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The search for boxing's holy grail
doubledragon
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Harry Greb, many people consider him to be the greatest boxer that ever lived, if fight footage of him ever surfaces, it would be akin to discovering life on another planet.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5E2kYqjxuAA2
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i had never heard of Greb before, thanks for enlightening me. check out this sweet ticket from his bout at MSG on 1/18/1924 against Johnny Wilson.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255471749887?hash=item3b7b4d8aff:g:6FsAAOSwybRiS2BK&amdata=enc:AQAIAAAA4AIPw9T5IkBgjxvAzDYAxyqkEK8dN0BFJgidUfNThPuEax9v/LakwHw1TauwUw2UdSG1pnfGbHhAXQZY2/5N5wkNZTLmqlV9mKz3pPI0Ptv6WrkEP7gY1hScjI9ZoeZz6Ev6PquZHhpYM2bUcwfNdOuAkzRL3FXCxnIFOK6X2feE/xxI/OeAcG+MF8174WAKoXC+g0mD0ehmQE5YS9bHwN7hwmU3HOx8MQ64i3+Oh+0M6InArxu3mM5L1oceoe+ebXbsY9UosZVSDe3oqv6cWbEc0Sgo/fglPeOBCDJySV76|tkp:Bk9SR5Cxq-7XYg
Awesome stuff, I've got my eye on a Harry Greb item as we speak that I'm thinking about purchasing, he's a legend, a look at his resume is mind boggling, he beat more HOFers than both Ali and Robinson. If footage of him in an actual fight ever surfaces, it would be worth untold millions.
Footage of him training has surfaced, here's the story behind that.
Jacobs’ Collection Complete With Greb Film
One evening in 1986, Jim Jacobs was talking about his collection of boxing films, the most extensive in the world.
“Thomas Edison invented the motion picture camera in 1894,” he said. “From 1894 to the present, there is only one great fighter missing from my collection--Harry Greb.”
Jacobs, who died at 58 in 1988, never gave up hope that one day film of Greb, a brawling middleweight and light-heavyweight champion, would turn up.
It has.
To Jacobs, the frustrating aspect of his 30-year quest was that he knew at least three Greb fights had been filmed.
“I have three frames of the first Greb-Gene Tunney fight that I found stapled to a copyright application for the film,” he said in 1986.
“I’ve tried everything. . . . It’s frustrating. Greb’s the only great fighter I don’t have.
“The guy who filmed the 1922 Greb-Tunney fight was George Dawson. I even know what hotel he stayed at the night before the fight. I’ve interviewed his heirs. None of them know anything about the film.”
Film of Greb has been found, 64 years after his death. It’s not a fight film, but it’s the next best thing.
Bill Herr, a retired truck driver from Shelby, Ohio, found a Harry Greb entry on a computer list of boxing film material from the University of South Carolina library. Herr also is a fight film collector and also has been on Greb’s trail since 1964.
“I learned that the Fox Movietone Newsreels, along with out-takes, were donated to the University of South Carolina. So I wrote a letter and asked if there was any boxing footage in the collection.
“They sent me a computer list, and I saw a 400-foot item described as, ‘Harry Greb working out.’ So I bought it.”
Herr looked at the film and sent it to Steve Lott, who works for Jacobs’ former business partner, Bill Cayton, in New York. Jacobs and Cayton were partners in their fight film business, and also in the early management of former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.
On the 4 1/2-minute newsreel, Greb is shown sparring with turn-of-the-century light-heavyweight champion Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, jumping rope, punching a speed bag, doing sit-ups, mugging for the camera and playing handball.
To boxing historians, Greb is best known as the only man to defeat Gene Tunney. Tunney later became heavyweight champion by beating Jack Dempsey.
In their May 23, 1922 fight, Greb, weighing 162 1/2 pounds, broke Tunney’s nose in the first 20 seconds and gave Tunney, at 174 1/2, a 15-round beating for the light heavyweight title. Tunney avenged the loss twice, beating Greb in 1923 and ’24.
Greb was a puncher-brawler called “the Human Windmill” in an era when nicknames were mandatory. He fought 294 times, knocking out 47, winning 64 decisions and receiving 170 non-decisions from 1913 to 1926. States frequently refused to recognize anything other than a knockout to decide a fight then because of gambling concerns.
Greb won fights with his thumbs, his forehead, his laces, holding and hitting, tripping, hitting on the break and hitting low.
Greb was 32 when he died in 1926 during surgery to remove bone chips from his nose.
