Some folks were asking about Harry Greb so I thought I'd do a little summary. One question often asked is without real fight footage what can we know? Well here are some things.

In a time of eight divisions and one champion per division, Greb defeated:

Middleweight champions-George Chip, Johnny Wilson, Tiger Flowers, Mickey Walker

Light Heavy Champs-Bob Moha, Jack Dillon , Mike McTigue, Tommy Loughran, Jimmy Slattery, Maxie Rosenbloom

Heavy Champ-Gene Tunney


He defeated those men on 23 occasions

Four of those wins came after he had lost vision in one eye.


While generally weighing in between 162-166 he defeated men who fought for the heavyweight crown on seventeen occasions.


Of his 250 or so wins, 21 came over HOFers.

Nine of those wins came after the eye injury.


In nearly 300 fights he was Ko'd in his sixth fight and then one other time when he broke his arm.

In 1919 he went 45-0

In just over 15 years as a pro, Harry Greb averaged a fight every 19 days!

So the objective data says HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!!

Now for the subjective stuff.

Greb was a FIGHTER. Fists were his primary weapon but he wasn't above using elbows, laces, shoulders, thumbs etc. His defining characteristic were his speed, volume punching and a swarming style. Jack Demspey thought he was faster than Benny Leonard. Tunney said Greb was like fighting an octopus. Tommy Loughran said fighting Greb was like having a boxcar full of boxing gloves dumped on you. Nat Fleischer guessed that Greb, in top form, threw nearly 200 punches a round.

Now lastly, there is no available fight footage of Greb. But that needn't stop us from making some judgements? Why not? Well because there is plenty of footage of Walker and Tunney and Loughran and McTigue and we know Greb defeated each of them.

FWIW