Charles Martel
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- Mar 14, 2007
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Good article here on Harry Greb, one of the greatest boxers of all time.
http://www.boxing.com/im_harry_greb.html
You’ll not be a boxer and live in this house, my dad says, so I pack up and walk out. I don’t care where I sleep. I only want to fight. At opening bells, my hair slicked down and face carefully powdered, I charge across rings hurling left hooks, right hooks, uppercuts, jabs, windmill punches, punches you’ve never seen from angles you never imagined at speeds opponents can’t match. They’d be luckier if I knocked them out fast. Instead, I cut eyes, break noses, knock out teeth, and crack ribs. I’m the Pittsburgh Windmill who never stops swinging and dancing.
I fight every week if I can and at least twice a month. Yeah, I like money, fans, and ladies. But Mildred was my steady girlfriend a few years before marriage and now we have a daughter. My wife’s a beautiful lady. And she comes to lots of my fights. So does Mom. Dad still won’t go.
I understand my family’s worried about me. I’m either fighting or training all the time so laugh when people say all Harry Greb does is show up, screw some broad in his dressing room, and then, after the fight, drinks and carouses until the next battle. You don’t batter great boxers unless you train all the time. Ask some competitive distance runners who do road work with me. They say if I concentrated on their sport I might make the Olympics.
Look, I’m not bragging, just telling the truth. Pound-for-pound, from 158 to 168, I’m the best fighter in the world in the early 1920s, and maybe the best period. I beat five guys who are or will win the middleweight title and six light heavyweight champs. In 1922 I bloody Gene Tunney’s right eye, his left eye, and his mouth, and break his nose, and teach him what it takes to be a champion. No one’ll beat him again. I try four more times myself, and get a draw and lose three decisions but many at our second and fourth fights think I won. I certainly do. At our last fight, in 1925, as I defend my head, he hammers stomach and heart and makes me retreat. Okay, Gene’s put on a lot of damn good weight and is soon going to fight Jack Dempsey.
Let’s talk about Jack. He’s a good guy. But he doesn’t want to fight black fighters, and he doesn’t want to fight little Harry Greb. We spar a few times, you know. He can’t hit me. He never comes close. Meanwhile, I cut his eye and pound his face. I do that every time we get in the ring. Come on, Jack, be fair and give me a shot. I’ve earned it. Jack instead fights heavies I’ve already beaten. Prove me wrong, Jack. You can’t. And no, I won’t help you train for Tunney in 1926 because I’m no pirate. Keep your money. Nothing you do will get you in good enough shape for Tunney. See what I mean? He beats you all ten rounds to win the title.
I was at that fight in Philadelphia, wearing a patch over my right eye. I’m not second guessing myself, though. I had to fight. My wife understood. When she’d gotten tuberculosis I spent as much time with her as I could. We thought her stay at the sanitarium would help. It looked like it would. It should’ve. But it didn’t and they sent her home and she died in 1923. I know it wasn’t my fault but wondered about all those nights on the road in New York, Syracuse, Buffalo, Providence, Toronto, Philadelphia, all over. Should I have been with her more? She’d helped me when doctors put me in the hospital and placed patches over both eyes and left me in darkness during a week of hell I prayed would give me my sight back. I’ve got to get it back or I can’t keep fighting.
Rough heavyweight Kid Norfolk stuck his thumb in my eye in 1921. Another heavy, Bob Roper, went after my eyes in 1922. They claimed I’d gouged them first and was a dirty fighter. That’s a lie. I never started thumbing and elbowing and hitting low until the other guys did. Please let me have my sight back. The doctor took off the patch over my left eye. That eye was still fine. Then he removed the patch covering the right. Okay, Doc, I think this is going to be okay. You’re blind, he told me. I can see plenty, I said.
One eye was good enough. Its vision seemed to widen after a few fights. Most of the time I didn’t need my right eye but did miss some left hooks coming in. Thankfully, my friends, relatives, and doctors kept their mouths shut. They knew I needed to fight more than protect my remaining eye. I still had to win a world title. The champion, Johnny Wilson, had been hiding. He knew he couldn’t beat me. The only way he’d keep the title was if the referee disqualified me. I fought on flat feet, didn’t unleash windmills, and simply punched more often and rapidly to win the decision. Finally, I was officially the champion, five months after my wife died. She’d have been proud.
