ALMOST a century has passed since Harry Greb breathed his last, frenetic breath, but his legend shows no sign of fading. Among the afficionados, any hint of something new prompts waves of delight – a fresh four-second clip of him play-sparring with Philadelphia Jack O’Brien, an Instagram site dedicated to his memory, a contemporary press clip of one his fights…
Part of his appeal is that he died at 32 rather than descending into a punch-drunk haze, which surely would have been his fate had he lived on. Part, too, is that, aside from two clips of him messing around with O’Brien, the quest for the Holy Grail of a fight film has drawn a blank. Just about every other old-timer is captured on celluloid, but all Greb fight films are lost. However, in recent years, his followers have collected an impressive portfolio of data on his fighting life, including those famed public sparring sessions with Jack Dempsey.
There’s good reason for fans to indulge in iconoclasm when it comes to big names of the past – to show a wariness about reputations that have more to do with promotion and pulling power than brilliance. And yet, occasionally, boxers are so far ahead of their time that we suspect they’d thrive in any era. With Greb, we are hampered by a lack of the eye test, but ringside reports, films of those he beat, comments of opponents and his remarkable record all suggest he was unique and deserves his place alongside Sugar Ray Robinson and Henry Armstrong on the pound-for-pound top rung.
Press reports from the time suggest Greb would swamp opponents with a blur of leather. Several observers claimed he “got stronger” as fights progressed, which is physiologically impossible. Rather, he to, because while his opponents slowed, he could maintain his busy workrate. He trained hard for the big fights and always had significantly better stamina than the opposition (and bear in mind he sometimes fought