I've seen the training footage video of him, but every real boxing fan knows that the only way to get a real assessment of a fighter is to see how he handles himself in a real fight. A lot of things have been said about Greb, he's been described as amateurish by some, a never-ending whirlwind of endless punches by others, a spinning top that didn't stay still, a hopping kangaroo in the ring, a man that threw all types of punches from all angles, and a vicious fighter who would bury his opponents in a blizzard of punches. The great Gene Tunney who fought Greb five times and knew the man said " He was never in one spot for more than half a second. All my punches were aimed and timed properly but they always wound up hitting empty air. He'd jump in and out, slamming me with a left and whirling me around with his right or the other way around. My arms were plastered with leather and although I jabbed, hooked and crossed, it was like fighting an octopus." Much has been written about Greb, he is the most mythical creature in boxing history, and I'd love to see actual fight footage of him, it's at the top of the list for every boxing fan and historian.
This is just absolutely mind boggling, that in 1919 alone, Greb fought 45 times, winning all of them. Here is an article written a while back about his famous 1919 campaign.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. made his professional debut on October 11, 1996, winning by second-round knockout. 16 years later, Mayweather is the best fighter in the world and holds a win-loss record that his most loyal of fans are never shy of proclaiming as the very best ever.
In Mayweather’s 44-0 career, he has amassed an impressive record of 44-0-0; a record that Harry Greb took just one year to exceed.
To call Greb’s life in 1919 “fast paced” would be gross understatement. He was nicknamed “The Pittsburgh Windmill” for his rapid, in-your-face swarming style of attack. And that’s just how he lived his life as well.
Greb returned home from service in the Navy in January of 1919. As soon as his feet touched dry land, he announced he was to marry his girlfriend of three years, Miss Mildred Kathleen Reilly; they said their vowels on Jan. 20. Greb celebrated his first year of marriage by fighting a mind-boggling 45 times.
And he won every one of those fights.
And these weren’t tomato cans Greb was fighting, mind you. These were the world’s very best middleweights, light heavyweights and even heavyweights.
(Keep in mind Greb weighed in over 168 pounds just once during this year, and only did so because he weighed in with his clothes on at 178 pounds.)
Greb opened his fistic campaign of 1919 with a 12-round points win over standout middleweight Leo Houck on Jan. 14. The Boston Daily Globe reported, “Greb won easily.”
He picked up four more victories in the month of January—including a victory over Soldier Bartfield.
From February through May, Greb defeated Len Rowlands, Chuck Wiggins (two times), Leo Houck (two more times), Tommy Robson, heavyweights Clay Turner and Willie Meehan, Hall of Fame heavyweight Billy Miske and two more Hall of Famers in Bill Brennan and Battling Levinsky (each, two times).
Even the greatest of Hall of Fame fighters couldn’t put a halt to this cyclone as Greb won four more times in June, the most notable of which being his 10-round decision victory over the all-time great, Mike Gibbons.
Through the first six months of 1919, Greb was 27-0-0—and showed no signs of slowing down.
July came and went. And so did four more triumphs. The victims: George “KO” Brown, Bill Brennan (for the third time and also over 15 rounds), Joe Chip and Battling Levinsky (also for the third time).
August and September were relatively slow months for Greb as he only had five fights between the two. (Who else in history could this be considered a “slow” 2-month stretch for?) But, nonetheless, that was five more victories under Greb’s belt. These included fourth wins over Bill Brennan and Battling Levinsky, Silent Martin and another Hall of Famer in Jeff Smith.
Greb was on an incredible pace and was looking to at least break 50 fights for the year. But according to Bill Plaxton in his wonderful Greb biography, The Fearless Harry Greb: Biography of a Tragic Hero of Boxing, in the end of September, after his victory over Silent Martin, “Greb had to cancel three fights due to illness.” He was suffering from boils that severely weakened him.
It wasn’t until Oct. 13 that Greb was healthy enough to step back into the ring. But in, what would turn out to be his only fight in October, Greb broke his left hand against Sailor Ed Petroskey.
Greb wouldn’t fight again until Nov. 11.
Altogether, in the final two months of the year Greb would fight "just" eight times. This included wins over notable heavyweight Clay Turner (two more times) and future light heavyweight champion Mike McTigue.
Which brings Greb’s total record for the year of 1919 to a remarkable 45-0-0. Considering, that Greb was slowed down towards the end of the year and fans are lucky to see world-class fighters, today, fight twice in the same year—makes this accomplishment all the more incredible.
So incredible, that it will never be repeated.
I mean, his resume is just littered with hall of famers, it's just freaking mind boggling the guys he beat, Tommy Loughran, Tiger Flowers, Jeff Smith, Billy Miske, Mickey Walker, Mike Gibbons, Gene Tunney, Maxie Rosenbloom, Tommy Gibbons, Gunboat Smith, Kid Norfolk, Mike McTigue, Battling Levinsky, Bill Brenan, Jack Dillon, Tommy Burns, the list goes on and on, and a lot of them he beat more than once, it's just a shame no fight footage exists of this monster.