I kept fighting. My sister and her husband took care of my daughter when I was busy.
Despite exciting rumors to the contrary, I just had a few flings until I met Naomi Braden. She looked like my wife but that’s not why I liked her. She was beautiful and sweet and that’s her, in the only surviving film of me, nine minutes of training footage. She smiles and threatens to punch me after I finish jumping rope in 1925. She wanted me to quit. For goodness sakes, Harry, you’ve had three hundred fights the last twelve years, you’re going to be blind, and don’t drive so darn fast.
In August 1925 I broke two ribs near my lungs and injured my back and chest and never felt the same but still fought well. And I believed the best fighters deserved chances to become champions. That’s why in 1926 I agreed to fight Tiger Flowers, a slick left-hander. Jack Dempsey, naturally, was appalled I agreed to fight a black man. So were many others. No black boxer had won a championship in any weight class since Jack Johnson took the heavyweight title almost twenty years earlier. That’s nonsense. And I think losing two close decisions was just as unfair. The second time, in August, Flowers’ trainer convinced officials I was going to fight dirty. I don’t think I did. You can always argue about these things.
I was ready to quit, anyway. I didn’t want to hang around and let young guys slap me around. What for? I had about a hundred grand in the bank and a nice house in Pittsburgh. I was ready to marry Naomi and start a business or open a gym. First, I went into the hospital and had my right eye taken out and replaced with one that looked real. But we released news that I’d only had cataract surgery. That way I could come back, if I wanted.
In October a farmer couldn’t get his wagon off the road and I swerved and rolled the car and fractured several bones in my nose. My damn right eye socket still hurt and now I had headaches and was dizzy all the time and felt I was going to die and often said so. Be patient, doctors can help you, Naomi said. My sister and brother-in-law were also great. This was going to be all right. On October twenty-first Naomi and I went to the doctor in Atlantic City. Don’t worry, he said, you only need a local anesthetic. He also added some nitrous oxide and oxygen gas while removing bones that blocked my breathing, and when those bones were gone blood rushed into the void and caused my brain to hemorrhage. By 8:30 that night I was in a coma. Naomi held my hand and said she loved me. I hated leaving her the next day. I’m glad Naomi later found another man but sorry she always cried when anyone said my name.
http://www.boxing.com/im_harry_greb.html
You’ll not be a boxer and live in this house, my dad says, so I pack up and walk out. I don’t care where I sleep. I only want to fight. At opening bells, my hair slicked down and face carefully powdered, I charge across rings hurling left hooks, right hooks, uppercuts, jabs, windmill punches, punches you’ve never seen from angles you never imagined at speeds opponents can’t match. They’d be luckier if I knocked them out fast. Instead, I cut eyes, break noses, knock out teeth, and crack ribs. I’m the Pittsburgh Windmill who never stops swinging and dancing.
I fight every week if I can and at least twice a month. Yeah, I like money, fans, and ladies. But Mildred was my steady girlfriend a few years before marriage and now we have a daughter. My wife’s a beautiful lady. And she comes to lots of my fights. So does Mom. Dad still won’t go.
I understand my family’s worried about me. I’m either fighting or training all the time so laugh when people say all Harry Greb does is show up, screw some broad in his dressing room, and then, after the fight, drinks and carouses until the next battle. You don’t batter great boxers unless you train all the time. Ask some competitive distance runners who do road work with me. They say if I concentrated on their sport I might make the Olympics.
Look, I’m not bragging, just telling the truth. Pound-for-pound, from 158 to 168, I’m the best fighter in the world in the early 1920s, and maybe the best period. I beat five guys who are or will win the middleweight title and six light heavyweight champs. In 1922 I bloody Gene Tunney’s right eye, his left eye, and his mouth, and break his nose, and teach him what it takes to be a champion. No one’ll beat him again. I try four more times myself, and get a draw and lose three decisions but many at our second and fourth fights think I won. I certainly do. At our last fight, in 1925, as I defend my head, he hammers stomach and heart and makes me retreat. Okay, Gene’s put on a lot of damn good weight and is soon going to fight Jack Dempsey.
