take the significant chunk of the million (like a two or three to one split), which caused the deal to fall apart.

 

Haven't read the book ,is it good? Brenner was a smart operator.I got my info from"Pound For Pound " by Herb Boyd and Ray Robinson Jnr.Robinson was known for being a hard bargainer ,and for holding out for more money just before he was due to get into the ring,not popular with promoters.

 

Clay,

Ive heard that quote attributed to Greb from a couple of different third and fourth hand sources but I find it highly unlikely (like most of the stories about Greb that came out of the forties and fifties). Langford and Greb were never even close to getting matched according to my research. Furthermore, the tone of the quote makes it sound as if it was asked Greb after his and Langford's careers. Well, we both know that Greb died during his career (it wasnt until after he died that it was revealed by family and friends that he would never have fought again. In reality Langford was still semi-active until right before Greb died as well. So when did this unknown person supposedly talk to Greb about having never fought Sam Langford? Furthermore, take the content of the quote. Ive never heard Greb once either out of charity or any other reason state that ANYBODY would have killed him, much less beaten him. Not saying he was unbeatable, just saying he had supreme confidence in his ability and its highly unlikely that he would have thought Langford would have killed particularly at that point in Langford's career and he certainly wouldnt have voiced such an opinion. It also doesnt make sense from a business standpoint. By the time Greb was really tearing through all the divisions Langford was no longer considered a serious contender. He could still fight, amazingly so considering his conditioning and eye troubles, but he was more of an oddity or a throwback, when you look at the black guys Greb was facing he did so for specific reasons where there was much to gain win lose or draw (with the possible exceptions of his fight with Willie Lewis and his second fight with Norfolk). I know it seems strange that two guys who fought everybody never really came close to fighting each other but they just never crossed paths in terms of the buildup to a fight. Ive never even seen such a matchup proposed in any of the historical sources. Just my 2 cents.

 

One thing about Langford is that he was both feared and hero worshiped by a lot of great fighters.

The period between, the point when they last saw him as a threat, and didnt want to beat him up out of respect was small.