Who Ranks Greb As The Greatest?

I'd like to read it, I can promise you not to agree with it but you may inspire some thoughts :good

 

i appreciate the open mind:good not surprising but appreciated. though it's an uphill struggle, even for myself, as i read more about greb, burley and robinson

 

These are good points.

But, I dont think that there is any doubt that Greb beats Robinson in a weight unlimited fight. He is bigger, stronger, faster has a better chin etc. But this is pound for pound, so he needs to be better at all these things. Still, i think that you are largely correct in what you say.

To compare things evenly on a pound for pound basis, I think that they compare as follows:

Welterweight to middleweight:
Ray dominated as a welterweight, there is no doubting this, but i think that history is a little kinder to him and his myth has grown nowadays. Some people seem to think that it was impossible for other welterweights to compete with him and even land on him, much less win rounds and fights. This is not true. In fact, he lost a fight to Marty Servo, on the referees scorecard and the crowd apparently booed his split decision win. It wasnt a fluke either. His first meeting was won by 4 rounds to 3 on one judges card so it was obviously a close affair with some people thinking Servo did enough to win. Ironically, Robinson did not win the world welterweight title until after marty Servo had vacated it. In many ways, Servo gave a prime Ray as much trouble as Tunney gave Greb, and i think it fair to say that tunney was a better caliber of opponent than Servo. Ray also showed trouble in giving up weight as demonstrated by his loss to Lamotta and his draw with Borley. Still it was a fantastic dominating effort as a welter.

Greb had a huge run as middleweight champion where he mixed his middleweight fights with fighting the best light heavys. And it was only on points that he eventually lost the title and retired. I think he was the dominant middleweight of his time also, but maybe not to the same extent that robinson was.

Middleweight/Light Heavyweight.
Both were great in these weights. But Ray was the more vulnerable. He won the title 5 times because he lost the title four times. Greb on the other hand, was the best light heavyweight of his time, with the possible exception of Tunney, who only beat him after age had set in. I think that Greb's performance was a little better at this weight.

Light Heavy/Heavy
Greb was definitely more accomplished even though neither were world champion. Greb fought more often and with success. Ray did well, but is officially unproven at the weight. The edge has to go to Greb.


So, overall, I think you have to give Greb the ever slightest advantage.

 

gonna be honest with you i'd rather watch cory spinks entire career followed by the best of john ruiz and a selection of sammy angott's best fights before pooping a hammer

 

Boilermaker ,good point about Marty Servo,a short welterweight who gave prime welter weight Robinson all he could handle...Servo had agreat future, but his mgr. Al Weil stupidly, matched Servo in an over the weight bout with a young devastating Rocky Graziano,who outweighed smaller Servo by 7or 8 lbs.Graziano gave Servo a terrible beating damaging Servo's nose, so badly Servo had to retire from the ring...Robinson,who I sawabout 4 times as a welterweight, in his prime, was the greatest fighter I ever saw...But Harry Greb did things that, Robinson wasn't capable of doing...Dominate the BIG BOYS, time and time again...We will never see another Harry Greb again...They broke the mold....

 

I personally feel Greb was Tunneys equal in the series, judging from the reports.

I currently have Robinson at no.3, behind #2 Armstrong and #1 Greb.

No.1 placing will never change, the guy was unreal. It's not just his resume, it's the way he went about it, which is well-documented despite the lack of footage.

 

And to those that are interested off the top of y head there were like 60,000 in attendance to watch Greb-Walker.

Greb had a style that forced boxing to move on. The likes of Tunney, Loughran and Flowers had to gone their technique and expand their skillsets just to compete with Greb, Dempsey wanted none of Greb and fought Gibbons, whom Greb had already battered.

I can imagine Greb having a 'Chang-esque' style if that makes sense.

 

its still robinson for me followed by ezzard charles

 

glad to hear the placement of charles. for all the talk about lack of prime footage of greb, robinson and burley little do you hear that we never saw close to a prime charles. the middleweight charles that beat burley, the light heavy that took moore's measure 3 times and burley once again as well as joey maxim. is there any footage of him before baroudi? because that charles is easily one of the best fighters of all time and depending of where you place burley and moore, must be high of all time lists.

 

the love for chang continues!

 

Take out the h2h ability criterion in a p4p ranking list and you're pushing **** uphill to have ANYONE above Greb.

Greb's numero uno for me...

 

Greb is a prime candidate for being number 1. Absolutely.

The one thing I'd say might go against him is that he wasn't a knockout puncher, and many of his fights went the distance and were to "NO DECISION".
183 of Greb's recorded fights went the full course to NO DECISION.

Several people seem to have no problem with counting "NO DECISION" fights as WINS (or LOSSES, for that matter). Whether it's correct to do so, I dont know.

 

Well, if you look indepth to those no decisions I think its apparent that Greb got the better of them.

Also, for the 1st Wilson fight Greb sat down on his punches more and flattened a useful Heavy (whose name escapes me but that I can find with me trusty book beside me if you want me to) in one round.

Grebs style did not lend itself to sparking people, but he could when he needed to/wanted to.

Mickey Walker said that a shot Greb hit him with in the 14th made him feel like he 'was in a dream' and had him 'on ***** street for a half hour after the fight'. Although Walker was known for later-life hyperbole, I don't think he'd do it to 'big up' another fighter, especially as fierce a rival as Greb.

 

I was reading the Greb-Tunney I article just last week and the description really painted a vivid picture of the fight.

It sounds as though Gene took a really beating...with at least two cuts, and blood pouring from his nose and mouth.
Certainly he had enough sting in his punches to be damaging.