I'd say Robinson for both, but "better" is perhaps closer. The Duran from the third DeJesus fight was perhaps the best fighter I've ever seen in terms of being a complete, and polished fighting machine. But still, I would say Robinson is both greater (close, but clear), and better (close). I have them #1 and #2 all time, respectively.
I have Robi at #4 for Greatness, and Duran at #8. I've always thought Robinson was more talented, but Duran was a much more advanced technician (not go say Robinson wasn't one of the highest order; nor that Duran wasn't a freakish talent in his own right) and that Duran was the more complete fighter. They're interchangeable as the two best fighters ever IMO - with Charles taking up the third spot.
That's pretty edgy. You're the first person in history to rank Robinson out of the top 3. I don't see it, but to each his own I guess.
Nah, I'm not. And believe me, it's by the slimmest of the slimmest of margins. I have no qualms with Robi at one. In terms of pure achievements, I have him below Greb, Langford and Armstrong. Although I have been questioning having Langford that high, recently. I don't think Robinson is overrated per se, because it's hard to overrate somebody that great - but I do get a sense that the people who think he's head and shoulders above the others are the ones who don't actually know why he's great and let his reputation do the arguing for them. Similar to the ones who try and claim Floyd as the GOAT, except Robinson's achievements more than speak for themselves.
Robinson for both for me. In terms of greatness, I think only Greb can realistically challenge Robi for the GOAT spot.
I've never seen Harry Greb fight. I don't think there's a human alive that has ever seen him throw a punch in anger.
As I’m not that familiar with him, would someone bother to explain why Greb has a case for GOAT. Since there’s pretty much no tapes of him I’ve always felt there was a bit of a myth that was constructed around his career...
In short an insane number of fights (even for the time) against most of the best around. Also the only fighter to hang a loss on future world heavyweight champ Gene Tunney.
He has quite arguably, if not definitively, the single greatest resume in the entire history of the sport.
IMO, the top 5 greatest fighters ever are Robi, Greb, Charles, Langford, and Armstrong. I rate Robi and Greb as interchangeable for the top 2 spots and Charles, Langford, and Armstrong as interchangeable for the next 3.
Quite a bit - Tunney, Walker, both Gibbons brothers, Bill Brennan, Tommy Loughran, Mike O'Dowd, and Mike McTigue are all on film, just off the top of my head.
Greb's life and career honestly reads like fiction. I definitely don't know enough about his personal life to start telling you about it here, but I'd recommend the book Smoakstack Lightning by Springs Toledo. It's brilliant, and goes well in depth on his career, life and interactions with guys like Wiggins, Walker, Dempsey and so on. God, I don't even know where to start. I suppose the best way of putting it is that Greb is the clear number one under a specific criteria; that being that you #1: give no credence to what the fighter looks like on film and perhaps even have a different list for that kind of thing; and #2: you either rate Greb's era very highly, or rate all eras equally - if you think that era was archaic and the fighters he beat wouldn't be worth much nowadays, and so you don't rate them highly, then there's no point in reading on. First of all, it helps to know his era. In an era of dozens of elite fighters, only a handful of them never fought Greb - from middleweight to heavy - and none got the better; he had weight jumping/overcoming weight disadvantages in abundance. Mate, it's even arguable he was better at it than any other fighter ever outside of Sam Langford. There's reports of him out-muscling guys twice his size, thrashing them with speed and workrate. This guy who was essentially the size of Dick Tiger or Bennie Briscoe was kicking the fuck out of guys the size and quality of Gene Tunney, Tommy Loughran, Tommy Gibbons, Maxie Rosenbloom, etc; and that brings me onto his résumé. I don't see an argument for any other fighter in all of boxing history having a better résumé than Greb. Sorry to get a bit list oriented and note-esque, but it's just the easiest way to show you how highly I rate these guys; and the area which most people rate them as well. These are the standouts: Mickey Walker; top 10 WW, ATG MW, Top 30 P4P lock. Gene Tunney; Top 5 LHW, top 30 P4P lock. Gene was 47-0-2, and should have lost at least one of their other fights. Tommy Loughran; Top 5 LHW, top 30 P4P lock. Maxie Rosenbloom; Top 10 LHW, top 50 P4P Tommy Gibbons; Top 