The questions surrounding the fall of the color line and its impact are complex, muddied certainly, as you point out, by WWII, but considering that the color line really began falling about 1935, I think it very significant that if one named the best fighters active in the world in 1938, the three top names would be Joe Louis, Henry Armstrong (those two for certain) and probably John Henry Lewis. That seems to me to be an overwhelming impact. Also, there is a difference between the great fighters of the late teens and twenties and those of the late thirties and forties. Longevity. I can't think of a champion or top contender from the teens who was still a major boxing force in the 1930's. Perhaps you can. But pre-WWII fighters like Louis, Robinson, and Moore endured into the fifties for Louis and into the sixties for Robinson and Moore. There was an amazing influx of talent born over less than a decade of time. Armstrong (1912). Louis & Lewis (1914). Moore (1916). Robinson & Charles (1921). These include a triple champion (Armstrong), extremely rare in the pre-alphabet era, the longest reigning heavyweight (Louis) and light-heavyweight (Moore) champions, and Robinson who was considered the best of all. On Maxim and Robinson--I re-watched the fight again. My take is that Robinson was not that effective with his jab. The majority of his jabs were I think actually thrown to the body. I can't see doing that if you can effectively jab the guy in the face. I concede that there is no doubt at all that the consensus is that Robinson dominated this fight. The official judges scored it that way. The press saw it that way. Modern commentators and historians add their weight to the scales. So I am a total outsider (with the singular exception of Maxim himself who is on film saying it was his "easiest" fight), and am definitely the outlier here. Still, a brilliant boxing performance and effective punching is not what I see from Robinson. His head punches generally missed or were parried by Maxim. His body work might have scored points, but appear to have been totally ineffective. Maxim's rarer body punches were the ones which seem to have had an impact. The heat? It was hot for both men. The commentator opined at one point in a late round that it was amazing that Maxim could stand up to such a beating. My reaction is what beating? His face looked more of less unmarked. He never appeared hurt at all to me, but I am not so certain about Robinson, even before the late rounds. I can see feeling that Robinson's aggressiveness, even if mainly ineffective, won him most rounds, but Maxim's defensive tactics won out at the end and in fairness he was very good at it.
Backpedaling already? So now you're moving the goal posts to oh, you have my B, or C list, or public list. LOL! Its got your name on it with over 15,000 fights. I have seen you use the basic descriptions from the list in the forum most likely they were your notes. The list itself came from a fight collector. I don't trust you for a test. You will change up the catalog #'s, or lie about it. Sorry. Why act like your Dirk Digger when you're afraid to show the goods? If you being honest that you don't sell or trade anymore ( I'm calling BS here, you can and will if the T's and C's suit you ), show us what you've got! It's not like your giving up anything of value by doing this. What exactly are you afraid of?! Since we have moved on from you not being able to show me where Tunney signed to meet Greb for the 6th time and the purse for the match ( after I quoted Greb saying he's done with Tunney and too good for him ) , this is actually something you can prove! PS: I'm not going to waste time identifying guy in the pictures you posted. I probably could some right, but I'm still blown away when you said you're not even sure you could identify Greb on a film...after researching the man for 12 years. Yes-- you said it.
If a newspaper headline from the town holding the fight doesnt convince you nothing will. You spent pages and pages and pages defending Kurt Noltimiers fabricated story despite you knowing literally nothing about it. Im not going to chase my tell arguing with you. Post whatever list you have. I couldnt care less.
Oh, I heard the story, where he got it, how he thought it was Greb sparring with Bill Tate ( Who's much bigger than Allentown Gans ), and he offered me a free viewing. I also gave names of people who viewed it that thought it was the real deal. I never said either way. You had two chances to prove me wrong with data, and you're 0-2. Newspaper headlines are not always true in boxing. Maybe I'll post a false one on Greb, and watch you run...
Like I said, Im not mcvey. Im not here to entertain you. Say hello to all the other dumbasses on my ignore list.
