Why was Greb ranked as no.1 so late?

It's a question i've wondered myself. He's joint goat for me along with fitz and robinson.

 

He's number 5 after armstrong.

Yeah I know as a casual fan i'd never even heard of greb so I wonder why his name seems to be so deeply buried.

I know his victory over tunney received great reports though.

 

I still don't understand why Langford is rated so highly

Edit: or the fact that people pick the likes of greb over many modern day middleweights. Honestly that video of him sparring is just god damn awful for modern day times. I respect the fact that the game has evolved a considerable amount since then, but I feel as if everyone on ESB is a sheep about it. They see the great posters of ESB put Greb and Langford in their top 10 p4p so they feel like they have to follow them.

 

Robinson is the best ever, show me visual evidence that he is not..... Ray has the record AND the film combined to support this.

 

'Pound for pound' is ultimately so subjective. Think what you are trying to do; find the best fighter 'pound for pound' from the 85lbs man in the 1850's to the 400lbs fighter in 2012, with every shape and size in between, over the last 150 or so years.

Because of the lack of generally acknowledged expert essays, that could create credible theories to answer the question; what happens is the so called 'experts' of a particular time give their opinion, which is generally considered 'definitive' by the mainstream.

'Experts' come and go and have their own agendas and opinions, thus the lists change. And in more recent times, the Internet has come along, leading to a lot more people giving their two pence.

 

going back to the thread, i think the question is more when did greb become so well respected again and when did his name get dug out of the archives as it were. when ring did their top 20 middleweights of all time before the hopkins-dlh fight, he was #1. i was a little surprised because while i'd heard of him, i knew very little of his true worth.

i think the greb revival began on the forum in earnest about 3 years ago and while he was always rated highly, became a near consensus number 1-3 at that point.

in terms of the mainstream though, was there a point when historians started singing grebs praises from the rooftops? was there a year, maybe when his footage was discovered or his resume re-examined?

 

I do not believe the mainstream think much of Greb. Harry Greb seems to be a phenomenon of the Internet 'experts'; an 'insiders' pick.

 

Klompton blames multiple conflicting newspaper accounts and writers with an agenda against him. Robinson on the other hand happened to be of america's favorite racial group during the 40s and 50s and was known as a real sweetheart out of the ring. That's why he got his due in his own time.

 

He also drew and lost to a bunch of nobody's so why does that not count for anything? (I respect the fact that many fighters he fought have records that are unfinished, however it's not like they were ATGs he was against) what about Bryd then? Natural SMW beating Vitali who could be considered an ATG heavyweight.

 

still can't believe his record across weights, i've said it before but if you give him credit for newspaper wins he beat...

gans-top 3 lightweight
walcott-top 10 welter
ketchel-top 10 middle
flowers-top 20 middle
o'brien-top 20 light heavy
wills-top 20 heavy

those names along are ridiculous. taking your analogy further that would be akin to ONE fighter beating...

duran, ray leonard, hopkins, fullmer, joe calzaghe, riddick bowe all while weighing under 170 pounds.

 

true. and it's a ****ing shame