Why was Greb ranked as no.1 so late?

Great question .. I didn't know that there was a substantial period of time post career that Greb was semi-forgotten .. he seems very popular today on most boards ( excluding a Facebook page or two ) ... I have read that he was not such a big draw or crowd favorite at times in his career .. all said, even critically reviewed his record is pretty intense. Interesting ..

 

Ketchel over Hagler? Ouch.

Things like this make me wonder which more modern boxers I'm currently underrating.

 

Nothing hurts a persons historical standing more than dying young.

Exhibit A, Field Marshal Douglas Haig.

 

Didn’t hurt Marilyn Monroe, James Dean or, in boxing, Salvador Sanchez.

My understanding is Greb was already blind and wasn’t likely to stay on or near the top much longer so his resume is complete enough.

Yet for some reason he wasn’t getting a lot of love (relative to what he gets now) for a number of decades. And there were people alive who had probably seen him fight who didn’t have him ranked as highly as he is today. Curious.

 

Tunney was writing the narrative.

He was modest enough to agree that Harry Greb was greater than Sugar Ray Robinson, and that Jack Dempsey was the greatest heavyweight of all time.

What he was holding back, was that he arguably lost the series with Greb.

 

I understand that this sounds cynical and depressing but dying young can often add to your legacy because it lets people ask "what if?"

Sanchez is the most obvious boxing related example.

 

Tunney didn’t write the narrative on Greb.

Dying young probably worked for him — if he had fought on for 5-7 more years (many do) and started taking beatings and losing more than he lost, it would be considered in an assessment of his greatness.

 

Yes it absolutely can.

What kills your legacy is if you have a band of critics, and they outlive you.

 

Many of his contemporaries including Walker, Tunney, Loughran, Rosenbloom, Slattery, Wiggins etc.. all are on record as saying he was the best fighter they'd ever fought .. greats of the next generation like Billy Conn & Jimmy McLarnin both said hes the best fighter to date.. here's some quotes:

 

It's all there if you dig..

“Greb doesn’t box. That’s why he can beat the boxers. They know what a boxer ought to do, and that’s just what Greb never does.”—Robert Edgren

“Boxers are lost before Greb because he doesn’t respond to the usual boxing movements.”—Arkansas Democrat

“There’s no use trying to be scientific with Greb. He pays no attention to it. He hit me so often I didn’t see anything but stars, and there wasn’t a punch that came over the way it ought to.”—Gene Tunney, 7/2/1922

“I saw him have even that super-boxer, Mike Gibbons, tied into a half dozen knots one night in Pittsburgh and you know that anybody who can treat Mike in that scandalous manner must be pretty much of a fighting article.” –Ed W. Smith

“Greb is fast and bounds like a kangaroo all over the ring, hitting from awkward positions. One can never tell when he is going to let fly a solid punch or a light tap….No matter how good a boxer may be he will have a hard time figuring out Greb.”—Mike Gibbons

“How can you make a good showing against a fellow who does everything backwards?”—Jeff Smith

“He is the hardest man in the world to fight, because he does everything wrong and shows a fellow up.” –Tommy Gibbons

He was the windmill, shooting punches from every angle, catapulting himself at the other fellows with a ferocity and suddenness that could not be handled by pure boxing skill.”—Ed Hughes, Brooklyn Daily Eagle

“Greb was a puzzle to all boxers, trainers and managers….When his opponent thought Harry was about to lead, he would jump back out of range and make the other fellow look silly. Then, when his rival thought he was about to rest, Greb would cut loose with a volley of blows which came from every direction with the speed of a hurricane and landed on every vulnerable spot of his rival’s anatomy from the waistline to the top of his head.

“He always kept his adversary guessing on what he would do and usually did opposite to what the other bucko expected.”—George Barton

"The man I believe to be the greatest fighter who ever lived is Harry Greb"
-Hank Kaplan

"Some of the world's greatest ringmen have fought in the division, among them such stars as Kid McCoy, Harry Greb.."
-Nat Fleischer

"Greb is the fastest fighter i ever saw"
- Jack Dempsey

"The fastest fighter I ever saw in my life was that white boy from Pittsburgh, Harry Greb. And they called him windmill for a reason, the faster he went, the more he punched, and from all over!"
-Sam Langford

& Ray Arcel once said he'd only seen 3 fighters who he thought were naturals in the ring.. pure fighters.. Sugar Ray Robinson, Roberto Duran, and Harry Greb..