Let’s talk about Jack. He’s a good guy. But he doesn’t want to fight black fighters, and he doesn’t want to fight little Harry Greb. We spar a few times, you know. He can’t hit me. He never comes close. Meanwhile, I cut his eye and pound his face. I do that every time we get in the ring. Come on, Jack, be fair and give me a shot. I’ve earned it. Jack instead fights heavies I’ve already beaten. Prove me wrong, Jack. You can’t. And no, I won’t help you train for Tunney in 1926 because I’m no pirate. Keep your money. Nothing you do will get you in good enough shape for Tunney. See what I mean? He beats you all ten rounds to win the title.
I was at that fight in Philadelphia, wearing a patch over my right eye. I’m not second guessing myself, though. I had to fight. My wife understood. When she’d gotten tuberculosis I spent as much time with her as I could. We thought her stay at the sanitarium would help. It looked like it would. It should’ve. But it didn’t and they sent her home and she died in 1923. I know it wasn’t my fault but wondered about all those nights on the road in New York, Syracuse, Buffalo, Providence, Toronto, Philadelphia, all over. Should I have been with her more? She’d helped me when doctors put me in the hospital and placed patches over both eyes and left me in darkness during a week of hell I prayed would give me my sight back. I’ve got to get it back or I can’t keep fighting.
Rough heavyweight Kid Norfolk stuck his thumb in my eye in 1921. Another heavy, Bob Roper, went after my eyes in 1922. They claimed I’d gouged them first and was a dirty fighter. That’s a lie. I never started thumbing and elbowing and hitting low until the other guys did. Please let me have my sight back. The doctor took off the patch over my left eye. That eye was still fine. Then he removed the patch covering the right. Okay, Doc, I think this is going to be okay. You’re blind, he told me. I can see plenty, I said.
One eye was good enough. Its vision seemed to widen after a few fights. Most of the time I didn’t need my right eye but did miss some left hooks coming in. Thankfully, my friends, relatives, and doctors kept their mouths shut. They knew I needed to fight more than protect my remaining eye. I still had to win a world title. The champion, Johnny Wilson, had been hiding. He knew he couldn’t beat me. The only way he’d keep the title was if the referee disqualified me. I fought on flat feet, didn’t unleash windmills, and simply punched more often and rapidly to win the decision. Finally, I was officially the champion, five months after my wife died. She’d have been proud.
I kept fighting. My sister and her husband took care of my daughter when I was busy.
Despite exciting rumors to the contrary, I just had a few flings until I met Naomi Braden. She looked like my wife but that’s not why I liked her. She was beautiful and sweet and that’s her, in the only surviving film of me, nine minutes of training footage. She smiles and threatens to punch me after I finish jumping rope in 1925. She wanted me to quit. For goodness sakes, Harry, you’ve had three hundred fights the last twelve years, you’re going to be blind, and don’t drive so darn fast.
In August 1925 I broke two ribs near my lungs and injured my back and chest and never felt the same but still fought well. And I believed the best fighters deserved chances to become champions. That’s why in 1926 I agreed to fight Tiger Flowers, a slick left-hander. Jack Dempsey, naturally, was appalled I agreed to fight a black man. So were many others. No black boxer had won a championship in any weight class since Jack Johnson took the heavyweight title almost twenty years earlier. That’s nonsense. And I think losing two close decisions was just as unfair. The second time, in August, Flowers’ trainer convinced officials I was going to fight dirty. I don’t think I did. You can always argue about these things.
I was ready to quit, anyway. I didn’t want to hang around and let young guys slap me around. What for? I had about a hundred grand in the bank and a nice house in Pittsburgh. I was ready to marry Naomi and start a business or open a gym. First, I went into the hospital and had my right eye taken out and replaced with one that looked real. But we released news that I’d only had cataract surgery. That way I could come back, if I wanted.
In October a farmer couldn’t get his wagon off the road and I swerved and rolled the car and fractured several bones in my nose. My damn right eye socket still hurt and now I had headaches and was dizzy all the time and felt I was going to die and often said so. Be patient, doctors can help you, Naomi said. My sister and brother-in-law were also great. This was going to be all right. On October twenty-first Naomi and I went to the doctor in Atlantic City. Don’t worry, he said, you only need a local anesthetic. He also added some nitrous oxide and oxygen gas while removing bones that blocked my breathing, and when those bones were gone blood rushed into the void and caused my brain to hemorrhage. By 8:30 that night I was in a coma. Naomi held my hand and said she loved me. I hated leaving her the next day. I’m glad Naomi later found another man but sorry she always cried when anyone said my name.
