Michael Spinks Harry Greb Bob Foster Gene Tunney How does he do, if both men are at their best for each fight?
Beats Greb. I really don't know about Tunney, Foster, and Spinks, as I could see a case for either. I know Moore was very high on Spinks, and said he would have to get inside to have a shot at him. Spinks and Foster in particular could compete with Charles in terms of power and explosiveness, and Bob arguably had the best jab the division has seen.
Any particular reason why you separate Greb from the others? Particularly Tunney, whom reporters at the time seemed to think he was about 2-1-1 against (the second fight apparently being an awful robbery where 20 of 21 ringside reporters - or numbers to that affect - scored it for Greb).
At the end of the day, I'd say Charles was the most well-rounded out of all the fighters on this list, in addition to having arguably the best resume (although funny enough, Greb has one of the best resumes even above 160 as well). Based on that, I'd make Charles the favorite, even if only slightly, in all of these fights. As an aside, it's funny that Foster will always be a H2H beast in LHW matchups, even though he probably has the weakest resume of any of the division's ATGs.
I suspect Greb may have been too crude, though I'll admit he was likely a lot better than the film of him suggests.
Greb may have been crude - obviously, we won't ever find out - but I don't think he'd be cruder than Marciano. I think he presents the worst style for Charles, if it's at middleweight. But at LHW, I think Spinks is worse. I pick Charles to stop Greb, as it happens although I may be going a bit overboard there. If you look at the Tunney series, Greb had issues with Tunney's movement, body work and jab. Charles is better at all three of those things IMO, combined with being a harder hitter, quicker, and more skilled on the inside. I think that mixture, as well as the smaller-vs-bigger man mix, and the swarmer-vs-boxer-puncher style match up, then I think Charles' stopping him is quite fair. While I rate Greb's chin enormously highly, he didn't actually fight many ATG punchers and I've long felt that when Charles put everything into his shots that he was just as dangerous as Moore, Spinks or Foster. I'll try and add a few more posts through the day.
greb record is amazing, but he looks so putrid in the few training tapes we have of him. Sure, might not mean much, but its hard to take it off your head
