Book About Tiger Flowers

Too bad this book is more full of **** than a christmas turkey. Its a mischaracterixation to suggest that greb had so much respect for flowers that he made the fight a nd match. In reality Greb was unfamiliar with Flowers and Walk Miller and naturally protective of his championship. He knew that Flowers had fought in Fremont and the surrounding area several times (all no decisions btw) and was popular there. He wasnt about to take the risk of getting jobbed out of the title in a backwater fighting for peanuts against an unknown. Greb had never seen Flowers fight until about 10 days before their match and well after the match had been signed. At that point he became very impressed with him but that had no bearing on his stipulations for the match. In fact Flowers was a relatively fringe guy until after he made a good showing against Greb but Mee characterizes this fight as a win for Flowers and it wasnt. True he had some supporters but in reality of all the press that were there that day the number who thought Greb won outnumbered flowers supporters by more than 2 to 1. Mee goes on to characterize one of these reports that voted for greb (the AP report) as being written by red mason. In fact had mee done his homework thoroughly like the good historian he masquerades as he would have noted that the AP report was issued out of their chicago bureau which sent James McGuire who would later become famous for Call Northside 777 to cover the fight.

 

Just out of curiosity, which boxing books from the past 20 years, aside from your own, do you approve of?

 

I like Adam Pollacks books, particularly the first johnson book, the slattery book was good, clays book on langford, the upcoming book on jack hurley which ive gotten to read some of (this one is going to be INCREDIBLE), Ghost of Manila, both burley books were good although i preferred rosenfelds, hands of stone, battling siki. I could go on but if youre alluding to the fact that im critical if a lot of boxing books i wont deny it. A LOT of boxing books are bad, little effort goes into them and they are often agenda driven and factually innacurate. I dont have any patience for this and Mees book is one of the worst examples of this ive ever seen. He not only gets a lot of the story wrong out of pure ignorance of the subject he chose to write about but often times throughout the book when he doesnt know something he literally makes it up. This kind of creative conjecture is always dangerous in historical writing but its made worse by the fact that the sources are there for mee, many time with little more than a five minute search of the internet, but he just couldnt be bothered to do even this minimal amount of research. Then he goes on to explain away his lack of citations for these fabrications by saying he didnt want to waste time catering to a small clique of boxing historians (you know the same clique hes supposedly been a part of and profitting from for years). Sorry if it offends people but mees book was absolute **** of the worst kind of this genre and thats saying something. Flowers was a terrific fighter and a fascinating guy who deserves a good book written about him. To date there have been three and each one was worse than the last.

 

Thanks for the response. Even on my level of reader of boxing history, I find some pretty uninspired, pretty basic and pretty misinformed books coming out. The Tunney book a few years ago comes to mind as does the Dempsey Flame of Pure Fire book... I like your first effort, Pollack's and Moyle's... but an interested in broadening my horizons on recently released materials.

 

The Slattery book is the most recent one that I was impressed with. I figured the guy would veer into hero worship and gloss over jimmys shortcomings but he was pretty even handed about him and did some goid research. He clearly has eyes for his subject but he keeps it in check and its nothing like the love letter of say flame of pure fire. I dont think you can find a more biased book than flame.

 

They fought three times. Greb won the first, lost the title in the second and supposedly got robbed in the third.

 

I don't think Greb was really robbed in the third. I think both of their championship fights were fairly close with the third being a better fight for Greb but I think he had slipped enough that Flowers was basically able to out-Greb Greb.

There isn't much doubt in my mind that prime for prime Greb beats and maybe even stops Flowers but he was just too far gone in 1926.

Mee totally mischaracterizes the Flowers-Greb series. Mee acts like Greb was almost afraid of Flowers but nothing could be further from the truth. He repected him and his ability but that didn't prevent him from readily facing Flowers. Case in point: In early 1926 the NYSAC commission named Flowers the top challenger for Greb and demanded that Greb defend against him. This was done in large part to salve the wounds of Flowers having been absolutely robbed against Mike McTigue the month before. When the commission named Flowers Greb's challenger nobody expected Greb to fight him. The New York press which was very hostile to Greb printed stories about how he would avoid Flowers. It made sense. Flowers was black, a southpaw, and very good (the three combined was often the kiss of death for a fighter getting big fights). Many expected Greb to either draw the color line or just avoid fighting in New York and defend his title elsewhere. Instead Greb literally hopped on a train the night that it became public that Flowers was named his mandatory and headed for New York. Within 24 hours he had signed for the fight. Not the actions of a man who was running away with his title. When Greb signed there was a clause in the contract that if he lost Flowers would have to defend against him in 90 days. Mee says in the book that it was Greb's fault this rematch didn't come off in a timely fashion. Nothing could be further from the truth. As soon as Flowers won the title his manager began trying to get out of the contract. They absolutely did not want to fight Greb. When they realized that they would have to honor the rematch clause they postponed the fight several times which is why it was six months before it came off instead of three. Greb made several trips to New York for the specific purpose of making sure that Flowers would be forced to fight him. But see Mee couldn't write that part the way it actually happened because later on in his book he goes after Mickey Walker with both barrels for delaying his rematch with Flowers, essentially calling Walker a coward and then alleging that Walker, Kearns, and Flowers' doctor (who was one of the most eminent physicians in the United States) murdered Flowers rather than fight him.

Toilet paper is worth more to me than Mee's book.

 

I think that pretty much sums it up. I think Greb and Flowers were naturally awkward to begin with and with Greb having deteriorated so much the fights were just messy, dirty, sloppy, and unsatisfying. The fights were both likely close and likely very difficult to score because they probably featured a lot more slapping and wrestling than boxing making it hard to p**** who was most successful but I think the right guy ultimately won. The majority of those present certainly felt so.

 

Out of curiosity, how did you like Cinderella Man and what is your take on the research behind it?

EDIT: The book, not the movie, which obviously has an indefensible characterization of Baer.

 

Which one? Werent there three that all got released around the same time?