Real Story on Greb-Flowers I & II/

By 1926 old blind Harry Greb was no longer able to make "Sixty" and give any full account of his old self.
His title loss was described by the Afrocan American Pittsburgh Courier as to close a fight to take Grebs title.

 

Great book ,about my favourite fighter...By the time Harry Greb fought Tiger Flowers in
1926, Greb was an old worn out fighter with one eye,and losing sight of the remaining orbit...Two months later Greb with 300 bouts underwent surgery
and died as a result...He , Greb was like an automobile with 1000,000
miles, and ripe for the junkyard...And with this said, most boxing writers had Greb winning his last bout with the busy unorthodox southpaw Tiger Flowers...So great was Harry Greb...

 

Yes Seamus, Jack Johnson sparred with a young Harry Greb,and told the press " Harry Greb was the fightest fighter he ever saw ", as did Jack Dempsey years later when interviewed he said " Greb was the fastest fighter ever, hell he was faster than Benny Leonard " !. A great combination of foot and handspeed, combined with a toughness and iron chin...
Whoever he fought of note called Greb their greatest opponent...

 

Steve Klompton reckons that book is a pile of horse****.

As a pure read, I found it pretty enjoyable. Enough in there for the 'purist' to consider it a worthwhile read as well IMO.

 

The first Greb-Flowers fight always puzzled me. In that era, it seems odd that a black fighter would get a disputed decision against a highly regarded white fighter. I understand Greb was not favored by the New York media, it just seems that the racism of the time would override that.

 

I vaguely recall someone mentioning it being them pulling out the race card so to speak. Flowers manager had said beforehand that they were unlikely to get the decision because he was black, and that biased them the other way. Could be horse spit as I don't recall where I read that.

 

No, you're correct. Walk Miller created an atmosphere of paranoia preceding Greb-Flowers III, a fight in which Greb, by most accounts, should have been given the decision in.

 

It was a close fight. Some felt Flowers didn't do enough to take Greb's title.

The second fight was a robbery. It was a poor performance by both fighters but most (including William Muldoon and Gene Tunney) felt Greb was robbed. Walk Miller did a great job of swaying pre-fight sympathies in Flowers' favor by proclaiming that there was a fix in the works designed to rob his fighter of the title due to race, which was total hogwash.

 

Greb faked a drunk act on the eve of the Walker fight and it cost him dearly.
Datts da story boys!

 

If you liked that Burt, John Jarrett (who wrote one of the greatest boxing books I ever read "Gene Tunney; The Golden Guy Who Beat Jack Dempsey Twice".) is coming out in December with a biography of Walker called , "Toy Bulldog: The Fighting Life and Times of Mickey Walker" It comes out Dec 13th and can be pre-ordrered on Amazon