Sam Langford vs. Mike Gibbons

Excellent matchup if they weighed the same.

 

As great as Sam was, I can't see him knocking Mike out at 160. If it goes the distance, which I expect would be the case, Gibbons has the edge. After the first meeting between Greb and Mike, Harry told his manager, "From now on, match me with one guy at a time!" The St. Paul Phantom was simply too tough, skilled and resilient for Langford to get out of there, and too cagey and bewildering for Sam to outpoint, at least in my estimation. Langford was certainly a capable boxer, but not on that level against a stylist of that size and caliber.

 

That quote has been misattributed to Greb. It was actually Augie Ratner who said that but I cant remember now if he said about Gibbons or Greb. I think he said it about Gibbons.

 

Here's one on-line source attributing the quote to Greb:

http://www.harrygreb.com/mikegibbons.html

Because it came from the website for Harry, I figured it was a reasonably credible source. (I don't have literary support handy at the moment.) Of course part of why we're all here is to set the historical record straight about certain facts, whenever possible.

 

Mike Gibbons in an extended series of articles in The Boxing Blade stated-
"My best fighting weight was 150lbs"
This vs a master blaster like Langford? Its a tall order for the Phantom!

 

Gibbons is criminally overlooked today ,he holds his own with any middleweight and beats more than a few .Langford ? Did he take it easy against Ketchel? Who knows. A toss up fight, imo.

 

I read Greb was a big fan of Augie's

 

It would be nice to see someone tackle writing a book about The Phantom sometime, he would be a worthy subject.

 

Gibbons is on my list of books to write. He is one of my favorite fighters. I agree with Slakka though. As much as I like him it would be a very a tough fight for him. Thats why I stated they would have to weigh the same. If Gibbons wasnt outweighed he would have a shot but I would favor Langford slightly. It would be a highly competetive fight though. Gibbons was a hell of a tricky fighter, with fantastic timing, great defense, and a remarkable ability to walk guys into punches and set them up.

 

I have always had doubts about the remark "next time match me withone guy at a time ",attributed to Harry Greb after his bout with Mike Gibbons...Mike Gibbons was not a volume puncher at all..His style was more like Joey Archers style jab, move and evade,though much superior to Archers, according to Gibbons high place in boxing history....Why would the worlds greatest volume puncher say this remark about Mike Gibbons ? Doesn't make sense...

 

No, it sounds more like what somebody would say about Greb, making it more interesting that it was ascribed to Harry on a website dedicated to him. It's a great line, but it would be nice to know the etymology behind hit. (Personally, I prefer Walker's line, "Greb was crawling all over me," to describe what Harry did to Mickey in round 14 of their classic.)

 

The guy at the Harry Greb website got that quote from a magazine article written years ago. It was attributed to Greb in the article but like I said, I have a contemporary source that actually has Augie Ratner saying that. I cant remember if he was saying that about Greb or Gibbons but I do think he was saying it about Gibbons. The reason someone might say that about Gibbons was his amazing ability set you up with punches. For instance he was so fast that he would pop a guy with a hook or an uppercut and rather than it be a damaging punch he would use it as a way of popping the guys head or chin into position and then POW hit them with a right or whatever, and that was the punch that stung them. So in essence they would get hit by this clean punch and in a split second think "that wasnt so bad" and as they are thinking that they get stung with the punch that they were setup for. Gibbons would do this all night so you can see how they would think they were fighting two guys at once. It had to be further discouraging that Gibbons used his amazing footwork to glide all over the ring and not get hit. They used to say in St. Paul that he looked like he was on roller skates when he boxed.