Wiki:
Edward Henry Greb (June 6, 1894 – October 22, 1926) was an American professional boxer. Nicknamed "The Pittsburgh Windmill", he is widely regarded by many boxing historians as one of the best pound for pound boxers of all time.
He was the American light heavyweight champion from 1922 to 1923 and world middleweight champion from 1923 to 1926. He fought a recorded 298 times in his 13 year-career, which began at around 140 pounds. He fought against the best opposition the talent-rich 1910s and 20s could provide him and despite starting as a welterweight, he was frequently squaring off against and beating light heavyweights and even heavyweights.
This guy is a legend in the sport Steve, true boxing fans take a look at his resume, the guys he fought and beat, and we drool. If footage of him in an actual fight ever surfaces, the whole boxing universe will explode, it is the unquestioned holy grail of boxing treasure hunting. Four books exist about him and I fully intend on devouring them all.
Smokestack Lightning, oh yeah.
A little bit surprised about no fight film of him considering all the matches he had. But film was expensive back then, and i guess Greb flew under the radar of those classic fights of that era, so nobody decided to film it.
Plus film back then, if not stored properly, was prone to decomposition. Perhaps there was some fight film of him, but it decomposed over the years and was thrown away?
Something still could turn up one day in a museum or somewhere that was restored but just forgotten about, and then finally discovered. So maybe there's still some hope.
There's gotta be some film museums out there. You may want to inquire and ask them if they have any film on Greb. Perhaps they do and just didn't put it out there on the internet. I wouldn't ask for "fight film" and make it too complicated for them, and they may not have it listed that way. Just ask for film of Harry Greb, and maybe you'll get lucky and it will be some fight film.
Boxing film collector Jim Jacobs, who passed away in 1988, did a relentless search for Greb fight film and he actually discovered that 3 of Grebs fights had indeed been filmed, he actually owned three frames of the first Greb-Gene Tunney fight that he found stapled to a copyright application for the film in 1986. Jacobs said the guy who filmed the 1922 Greb-Tunney fight was George Dawson, he even discovered what hotel Dawson stayed at the night before the fight. Jacobs interviewed Dawson's heirs, and none of them knew anything about the film. So it might have been destroyed or lost, who knows what the heck happened to it. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people are out there looking, combing through every lead they can get, so hopefully something will turn up someday.
It's fascinating stuff, I check online everyday to see if any new developments have turned up, and will continue to do so. I've become obsessed with the sport, with Greb, and I love this stuff, eat it for breakfast!
Fascinating.
i didn't realize what a stud Tunney was. he went 3-1-1 against Greb, and that loss was his only one in 88 career fights.
https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/30328
You've perhaps thought of this above link already. The American Film Institute.
If they have this posted fight link, which I found in less than five seconds on Google using a few key words, maybe they have others. You'll have to do the research, since I have no interest in spending time on it. Although if you found something, I would be interested in watching and knowing about it.
Could be any number of AFI type organizations out there in the US. Don't forget international organizations also of this type. Some camera crew from say Europe could have filmed one of his fights and took the footage back to Europe and it's stored there.
Possibly some footage somewhere that's mixed in with other fight footage of that era, and it's only labeled with the premier fight. Greb footage could be at the end of the reel. But that would certainly take a lot of viewing to find that needle in a haystack, if that needle even exists.
Wouldn't be a bad idea to start with films of Gene Tunney, who he fought, who I would think most general sports fans have heard that name. Perhaps in putting together a mix of films, the editor at a film library somewhere for one of his Tunney's major fights, decided to add footage of his fight with Greb to that reel, just to save time and space, and not have to do separate reels.
Going back to the Europe angle, I would use Yandex instead of Google for search. Yandex I think is the fourth largest search engine in the world, and home based in the Netherlands. They might pickup links about this from a European film institute that the Google algorithm crawler for search selection may not find or may ignore.
Good luck! 😊
Just for the yell of it, I went on Yandex, and typed in "harry greb fight film"
You've probably been on this link, but i figured i'd post it anyway. Looks like around 20 pages of replies which I'm not about to go thru.
https://www.boxingscene.com/forums/boxing-forums/boxing-history/30815363-why-is-there-no-ring-film-of-harry-greb
Quite a number of other links on there at Yandex, which many probably are duplicates of Google links. But there could be that needle in the haystack on there that Google didn't pick-up.
Tunney was a master scientific minded boxer, a Marine, beat Dempsey Twice, and Dempsey was one of the most feared savages in the sports history. Mike Tyson after watching film of Jack Dempsey said "he fights like a man who hasn't eaten in five days." Watch the film of Dempsey vs Willard, and read about the damage that fight did to Willard, that was Jack Dempsey, a brutal man, and Tunney beat him twice. Of course in the second Dempsey vs Tunney fight, Dempsey caught Tunney with with a vicious barrage and put him down, but Dempsey wouldn't go back to his corner and their was a long count controversy and Tunney was down for about 15 seconds. Dempsey was that kind of guy, they called him the "Manassa Mauler" for a reason. But Tunney did out box Dempsey in both fights, very clever boxer.
