Harry Greb and Weightlifting

[beenKOed]

Fought 49 times in a year once.

Sounds like dynamo with some insanity thrown in. Man, once a week. Amazing!

[IamInuit]

Fought 49 times in a year once.

Sounds like dynamo with some insanity thrown in. Man, once a week. Amazing!

I think Young Stribling fought 55 times one year but would have to check.

[powerpuncher]

i always say that the difference between fighters now and then is that at that time, people had to just keep fighting to put food on the table. its not like now to where these fighters will have a match 2-3 times and year and get out of shape in between fights. as you can see now, all of the best fighters of the past decade have stayed in shape year round (mayweather, bhop, jones, etc). this is no coincidence.

i wish more than anything that there were fight tapes of greb. i wish that i could see what his windmill style really looked like.

[Beanflicker]

Fighting once a week sounds impressive until you realize that a lot of those guys didn't belong in the ring with him and were little more than sparring sessions.

It's not like these guys were fighting world beaters every time out. Nobody can do that.

[IamInuit]

Fighting once a week sounds impressive until you realize that a lot of those guys didn't belong in the ring with him and were little more than sparring sessions.

It's not like these guys were fighting world beaters every time out. Nobody can do that.

Of course. I mean why say anything good about anyone prior to the primedonna era? They were all scrubs. Unlike the little spoiled brats today that can barely make it past 4 rds before they are gassed and I'd like to see one of these posers today fight 49 sparring partners a year. People act as if everyone today can fight a pace equal to Floyd and Manny. Sorry but in order to see fights that even resemble a fight in most cases takes watching a domestic card with fighters nobody has heard of. Most title fights and ppv events today are complete duds and mismatches. I bet Jeanette v Mcvy was quite the sparring session. In addition people look at records and dismiss opponents not realizing that these people lost because they fought every other week and when you do that, at times you lose to lesser men.

Carry on

[Beanflicker]

Of course. I mean why say anything good about anyone prior to the primedonna era?

That statement had nothing to do with era vs era quality. It's a shame you seem to have a stick up your ass about the golden era and have to make everything a comparison.

The fact is, there's not enough quality opponents for ANYBODY of ANY ERA to fight one quality guys once a week.

Look at Greb's record: for every quality opponent, there are about 20 opponents who have losing records, or even less than 10 fights.

Tom Burns: 1-5
Ray Nelson: 0-1
Frankie Ritz: 1-3
Johnny Papke: 2-3
Billy Briton: 14-8
Soldier Buck: 8-11
Jim Nuss: 10-7
Otis Bryant: 3-4
Ed Smith: 1-1
Joe Lohman: 14-20
Fay Keiser: 21-13

That's just from a quick scan of the first page of his record. And these were guys he fought AFTER he was world champ. He had over 80 pro fights and was fighting guys who were 0-1 and 1-5.

And I don't slag the guy for fighting bums: it was a different time, there was no PPV and big network deals, you fought as many times as you could because you needed the pay days, and if you could get paid to fight a severely out classed guys, you'd do it. It was the 1920s, you had to make a buck however you could. No disrespect to Greb whatsoever.

The guys I do slag are guys like you who gush over the fact that they fought so often, like that was a great accomplishment and somehow makes them superior to modern fighters. But if Floyd was to fight once a week with the same opposition, you and other like-minded people would call him a sissy for picking on bums.

Floyd is getting dissed because he chose to fight a fellow world champion who is 35-3 with a KO percentage over 80%, and you guys are gushing over this dude because he fought bums once a week? PLEASE.

[Beanflicker]

Most of Greb's opponents would be worthy to even spar a guy like Mayweather or Pacquaio.

I reckon Pacquiao sweat more and suffered more trauma sparring monsters like Provodnikov everyday than a world champion with 80+ fights rolling over a bunch of guys with 1-3 records.

Get out of here with that nonsense...

