BoxRec

It's the "Mysterious" Harry Greb with the remarkable record, without a single frame of film for anyone to ascertain his abilities vs the "Mystique" of the undefeated record of Rocky Marciano.


We know that Harry didn't care what weight division he fought in, and he did have a win over a future HW champion Gene Tunny.

And Rocky was a small heavyweight who simply never fought a great fighter in their prime. (Maybe Archie Moore?) but you could argue Archies prime was yet to come.


Who wins this? The Mystery of the unseen force of nature? Or the Mystique of the undefeated record?

I think for the first time in Greb's life he gets absolutely broken down and knocked flat out on his back. Marciano was Greb but bigger and stronger.

HomicideHenry wrote: ↑21 Jun 2018, 17:47 I think for the first time in Greb's life he gets absolutely broken down and knocked flat out on his back. Marciano was Greb but bigger and stronger.

I don't know if Marciano was quite as skilled as Greb, but I'd agree with you that he'd be too big and strong. I'd have to favor Rock here for sure. Though he was really only about 20 or 25 pounds heavier than Greb he was much more heavily muscled, and would have a significant strength advantage.

On top of that Greb wasn't exactly a boxer-mover as I understand it so it'd be a slugfest, and I can't imagine that would work out well for the smaller Greb.

To me, it seems Marciano doesn't get quite as much credit as he did in years past. As for Greb, there are very legitimate arguments that he was the greatest middleweight ever, the greatest light heavyweight ever and the greatest fighter of all time. I think this goes the way of Marciano-Walcott I. Greb leads from the beginning and puts some major hurt on the Rock, but gets caught in the late rounds.

Everything here is on Rocky's side. He was bigger, he was stronger, he was from the later era. And I agree with the thing mentioned before, that Greb wasn't a boxer-mover. I believe, he was more of a fighter, than a boxer in a modern conception of this definition. And you need to stay away from Rocky and try to outbox, to outsmart him, if you want at least to survive there. So, I guess, Marciano would have outfought him and stopped eventually.

At the press conference for his fight for the light heavyweight title with champion Joey Maxim,
middleweight champion Sugar Ray Robinson heard his large, heaxyweight size manager/trainer George Gainsford say,

"And once we beat Maxim, we're going after Marciano and the heavyweight title."

That was too much for Robinson, who said, "You mean HE'S going to fight Marciano."

Robinson knew enough about boxing to know he wanted no part of Marciano.

Rocky is just flat out too big and hits too hard I think.

Greb was a lot more of a "mover" than he's being credited with. Lomachenko is a whirl-wind. Calzaghe was a whirl-wind. Are/were they not "movers"? From most of the educated accounts I've heard on him, he wasn't an Armstrong/Basilio type (not that that would've been a bad thing, except in this matchup). He was more in line with the likes of the aforementioned fighters, to cite a couple that come quickly to mind. An offensively oriented dynamo with exceptional footwork and variety. Areas that greatly accentuated his offensive output and overall effectiveness against such a massive variety of opponents.