Awesome research Steve, I'm going to look into this very hard!
Dempsey was actually one of Mike Tyson's heroes, just a vicious savage, he was heavyweight champion for seven years for a reason.
Very interesting read, I never heard of the guy.
Great thread DD
Thanks perk, love this stuff, eat it for breakfast!
Back to Jack Dempsey, Jess Willard was 6"6', and Dempsey was 6"1', and Jess Willard could punch, he actually killed a man in the ring with a vicious uppercut that drove pieces of the guy's jaw through his brain. And Dempsey just went in there and tore Willard apart, that was Jack Dempsey.
Jack Dempsey Vs. Jess Willard 1919: The Most Brutal Fight In History
While many will know the name of Jack Dempsey, America’s dominant boxer of the 1920’s, many people haven’t ever seen the fight that started Dempsey on his rise to fame and glory. In this rare video from 1919, we get to see and hear what it was like to witness the most brutal first round of any boxing match in the history of professional boxing.
The day was July 4th 1919 in Toledo Ohio. Jess Willard was the reigning world champion and the owner of a brutal reputation. The former cowboy didn’t start his boxing career until he was 27 years old, over the hill by today’s standards. The 6’6″ and 235 pound fighter gained his notoriety when he fought a fighter named Jack “Bull” Young in 1913. During the fight, Willard punched Young so hard in the head that a piece of his broken jaw has driven into his skull and he died in the 9th round. While Willard was charged with second-degree murder, he fought the charges in court and won. Two years later he became the World Heavyweight Champion after he fought the popular Jack Johnson in 1915. The fight was in Havana Cuba and last a staggering 26 rounds.
With his solid reputation intact, Willard agreed to fight a new young boxer named Jack Dempsey. Born of mixed heritage and one of 13 siblings, the young fighter was the family protector and became a brawler for money at local pubs and bars. Dempsey’s career was about to go into the next level when the 6’1″, 187 pound Dempsey stepped into the ring to fight Willard in Toledo Ohio on July 4th 1919. The much smaller boxer had been bothered by Willard’s remarks before the fight. Willard had claimed that “This will be the easiest fight of my career,” and referred to how he was happy to bring the title belt back to the ‘white race.”
Dempsey’s ancestry included Irish, Cherokee, and a Jewish paternal great-great-grandmother, and the fighter found Willards prefight remarks to be fodder and fuel for his fire. What the crowd didn’t know was that they were about to witness one of the worst beatings any fighter would take in the history of the sport. As the first round started it was apparent that the smaller Dempsey had the fire and rage of a bull as he relentlessly attacked the bigger champion. Just 30 seconds into the first round, Dempsey landed a huge left which broke Willards jaw in over a dozen places, knocking him to the mat. Willard rose and was knocked down 7 times in that first round and suffered tremendous damage at the hands of the challenger.
A severely broken jaw was just one of the wounds Willard suffered during the fight. When the fight was over and he was looked at by physicians, it was determined that he had a broken cheek bone, caved-in by Dempsey as well as broken ribs and permanent hearing loss. One witness described seeing half a dozen of Willard’s teeth spew from his mouth in a rainbow of bloody mist during the first round.
Unbelievably, the fight lasted till the start of the 4th round when Willard failed to leave his corner. As Dempsey was crowned the new champion and went on to hold and defend that title for 6 years, the older beaten Willard slipped into retirement and only ever boxed again in exhibitions. Watch the video and see for yourself why this fight is one of the greatest ever fought.
A lot of people like to do fantasy matchups, and they wonder who would win in a fight between Harry Greb and Sugar Ray Robinson, I honestly don't see Greb beating Robinson. When Ray Robinson was on his game, there has never been a greater fighter, he's definately the greatest I've ever seen, his explosiveness and firepower was mind boggling. Love this photo of a bloody Robinson, he was a savage.
If all the boxing films in the world were going to be destroyed and we could only save one film, I would save this one, Sugar Ray Robinson vs Jake Lamotta 6, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre. I cant imagine having been Lamotta on this night, Lamotta threw everything and the kitchen sink at Robinson, but Robinson was like a man possessed. This fight shows you what it was like trying to deal with Robinson when he was at his best.
Looks like ya got some competition.
Well don't give up. Kick their arze. Show 'em you're the boss when it comes to finding Harry Greb fight films.
Oops - you posted this already. I obviously didn't pay attention to open it. 🤣