[Andre]

Of course. I mean why say anything good about anyone prior to the primedonna era?

That statement had nothing to do with era vs era quality. It's a shame you seem to have a stick up your ass about the golden era and have to make everything a comparison.

The fact is, there's not enough quality opponents for ANYBODY of ANY ERA to fight one quality guys once a week.

Look at Greb's record: for every quality opponent, there are about 20 opponents who have losing records, or even less than 10 fights.

Tom Burns: 1-5
Ray Nelson: 0-1
Frankie Ritz: 1-3
Johnny Papke: 2-3
Billy Briton: 14-8
Soldier Buck: 8-11
Jim Nuss: 10-7
Otis Bryant: 3-4
Ed Smith: 1-1
Joe Lohman: 14-20
Fay Keiser: 21-13

That's just from a quick scan of the first page of his record. And these were guys he fought AFTER he was world champ. He had over 80 pro fights and was fighting guys who were 0-1 and 1-5.

And I don't slag the guy for fighting bums: it was a different time, there was no PPV and big network deals, you fought as many times as you could because you needed the pay days, and if you could get paid to fight a severely out classed guys, you'd do it. It was the 1920s, you had to make a buck however you could. No disrespect to Greb whatsoever.

The guys I do slag are guys like you who gush over the fact that they fought so often, like that was a great accomplishment and somehow makes them superior to modern fighters. But if Floyd was to fight once a week with the same opposition, you and other like-minded people would call him a sissy for picking on bums.

Floyd is getting dissed because he chose to fight a fellow world champion who is 35-3 with a KO percentage over 80%, and you guys are gushing over this dude because he fought bums once a week? PLEASE.

You have a point, but theres the other side of the coin in those old times; a challenge was a challenge some of those tough bastards would try to FIGHT ALL COMERS and hop on trains across states to do it within the week.

Doesnt happen now and fights are not as long either,buts that ok dont have to get protective about it, because its impossible in these modern times in light of our law with rules and regulations.

Its just two different situations. Too many fighters these days there are literally millions of them all after the money day, so you cant fight all comers and all challenges,you cant skip weights and you cant fight till you drop instead of just 12 rounds max.

So why try to compare or make out one is better?

One thing is for sure that today with so many fighters around you have to pick a road through them all cheery picking is an art now. It still happened but the further you go back it was a rarer occurrence.

[IamInuit]

i always say that the difference between fighters now and then is that at that time, people had to just keep fighting to put food on the table. its not like now to where these fighters will have a match 2-3 times and year and get out of shape in between fights. as you can see now, all of the best fighters of the past decade have stayed in shape year round (mayweather, bhop, jones, etc). this is no coincidence.

i wish more than anything that there were fight tapes of greb. i wish that i could see what his windmill style really looked like.

He was not a flailing wild man like the term windmill suggests. He was way ahead of his time and like Armstrong probably had an over-sized heart. He got his nickname from throwing over a hundred punches a round and seemed to run on perpetual motion. Dempsey wouldn't fight him.

[powerpuncher]

i always say that the difference between fighters now and then is that at that time, people had to just keep fighting to put food on the table. its not like now to where these fighters will have a match 2-3 times and year and get out of shape in between fights. as you can see now, all of the best fighters of the past decade have stayed in shape year round (mayweather, bhop, jones, etc). this is no coincidence.

i wish more than anything that there were fight tapes of greb. i wish that i could see what his windmill style really looked like.

He was not a flailing wild man like the term windmill suggests. He was way ahead of his time and like Armstrong probably had an over-sized heart. He got his nickname from throwing over a hundred punches a round and seemed to run on perpetual motion. Dempsey wouldn't fight him.

im not saying that he was out of control but from everything that i have heard, he was very aggressive in the ring and his opponents said that he tended to use his head and elbows. i hold greb in very high regard. i just think that if he fought today a lot of people would call him a cheater just like people call ward a cheater for his tactics despite his greatness.