The least skilled ATG fighters

That I have to question.

 

Obviously we don't have any footage of Greb, but if I am reading him correctly, this woudl not be a good call.

He seems to have been a fighter who had three different styles, and could effortlessly switch between them.

 

The available footage of him is not at all forgiving.

 

Can we have a clear definition of skill first?

Pending that, Battling Nelson springs to mind.

He basically made a career out of beating more capable men, by getting his brain bounced around his skull for forty rounds.

 

There isn't any available footage period.

 

Sure there is. I’ve seen footage of Greb with boxing gloves on, flailing his arms around.

 

Which tells you precisely nothing about his boxing style.

 

Seriously?

I hope you have a low opinion of he men that he beat, and went life and death with then.

That was basically the pinnacle of gloved boxing, in terms of what two human beings could sustain in the ring, and for how long.

Perhaps more brutal from anything in the bareknuckle era, and involving some of the cleverest Queensbury fighters.

 

That is a very difficult question.

A smart and intuitive swarmer, has a higher Ring IQ than a classic boxer who has every trick in the book, but is waiting for their opponent to hand them an opening.

 

That’s the way it works with the Old Timers category and the passage of time. Firpo is in there for instance.

 

Like you I think that being a great heavyweight champion, is a bit like being a better than average middleweight champion.

If we are working with middleweights, then we could definitely throw Ketchell into the argument, but we might well be proven wrong if we say him from ringside.

My point is, that you can essentially make Jeffries into whatever you want him to be, buy hand picking the right ringside reports.

You can make him into a prehistoric George Chuvalo, or a phenomenon who had everything on paper.

I find the argument for the defense more convincing on balance.

I think that if we could see a prime Jeffries from ringside, then we woudl probably be shocked by how good he looked.