Which Ali? I see it like this; If Tunney could eventually master a faded Greb, a bigger, better, faster, and sharper jabbing dancer could probably do the same thing to a peak Greb. If its young Ali, he might drop a decision like a young Tunney did. Seriously doubt Greb gets one over on 67-68 Ali, though. Probably loses rather decisively. Most everything Tunney did(I use Tunney as an example, because I feel he has some serious stylistic similarities to Ali) Ali did better and quicker, and I think that would make up for a Greb significantly less declined. Add Ali's face tearing mastery, and, yeah.
Greb by humiliation - Ali can't land a single punch while Greb dances circles around helpless Ali screaming: "My name's Harry".:ko
The main thing that Tunney had over Greb was the fact that he was getting older throughout the series. Even on that basis, you can mount an argument that Tunney lost the series. Plus, he had to adopt some prety unorthodox tactics to beat Greb.
If you look at any of the great heavyweights, it didn't take a particularly good fighter to give them a competitive fight.
Probably he could.....not sure if he would......the HWs Greb faced wasn´t as big (and as great) as Ali...... Who is the biggest guy Greb faced ?
Ali beats him. But Greb could make it interesting. How would Ali deal with a fighter who is faster than he is, busier than he is, just as mobile and can make "The Greatest" miss? That's something that would be new to Ali and it would be interesting to see how he would adapt. It seems like the bigger a fighter was, the easier Greb beat him.
And you know Greb is faster how?? We don't know anything about how quick he was except by hearsay. Dempsey was also spoken of as having quick hands back then as well and he doesn't look all that fast on film to me especially compared with an Ali. There is just no evidence that Greb was quicker than Ali (who in his prime was quicker than most middleweights you would ever see anyway) and even if by some chance he was that's not going to be enough anyway. A 5'8 guy isn't beating Ali especially one giving away 40-50 pounds. Remembering how the (much bigger than Greb) Bob Foster did against Ali gives me great fears for Grebs well being. Yes they didn't fight anything alike but Foster who was a brutal,brutal puncher at 175 landed some of his best shots on Muhammad and Ali just walked through them and one wonders what a feather fisted fighter like Greb who was giving away 7 inches in height and about 10 inches in reach would have done to even give Ali pause. I don't have problems with people picking Greb in most fights but against a big and proven lightning fast natural heavyweight ATG I give Greb absolutely zero chance of even troubling him.
No there isn't any evidence but to try and claim it impossible that a MW who was described as lighting fast couldn't be faster than a HW even a one as quick as Ali is pretty ridiculous. Let me just state it definitively, yes, there have been tons of MW's faster than Ali as painful as it may be for you to hear. Ali fought a 5'8 MW named Gennady Shatkov in the Olympics it was tied going into the last round and supposed to have been a close fight.
Was Ali a fully developed heavyweight or in fact the heavyweight champion of the world then? No he wasn't so having a tough tussle against a short guy whilst still an amateur Lt Heavyweight and still just a skinny 18 year old is absolutely irrelevent to the thread and is a lame and useless example. The question was how would Harry Greb go against Muhummad Ali which I'm assuming is prime for prime and common sense tells me that the much,much larger man who we know for a fact was a lightning fast and mobile heavyweight (not to mention arguably being the greatest heavyweight of all time) is going to easily account for a much,much smaller middleweight who was allegedly lightning fast. And as I stated even if Greb was faster than Ali he isn't beating him and to say otherwise goes against all logic.
No there haven't Ali is lightning fast even by MW standards. Jones is quicker, Ray Leonard, Robinson, Hearns who else is faster than the below version? [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWnt4Z2Z9N0[/ame] BTW it's reported Greb wasn't always the fastest man in all his fights