Here's a fantastic article about Grebs relationship with a journo contemporary to Grebs era.. some nuggets in here too:

https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/very-interesting-harry-greb-article.286442/

 

I get the sentiment of the thread tho.. but the modern concept of P4P rankings wasn’t as formalized in Greb’s time. Fighters were judged more by their achievements in their weight class or against specific opponents rather than as abstract "P4P" greats.

The absence of fight footage is a significant factor too.. boxing in the 1910/20s was still transitioning from a newspaper driven sport to one where film was becoming more common, but Greb’s fights were rarely filmed, or the footage was simply lost. Sad but true..

Fighters like SRR benefited from extensive film coverage in the 1940/50s, which cemented their legacies for future generations.. Rays fights & abilities were preserved, making him a more accessible icon. Greb’s lack of footage meant his legend relied on written accounts and the memories of those who saw him, which faded over time, especially as boxing modernized and new stars emerged.

His early death cut short his ability to build a lasting public persona too.. unlike Dempsey or Tunney, who lived long enough to shape their legacies through interviews and public appearances, Greb’s early death meant his story was left to others.. journalists, historians, and opponents. His passing also coincided with the rise of radio and early film, which could have amplified his fame.

Harrys era, the sports structure, frequent fights, no-decision bouts, and a less formalized P4P concept meant greatness was simply measured differently. Greb was a standout, but the talent-rich 1910s and 1920s had many greats.

& lastly i think his unorthodox & sometimes 'dirty' style which became more prominent as he adapted it due to declining sight & speed (though i think its overplayed a bit..) while effective didn’t always resonate to some fans or writers who valued classical boxing.. His crazy speed & volume were undeniable, but his unorthodox style, physicality & roughness probably wasn't for everyone .. whereas beautiful fighters like SRR & Pep had better aesthetics.

Hope that helps.

 

I'm not the only one whose noticed this. Several big reasons.

1)In this particular era fans are suspicious of the sort of resumes with fewer losses that prior generations would have ranked over a Greb. Grebs resume embodies what modern fans consider to be the perfect resume. Past fans were less likely to see it that way and their perfect resume would have less losses and uninterrupted dominance. Greb was more faded into the crowd of golden generation greats and is the least successful one at HW.

2)Fans did not really care about LHW when Greb was fighting. Fans took awhile to care about LHW it was kinda like Cruiserweight or Bridgerweight. A fighter who went up from MW to LHW but didn't go to HW was not going to get the same credit. As mentioned above most of Grebs generations of ATGs were more successful at HW then he was. While most of this group were bigger than Greb, Mickey Walker was smaller and he had the Sharkey draw when many considered Sharkey the best HW.

3)Modern fans give smaller fighters more credit for overcoming size deficits. Tweener divisions have convinced people that 10 pounds is a bigger deal then it actually is. If people are going to act like Usyk is a P4P great for beating Tyson Fury Greb looks like a god. But fans 100 years ago weren't going to see it that way.

4)In the first 20 years of the 20th century there were a lot of small guys with power. Greb was not one of them and his lack of power was more likely to be held against him. More than half Grebs fights were decisions and many of those were short Newspaper decisions the outcomes of which were fuzzier than properly regulated decisions. During Grebs era people treated these NWS's with more skepticism. While in the 21st century we just see the NWS's on boxer rec and the name of the opponent and take it at face value.

5)Boxerrec. The unprecedented nature of Grebs resume is more easily appreciated when one has access to a online list of his fights. Fans in the pre internet era did not have this they probably just knew Greb was a MW and LHW champ who beat so and so and fought a lot. Old fans didn't know exactly how much that was or have fabled statistical benchmarks associated with it that modern fans will assign Greb retroactively. Detailed information in the early 20th century on anything was much more difficult to obtain. While clearly more primary sources from the 1920s existed in the 1920s people in the 1920s had less access to them than people today have to the ones that survive.