Serious thoughts on this Harry Greb shadow boxing video?

It's amazing how some posters here just can't get the basic concept of Sports in general and yes Boxing .. Wake up and smell the coffee .. It is not a perfect science, never has been , never will .. Things are just done differently today in all sports, and all athletes have different body make ups, different strengths, different styles and yes they do move DIFFERENTLY .. If a boxer moves differently than you people think he should be moving, well maybe he just is!! Sports/Boxing is about getting the W and if you do that the way you know how do that then you are successful.. Simple as that ,, Like I said before, you people just can't think outside the box … Try it sometime as it does apply to sports as well

 

Exactly, go look at the old NFL films of the golden-age quarterback who threw underhanded ... wait, there aren’t any.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that early NBA stars who walked down the court, skipped to a spot and waited until someone passed it to them so they could take 2 second to get off a set shot would not be able to compete with LeBron. That modern training and technique makes today’s high school sprinters run faster than some Olympians of yesteryear, that we know from film that a lot of the top baseball hitters of yesteryear were fed a steady diet of fastballs (the easiest pitch to hit) and that they were facing the same pitcher (with less steam) in the ninth inning while today’s guys have to hit a greater variety of pitches and have a fresh guy with higher velocity when the closer takes over ... and looking at the top fighters from Greb’s day on film (including many he defeated) they don’t seem to me to be as adept as the top fighters of Robinson’s day.

Make of all that what your will, tell me if you wish that Jack Johnson was just ‘different’ than Ali or Tyson and that their approaches are not more evolved or advanced, but sometimes ‘different’ does not equate to better.

 

I've already mentioned about Camera flaws & ability to actually capture movement properly, technic, handling by operators and such.

equally though, keeping in mind too Film was new to everyone namely the Viewing Public, it was capitalized on as a great opportunity to make money, the whole industry was new. these were Productions, ADDS if you will, Direction... lets show them your muscles, your arm movements. do it slow and exaggerated, walk about, move a bit, spar & play a bit...

and again all done poorly as most of the time the Film DIDN'T/Couldn't Capture Proper Movement, be it Operator or Equipment or both

so many of these Old Promo clips are S hi t, to think these men didn't fight right or properly is ridiculous. ... we have 2 main things to access them on - 1) the Better Clips of other fighters from these Periods and 2) who fought who and how good or close a fight went win or lose.

Of course these people fought right, and walked right, and talked and s hit t and ran and played and worked and f uc ked and all things people have done since the beginning of time, no matter how poorly Old Cinematography and Entertainment failed in capturing it..

I agree Boxing became more Athletic & Skilled, hence Better Overall Era's, but to suggest these Rock Solid Hard n Tough past men weren't good & capable fighters is just plain stupidity.

 

Even in Olympic Weightling, a sport where you have to master 2 movements, loads of the top athletes have technical flaws, that you'd correct in any beginner.

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The NFL doesn't have close to the length of history boxing does.

As for the Olympics two major factors have caused the improvement. A change in equipment (if Jesse Owens had run on modern tracks his times would still be world class), and a massive rise in professionalism. It wasn't all the long ago people were being banned for being too professional, it was a dumb snobbish attitude from the 1800's. Jesse Owens was a college student, who also worked jobs to pay his way through, while exceling in multiple sports.

The change in equipment is totally artificial, and boxing has always been largely a professional sport.

 