Rambling post but here goes First thing's first, Greb was never considered an orthodox or aesthetically-pleasing fighter to look at. Also, I don't reckon the shadow boxing is as bad as even I initially thought. He shadow boxes like he's actually fighting, dancing around, right hand up parrying, smothering, jabbing, slipping in, firing up the uppercut, pivotting out to the side and punching again. It's more real than the stuff you see from modern boxers who look like works of art while shadow boxing but don't really seem to use it as anything beyond a warm up/cool down and certainly don't replicate it in the ring. Greb's moves display fundamentals, in his own way. Slow the video down and you can see them everywhere, if you know anything about boxing. His weight mostly sits over the rear hip and when he throws a right, the weight shifts to the front hip which sees his head shift markedly from right to left, keeping his head out of the firing line while attacking. It all looks a bit exaggerated but there's nothing really wrong with it technically and in 33 odd seconds of film the bloke is damn busy. If he's doing that for 3 minutes of every round, you're having problems and Greb's record highlights how effective he was. He knew what he was doing, he was just doing it in a way that worked for him. He may not have been anywhere near as good if he fought in an orthodox manner. I don't care what anyone says, modern boxing has lost a lot in terms of technical nuance. Big gloves and volume-based, bang-bang amateur style head hunting from squared stances. Hands up, you go, I go. Pad work, excessive focus on strength and conditioning, etc. I saw an interview with Bronco McKart recently in which he discussed training with Bill Miller (same man who trained James Toney) and he said there was no pad work and not much bag work, but working on moves and techniques. Archie Moore said similar, the best friend of an up and coming figher is a body-length mirror. Work on your moves, see how you would look to an opponent, visualise different scenarios, etc. James Toney watched videos of Charles and Moore, learnt their moves. Mike McCallum watched videos of Ray Robinson. Ray Robinson watched film of Kid Chocolate. Kid Chocolate watched film of Jack Johnson. There were things that the old timers did that were simply advantageous to what we see these days. Hopkins fought until 50 using old school methods that much younger boxers using modern methods had trouble with. The sport would do well to get back skill-focused training and fortunately, it seems in parts it is.
You don't see anything wrong with what Greb's doing during his shadowboxing clip? The way he crosses his legs, falls to the side with his punches, constantly ends up with his head far in front of his body, flares his arms, etc.? The style that you refer to as the "bang-bang amateur style head hunting from squared stances" has plenty of advantages. Doesn't look as creative or entertaining as the swashbuckling styles and open stances of older fighters, but it's defensively superior and probably better suited for hitting and not getting hit (the name of the game). By the way, how did Hopkins train any differently than his "modern style" contemporaries? He also used plenty of padwork and as far as I can tell, trained like almost any other modern middleweight or light-heavyweight.
It is absolutely f****** amazing how people can look at this clip and ASSUME they know what is going on in Harry Greb's mind during this clip and say he is doing something WRONG .. what a joke.. And maybe , just maybe he is moving around, staying loose and getting a workout in, NO MATTER what it looks like.. For all these things he is said doing "wrong" in this clip, he sure did everything right in the ring.. Like the big mystery has now been solved and Greb has been exposed as being a fraud.. It all goes back to the old saying never ASSUME because you will always make an ASS, out of, U, and ME … In other words , the proof is in the pudding, and if Greb doesn't have one of the best resumes of all time, beat the most HOFers of all time, has close to the most fights of all time , beat Tunney's a** twice giving up significant weight, and is P4P one of the best of all time … then NO ONE IS …. So now the big mystery has been solved and everyone else who was ringside to witness Greb kick a** and dominate for so many fights are now all wrong because of a work out clip .. Are you kidding me? Can't wait to hear who the new GOAT is … Mayweather jnr?
I guess it's possible, that Toney studied footage of Charles and Moore, and that McCallum watched film of Robinson. But is it likely that Robinson studied Kid Chocolate, who in turn was learning from old films of Johnson? I could be wrong... but it's my understanding, that film of the old masters wasn't readily available for trainers and boxers to study until at least after 1960?
We can't know what was in his head during filming, plus for all we know he could be plastered drunk or maybe he was swatting at flying insects, bees perhaps.
I'm curious how your views have evolved about this issue over the last 4 years or so. I ask in part because Greb and Carnera not knowing how to box would seem at least somewhat peculiar, in light of your relative approval of Dempsey and Tunney from the same era.
My position hasn't changed. I still don't think that it tells us anything very much, one way or the other.
My own view after re-reading part of the thread is that @BitPlayerVesti got it right. They used a stupid style of shadowboxing back then. For some reason, they thought exaggeratedly moving differently from the way you fight was a good idea. The same thing happens in many martial arts with kata/forms, and Fitzsimmons was telling his students to dance the hornpipe with some boxing mixed in in his book, IIRC. So I'm not surprised Greb is doing something weird. The premise of this thread -- that shadowboxing then = shadowboxing now -- is probably incorrect. Incidentally, I also wonder whether the way Greb moves in those clips is related to exercises on the era's pulley machines. As some have mentioned, you see the same movement from other fighters of the era, and it looks similar to the pulley exercises.
Because I think that a picture of somebody shadow boxing, doesn't tell you a low about what they wee like as a fighter?
