Did Greb ask Tunney to take it easy?

Don't tell anyone cause it's top secret, but there was an agreement that Greb had to weigh less than Tunney.

 

And, never a man to break an agreement, even a secret one, Harry made sure he came to the scales well under.

 

Yeh, imagine the reaction of the mob if Greb came with full blown 175lbs.....

 

Greb had his bad eye removed just prior to the first Tunney-Dempsey fight and was ringside wearing an eye patch. His career was effectively over. He talked a great game about wanting to continue but intimates stated this was to hype an upscale boxing gym he was in the process of opening. For all intents and purposes Greb was retired when Tunney won the championship. He may have been licking his chops but it was at what he would have done to Tunney in his prime, with two good eyes, not what he was going to be doing in the future. I always felt this was the saddest story of Greb's career (which had its share of sad stories). The guy chases Dempsey for 7 friggin years to get a title shot and a couple of weeks before Tunney (who probably would have been willing to face Greb for the title or at least in a ND defense) wins the championship his career is ended. Can you imagine the how that must have felt. Harry was suffering from depression the last few months of his life and I have no doubt if this didnt contribute it surely didnt help things.

 

[I should not revere Abraham Lincoln, because I only know what other people said about him...Ad Infinitim.....[/quote]


This guy in a bar told me the Civil War was fixed. Robert E Lee took a dive at Gettysburg for the short end money.


Seriously the Greb story is pobably bull but... Greb had what 299 fights? Mostly against top opposition. If he asked for a break in a couple of rounds I wouldn't be shocked or outraged.

 

Abdullah, thank you ..You are one of a kind...B.B.

 

I'm of the mind the fourth fight in Cleveland, ten round N-D a case could be made that Harry won that also. Not stated in the Paxon book, in the weeks leading up to this encounter Greb and Red Mason (Mgr) are hurling invective after invective upon Matt Hinkle as to why he is unfit to referee. Despite this verbal barrage x 2 Hinkle declares this encounter a draw, BUT if you go with the Cleveland paps and also nearby Loraine, you get a very strong impression of Harry winning. Factoring in Gene, by this time is in the 180s, in his monster prime, Harry is in the low 160s, 30 years old, blind in one eye, countless car wrecks, it really appears like the jewel in the crown of his incredible career.

 

New here but have read quite a bit on Greb and listened to a number of people who saw him etc.
I really cant see this .Tunney and Greb had loads of respect for each other.I dont doubt they spoke during rounds.Both had spent so long toe to toe they must have been close
I cant see Gene not trying to finish the fight if he could.He knew Grebs strengths and weakesses better than anyone
I would look at the intentions/motivations of the author of the article

 

Its been a while since I read Tunney's books so i dont know off hand what he did or didnt write. What I do know is that Tunney heavily embellished many aspects of his fights with Greb, i.e. how dirty Greb was, how dominant Tunney was after their first fight, etc etc. If one reads between the lines its obvious that Tunney was sensitive about how well Greb was able to handle him throughout his career and thus tried to tear Greb down to a degree and lift himself up in order to enhance his legacy. Lets remember that Greb was not around to defend himself so Tunney could say whatever he wanted. Greb beat him in the first fight on dirty tactics (a lie), Tunney won four following fights handily and proved his superiority (false), Greb asked Tunney to carry him (highly suspect). Look at it this way: Greb was in much worse shape against men who reputed to be much heavier punchers than Tunney and never asked any quarter. There is little or no reason to believe he would have asked Tunney to go easy on him in their final fight which was probably the slowest of the five encounters.

James Fair was an outright liar. Dont read his book for facts. He was basically trying to emulate the style of Damon Runyon and was hoping to get a movie deal out of it. He was eventually threatened with legal action by Greb's family for the outright lies in his book and as a result the book was pulled from the stands and never had a second printing.

 

P.S. I just went through all of my newspapers for the Greb-Tunney fight which included all of the Twin Cities papers present. While it is clear that Greb lost, there is absolutely no mention of Greb asking Tunney to carry him. Indeed, George Barton, the referee and newspaper man wrote the following day that the fight was fought on the level. This should be put in context because two years earlier in 1923 Tunney and Jack Renault where kicked out of the ring for the perception that Tunney was carrying Renault. He was subsequently banned for a short period of time in that city. I think we can take Barton's comments as evidence that he heard no such comments by Greb and he would have been closer to the action than anyone.