Hello boys, Recent friction with a sleazy chap got old Slakkas dander up enough to plunge headlong into my stacks. I report the following gem! Cleveland Times July 17 1925 Dan Taylor Greb did practicably no fighting at all in the first round and because Rosenbloom landed a couplla stiff rights and lefts to Harrys chin we gave the period to Maxie. But that was the last he won. Greb really didn't get under way until late in the third round and after shaking Rosenbloom up with a viscous left to the stomach tore into him and battered him all over the ring. The forth was a rather tame affair with Greb landing the only blows of the period then after referee Johnny McGuire warned them to begin fighting in the fifth Greb staggered Rosenbloom with a right uppercut and battered Maxie the rest of the round punching him at will. Greb started fast in the sixth again and after staggering his foe with an overhand right backed him into a neutral corner with a viscous left uppercut to the stomach then shot over another hard right to the point of the chin and Rosenbloom dropped. He remained down for the count of seven and Greb swarmed all over him as he arose but Maxie managed to weather the storm without going down again. From that period until the end Rosenbollm never had a chance and Greb punished him severely in the remaining rounds.
good find. it is preposterous in my mind that greb beat all the lhw champs of his era without ever claiming the belt.
Many, many moons ago i was listening to the radio program with the narrator Sam Taub who was a great boxing announcer. He was interviewing Maxie R in his i hr program. Rosenbloom mentioned this fight with Greb, and when Sam Taub asked Maxie, "You had close to 300 bouts Maxie, who was the best fighter you ever fought "? Rosenbloom who beat John Henry Lewis THREE times, Mickey Walker, etc, immediately responded ,"Sam that's easy, Harry Greb ". As a youngster ,I was very impressed by his answer, and by my dad seeing Greb batter Gene Tunney in 1922, from then on i became devoted with knowing more about the Pittsburgh Windmill...And the more i read about him, the more I became impressed. I love some fighters description of Harry Greb's style, calling Greb, "that seven year itch ".
I wish I"d heard that Burt. Also in my stacks is Sam Taubs next day reportage in the New York Telegraph on Greb vs Tunney II. Sam raised quite a howl when his fellow NYer Tunney was awarded the decision. Reciting from memory, Harry Greb certainly got the tar end of the stick last night at Madison Square Garden. We had him winning ten of the fifteen rounds.
Good find. Greb was definitely one of the best. A fight between him and Hammering Hank would of been something to behold.
Greb was always 10 pounds heavier than Armstrong and was much more versatile than Henry. Greb in his 300 fight career had about 120 MORE fights than Armstrong but took much less punishment, as he was able to use his tremendous leg speed to scoot out of trouble when the situation required such measures...Armstrong who I saw in 1943,at age 31,losing to Ray Robinson, was more one-dimensional than Harry Greb, thus accounting for Fritzie Zivic to cut up Henry and stop him in 1941. P4P Greb outspeeds Armstrong, for the above reasons !MO...
I once read in a 1925 reprint of Time magazine (back when it was worth a ****)..in a report they did on Greb-Walker, that after 14 fierce rounds, mind you, that in the 15th,"Greb was like a hurricane and transformed Walker's nose into a "suet pudding", in his torrid fury"...man..that's always stayed with me and shaped my concept of Greb, regardless of the lack of film on the man.
RC,I have read that account of the fight also. And what is amazing also , before the bout Harry Greb ,to make the weight,had to run around Central Park in NYC twice, and came in wighing 158 pounds. But though weight-drained and on the DOWNSIDE,still gave the 24 year old great Micket Walker a thrashing in FIFTEEN rounds. One year later a pretty shot Harry Greb died after an operation...And strangely [as truth is stranger than fiction], Tiger Flowers died in 1927 in a hospital as a result of the same procedure that killed his great rival Harry Greb...
That report really put me in awe of Greb BB,...as badass as Walker was in dealing with lightheavies and heavies, he was in with a real wildcat vs Greb..Greb was cyclonic in the way he beat Walker...what a shame no film exists of it...you're absolutely on target there,..it was a This content is protected
"Greb was crawling all over me," as Mickey put it in his autobiography, remains perhaps the most vivid sentence in my mind of what it was like to share the ring with Harry of any account by any opponent I've read, even over the dumped boxful of gloves analogy. Tunney wrote well enough, but he was preoccupied and distracted with the problem of his own blood and injuries, and the effects of them from the outset of his defeat, while Walker had a less impeded experience with the Windmill.
