They referred to as them the Roaring Twenties, that loopy decade following World Battle I when the financial system boomed, “speakeasies” opened on each different nook, the “flappers” began exhibiting slightly pores and skin beneath the knee, {and professional} sports activities positioned second solely to the dance craze for public diversions. The celebs of the ring have been many: Jack Dempsey ranked quantity considered one of course, however Benny Leonard, Panama Al Brown, Pancho Villa and Mickey Walker have been main sights as nicely. However probably the easiest fighter of all of them was Harry Greb, in any other case often known as “The Pittsburgh Windmill,” “The Smoke Metropolis Wildcat” or, Greb’s personal desire, “The Pittsburgh Bearcat.”
What set Greb other than the remainder of the fistic elite was his ferocious, continuous preventing fashion, the likes of which have not often been seen within the ring, earlier than or since. Suppose a combination of Aaron Pryor and Henry Armstrong mixed with a mongoose and a kangaroo and also you’re heading in the right direction. Or, as author Douglas Cavanaugh places it, Greb’s “feinting, bouncing and skittering round, coupled together with his velocity and work price … scrambled the senses and timing of even probably the most composed of technical boxers and dashing sluggers.”
As for writers who really noticed Greb in motion, the descriptions of his fashion are each hanging and uniform. “He can hit a person oftener from extra completely different instructions than any man that ever lived,” wrote Grantland Rice. “When Greb is preventing, you’ve got the impression that the arc-lighted air of the ring is stuffed with boxing gloves, gloves thrown from thirty or forty instructions in fusillades, salvos, volleys. He comes upon an opponent like a swarm of bees. Regardless of how briskly his opponents have been, Greb has at all times been slightly sooner.”
Scribe Ring Lardner used comparable phrases: “Within the ring he resembled a person who had simply burst unfastened from his strait jacket. Blows rained on his opponent from each angle and altitude … He would quickly circle an opponent and fireplace a dozen blows to the pinnacle and physique earlier than his opponent might retreat or retaliate. The blows weren’t particularly onerous, however they stung and lower, and Greb’s tempo elevated because the bout progressed.”
Greb additionally, not less than in keeping with some observers, possessed a specific expertise for getting away with underhanded techniques, mixing fouls in with the flurry of continuous punches he launched at his opponents. At completely different instances he was accused of using headbutts, elbows, low blows, and thumbs to the eyes. It was additionally famous that he usually intimidated referees by yelling at them once they tried to interrupt up the fighters, as he loved mauling and wrestling on the within, all the higher to land pictures south of the border or an inadvertent elbow to the larynx.
“The Human Windmill” was extremely energetic, averaging greater than twenty fights per yr and amassing some 270 professional wins (together with newspaper selections) in opposition to solely twenty defeats throughout one of the crucial aggressive eras in boxing historical past. He was world middleweight champion from 1923 to 1926 and, whereas he by no means held the championship, he was additionally one of many two or three finest light-heavyweights on the earth. Greb didn’t thoughts tangling with heavyweights both, despite the fact that he not often weighed way more than 170 kilos.
Greb scored wins over no fewer than eighteen world title holders, an astonishing quantity contemplating there have been solely eight weight divisions at the moment. He was no knockout artist as his swarming fashion meant sacrificing energy for velocity and a frenetic tempo. Nonetheless, he beat a Who’s Who of nice fighters, together with Tiger Flowers, Battling Levinsky, Mickey Walker, Tommy Gibbons, Al McCoy, Maxie Rosenbloom, Jack Dillon, Tommy Loughran and Gunboat Smith.
His dominant win over all-time nice Gene Tunney in 1922 is maybe Greb’s most well-known victory. Tunney’s one and solely defeat in a profession of 66 professional fights, it’s thought to be one of many bloodiest bouts of all time. By right now’s requirements, it might have been stopped nicely inside its fifteen spherical distance. Greb stunned Tunney together with his aggressive assault, breaking Gene’s nostril within the very first spherical. The nostril bled profusely and “The Combating Marine” additionally suffered cuts on his lips and round each eyes and it has been estimated Tunney misplaced not less than two quarts of blood in the course of the combat. It was a clear-cut win for Greb and a few thought Tunney would by no means get better. In actual fact, he went on to subsequently defeat Greb earlier than establishing himself as one of many nice technicians in boxing historical past.
“He was by no means in a single spot for greater than half a second,” mentioned Tunney of Greb and that first, bloody battle. “All my punches have been aimed and timed correctly however they at all times wound up hitting empty air. He’d leap out and in, slamming me with a left after which whirling me round together with his proper or the opposite method round.”
On one other event Tunney described Greb as “… the wildest tiger. Not a boxer, nor a puncher. He received with blazing velocity, a pair of rubbery legs that by no means appeared to tire, and what needed to be one of the crucial magnificent preventing hearts God ever put into a person. He was the closest factor to perpetual movement that ever stepped into a hoop, throwing punches from all angles in a depraved twister of ripping, tearing, jolting leather-based.”
Apparently, Greb was one of many few who picked Tunney to beat Jack Dempsey previous to their first assembly for the heavyweight title in 1926, an enormous upset on the time. However Greb had perception like no different as, along with his 5 battles with Tunney, he had sparred with Dempsey on multiple event. In response to experiences, Harry was capable of hit the good “Manassa Mauler” just about at will.
Greb’s different well-known battles included three with the good Tiger Flowers, considered one of them being the final combat of his profession in 1926. Whereas the judges gave the choice to Flowers, most thought in any other case and the ring was pelted with rubbish once they introduced the decision. Ringside was Tunney, who commented that Greb clearly deserved the win. Two days after this combat Greb was significantly injured in a automotive accident. A number of weeks later he underwent surgical procedure to deal with his accidents and died on the working desk.
Probably the most astonishing issues of the good Harry Greb’s profession is that a lot of it was fought with a bodily handicap. We are able to by no means know exactly when, however sooner or later Greb suffered a indifferent retina and misplaced sight in considered one of his eyes. Some speculate the damage occurred in his combat in opposition to Child Norfolk in 1921, which might imply Greb fought half-blind for 5 years in opposition to among the finest boxers in historical past.
Over the many years, the legend of Greb has solely grown in stature. Regardless of the actual fact no movie exists of this pugilistic legend in motion, few boxing historians don’t rank him as, pound-for-pound, one of many prime ten biggest boxers of all-time. Nat Fleischer regarded Greb because the third finest middleweight of all-time; Charley Rose positioned him second, whereas Herb Goldman ranks him at the very best ever at 160 kilos, a rating with which many agree. — Robert Portis