15-20 LHW, top 50 P4P. Tommy was 51-0-4 Mike Gibbons; Top 15-20 MW, top 75 P4P. Mike O'Dowd; Top 15-20 MW, top 100 P4P. Tiger Flowers; ATG MW & Fighter, southpaw. Leo Houck; Top 20 MW, Top 100 P4P Soldier Bartfield; Top 100 P4P IMO Mike McTigue, Jimmy Slattery, Kid Norfolk, Battling Levinsky, Jack Dillion; all top 25-30 LHWs. I'm fairly certain that Greb either beat, or should've beaten, all of these guys - except Walker - multiple times as well. Although I haven't checked so that might be wrong; but he did beat most at least twice. On top of plenty of elite guys like Jeff Smith, Jimmy Delaney, Bill Brennan, Billy Miske, Jack Blackburn, and so on and so forth. Not to mention the fact that he beat so many contenders that we actually can't even count them. I don't know what the general idea is, but as a rough guess of how many guys he beat who were floating around the top ten, I'd put it at at least 100. As I mentioned before, no-one really got the better of Greb in a series. Tunney did on paper, but Greb thrashed him the first time round when both were closest to their prime, and then the second fight was one of the worst robberies of the era. The third was pretty much split down the middle with an edge to Greb, but then Tunney dominated the forth. So in reality, it sounds like Greb should be 2-1-1 vs Tunney. Similar situation with Tiger Flowers, but even worse because Greb seemingly should be 3-0. Greb was incredibly consistent. One of the most insane in this regard. He obviously went 45-0 in a year. From his first win over Jeff Smith in 1917, to his retirement in 1926, Greb should have only five losses and one of them is a disqualification. Five losses in nine years would probably be a bad thing nowadays, but Greb fought about 250 times in that period. Also, it's not really to do with how 'great' he was, but more to do with what he looks like on film, but I try not to read into that sparring match too much. Not as a cope or being in denial, but just based on its circumstance and what his style is supposed to look like. I've always invisioned Greb as a pseudo-hybrid of Gene Fullmer and Vito Antuofermo, but with a more bladed stance, argumented by ridiculous speed and an unbreakable jaw. It definitely doesn't sound pretty. In fact, imagine if the only film of Gene Fullmer was of him lightly and jokingly sparring with a fifty year old Tony Zale; and all we heard of the Robinson fights was how Fullmer was awful for him. Do you think anyone would rate Gene very highly? I certainly don't; I think it's hard to rate a type of style that isn't pretty to begin on what it looks like in a twenty second sparring clip where he's messing around an old legend. He actually spent most of the later half of his career blind, and years of the first half with only one arm. He really was a phenom.
Like you, I've read that the Flowers decisions were considered robberies, but I wonder if it was actually the case. Seems dubious that judges would give a gift to a black fighter in those time.
Tiger had quite a few instances IIRC of recieving judge's favouritism. He was a pretty popular guy and I recall people being out-raged at the Walker decison. Maybe @Ring Leader can add some more detail on him. From what I remember in Compton and Toledo's books, more or less everyone at the time fought Greb deserved all three; but that the last two were way more competitive. I tend to view them as Kovalev-Ward I type fights, where it was close and somewhat arguable that the winner won, but most people had Kovalev/Greb by a decent enough margin.
Thanks a lot, nice recap of a career that indeed looks fantastical. I admit that sparring tape had an impact on my perception but I agree with you, we shouldn't put too much (if any) emphasis on that tape given its context.
No worries mate, I could talk about Greb all day, I love him. How impressive he is really becomes apparent when you dig deep into that era, because he fought all of them. The fact that this middleweight was the number one heavyweight contender. Seriously though, if you are interested in learning more about Harry, then I can't recommend Steve Compton's book "Live Fast, Die Young the Life and Times of Harry Greb" and "Smoakstack Lightning" by Springs Toledo.
Flowers was involved in a number of controversial decisions going either way. He was known to have an unorthodox, Calzaghe-like style of throwing flurries of "slapping"/cuffing punches that made his fights difficult to score. As far as a possible reason why anyone would "rob" Greb against Flowers (assuming that's what actually happened), it could be that someone in power wanted to pave the way for Mickey Walker to win the title, as Walker had already been foiled in a shot at Greb's title.