You would have to believe that for some reason a fighter who wasnt connected to any mob, powerful manager, or powerful promoter, or any other special interest somehow arranged to have DOZENS if not HUNDREDS of fights fixed across multiple weight classes, against dozens of opponents, in dozens of different towns with different officials, governing bodies etc. That just doesnt hold up to scrutiny. Indeed Greb was often winning in spite of going up against connected fighters in their own hometowns. Just being able to overcome the inherent bias that hometown fighter enjoys on his turf is tough enough in any era. Greb did it all the time. He also did on neutral territory, where neither fighter was a favorite, and was called a "revelation" and left fans and experts alike breathless so often we can deduce that he wasnt some fraud as the conspiracy theorists sometimes claim. The sheer volume and consistency of the excellence of his record obliterates any such notion. Furthermore, there wasnt a fighter, manager, or promoter on the planet in the 1910s and 1920s who had enough money to be able to pay off all of the officials, reporters, and expert observers who consistently sang Greb's praises over a 300 bout career. Guys like these clowns claiming Greb was a faud pop up every few years. Ive seen it happen half a dozen times. Some joker will pop up and claim because there is no film of Greb that he didnt exist. Or because he was white and had that great record that he was some manufactured white boogey man created out of thin air to challenge Robinson's claim to being the greatest. Or that films of him were destroyed en masse in order to preserve his legacy. Sorry guys, he was real and so was his record. His record doesnt lie. He was one of the baddest, most fearless men on the planet who beat some of the greatest fighters to ever live. He has more wins against more hall of famers than any other fighter in the hall of fame. If you can somehow twist your mind into believing that he somehow accomplished this despite being terrible at boxing, and that the judges and experts who witnessed these contests and tabbed him the winner in them just didnt know what they were looking at, well, I have a bridge and some beach front property to sell you at a very affordable price.

 

People still compare the evolution of Football to Boxing? Boxing has been around and survived since the first cities and civilizations were formed. The NFL is roughly 100 years old. It’s an embryonic startup in comparison.

Peel didn’t need any modern developments to maintain his spot as one of, if not the best ever.

 

We are talking about Harry Greb and different did equate to better in Greb's case now didn't it?? So your point there is worthless. He beat the crap out of Tunney twice, an ATG polished boxer, while giving up significant weight, so that squashes your point there.. Your basketball analysis how you think the sport was played back then is so worthless it doesn't even deserve a response....The NFL quarterback throwing underhand is just a horrible comparison.. laughable actually. A more "realistic" comparison would be how a pitcher delivers his pitch, they are all different .. Look the point is for me is that people are looking at this clip and thinking that Greb is doing something wrong. So you are saying that you can't entertain or comprehend that maybe he is just movin around, stayin loose, getting a workout in .. how the hell you know what's going through his mind? Do you think he was stupid? Don't you think in 300 fights he very well knew that his movement was a problem for his opp .. He is a genius!! Also your Lebron comparison is garbage too, basketball has evolved into more or an individual sport than a team sport. Bill Russell has 11 rings, how many does Lebron have? There is no doubt that athletes today are bigger faster stronger .. But in no way does that make them better .. There is a lot more than that which defines an athlete .. Your overall premises that sports/Boxing has evolved to a point that all athletes were doing everything wrong back then, it's so far off base it's a joke.. I am deducing this because you are nitpicking at one of the, if not the most successful boxers of all time.. And if you think that a coddled boxer of today brought a long to fight 2-3 times a year, and is more concerned about his bling is going to beat Harry Greb and his workout clip, no way !!

 

That Greb didn't exist?

This is the first time I've heard of Greb Mythicism. How utterly bizarre.

 

I don't know. I haven't seen Gyllenhaal shadowbox.

 

You are saying that being bigger, faster, and stronger does not make one a better athlete? In fact you are adamant that "no way does that make them better..." And, you are impressed with Greb's skills in that video? Thanks, now I have a good understanding of your knowledge of athletics and boxing.

 

Ive literally heard it.

 

Meaning that there is more to it than that which I said … Let's cut to the chase shall we? Where are all of your super athletes/boxers in the last 40 years?? If what you say is true then Where are they on p4p top 20 lists? where is Tyson, Mayweather, RJJ , etc etc etc … With better boxing skills, better results, wanting to fight to be the best, THEY ALL GOT THEIR CHANCE and came up short … So you need to figure it out !!!

 

It's outright laughable that Harry Greb has now been exposed from armchair quarterbacks from jerkwater, USA

 

Where could you even go from there, in a dialogue? I'm at a loss about what weird view of history somebody would need to assemble to come to that conclusion. It's not even a boxing history problem at that point. It's a question of how this person could learn anything about the past, at all.

 

To me its no different than the idea that some secret society went around and gathered up all of the films ever shot of Greb and destroyed them because they MIGHT have proven that he wasnt that good (And every confirmed film ever shot of him he won the fight he was in). So wrap your mind around that if you can. Its nuts.