Il Duce wrote:I guess it can be said, that Harry Greb 'liked a good scrap'.
I appears that Harry Greb's 20-Round bout with Fay W. Keiser on January 29, 1917
took a lot out of him.
12-Days later {February 10, 1917} Harry Greb was handily beaten by Mike Gibbons
in 6-Rounder at the National A.C in Philadelphia.
According to 'Middleweight' Mike Gibbon's, Greb foolishly took this bout on 'one-weeks'
notice, after having gone 20-Rounds with Fay W. Keiser a few days earlier.
Harry Greb had not fully recovered from the Keiser bout, and was sick in bed for a
few days.
But since the bout was a 6-Rounder, Greb took the bout on short-notice, figuring he
could out-speed Mike Gibbons in a short fast-paced 6-Round fight.
Youve misinterpreted this entire situation.
The fight with Keiser took nothing out of Greb. He left the ring without a mark. He was in his sick bed because he developed tonsilitis which he was ill with when Red Mason signed for him to face Mike Gibbons on short notice. Greb took the fight because it was the chance of a lifetime. Greb had made rapid progress in the previous couple of months toward gaining a national reputation. Mike Gibbons was considered the best fighter in the world. If Greb could show well against him he could expect a lot of offers and demand more money for them. The opportunity was so good that Greb and Mason delayed their fight with Kayo Brennan in order to take the Gibbons match (saying that Greb needed more time to train and neglecting to tell Buffalo promoters the real reason for the delay). Gibbons was simply the better man in February 1917 and showed it.
My copy of Live Fast, Die Young: The Life and Times of Harry Greb, by Steve Compton has arrived in the mail. While I haven't read at this time, I will say that the book is absolutely massive and can tell that Compton put in a tremendous amount of effort in terms of research and putting out the book. I truly believe that Compton has raised the bar with this biography.
You can post all you want its not going to change the fact that it was an exhibition bout. The rounds were only two minutes long and the contestants wore large exhibition "pillows".
the papers also said greb beat oscar anderson and kid lewis. they also said kingfish levinsky beat dempsey. doesnt change the fact that all of those bouts were exhibitions.
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I just wanted to announce that now through January 2nd I am offering signed copies of my book for $35 and free shipping within the United States. Its a great deal compared to places like Amazon. If you are interested email me at [email protected]
I just thought I would pop in and say that I now have a copy of this book (unfortunately not an autographed one, I missed that boat it seems! lol!) and am very impressed!. Great read and marvellous photographs. One of the things which marks this out compared to other biographies around now is the amount of rare photos on this book, very impressive!. I also must say that I believe that I was one of the doubters in the past on here when it came to you finishing (or even writing in the first place) this book on Greb, and I'm not too proud to say that I'm sorry for that and am happy to be proved so wrong!.
fatcity69 wrote:I just thought I would pop in and say that I now have a copy of this book (unfortunately not an autographed one, I missed that boat it seems! lol!) and am very impressed!. Great read and marvellous photographs. One of the things which marks this out compared to other biographies around now is the amount of rare photos on this book, very impressive!. I also must say that I believe that I was one of the doubters in the past on here when it came to you finishing (or even writing in the first place) this book on Greb, and I'm not too proud to say that I'm sorry for that and am happy to be proved so wrong!.
Thanks Fatcity! That really means a lot to me. More than you know. Im glad you are enjoying it.
Been a huge boxing fan since I was a kid and I've always liked reading about it as much as watching it. Just wanted to pop on and say that I ordered your book after reading this thread and I got it just before Christmas and it was like all my xmases coming at once. Really detailed and well researched info about all Greb's fights and so many rare photos as opposed to the usual ones you see in 100 other books.
I really enjoyed it and just wanted to say thanks. Greb is IMHO up there with Langford and SRR as the 3 best p4p of all time and I'm just pleased there's a book that really does him justice. I loved reading it.
12,000 are expected to attend Tonight's bout between Harry Greb and Tiger Flowers, in the biggest bout ever
held here, at Legion Stadium.
The Middleweight Champion - Harry Greb seemed very concerned about his opponent, the highly-skilled Tiger Flowers
from Atlanta, Georgia. The Champion, just shy of {Age; 30} is 18-Months younger than his opponent, but does have
more experience in Major Bouts.
The Pittsburg Windmill brings in a record of 74-6-2 {39 KO's}, but has suffered a few losses over the last 2-years, as
well as looking shopworn in several other bouts.
Surprisingly, it is the 31 1/2 year-old Southern Challenger and his Manager - Walk Miller who have brimmed with
confidence, stating that Harry Greb has seen better days.
Greb had seen better days, after 300 bouts and blind in one eye? Very insightful, I think they may have been on to something....
One minor criticism - The windmill on each page, I found it really annoying after a few pages.
There's a ton of photos in the book too but some of them look like they've been photocopied several times and it might have been good to have them together in sections but I guess that's a minor, minor quibble.
orbtastic wrote:I bought it but haven't finished it yet.
One minor criticism - The windmill on each page, I found it really annoying after a few pages.
There's a ton of photos in the book too but some of them look like they've been photocopied several times and it might have been good to have them together in sections but I guess that's a minor, minor quibble.
The photos you refer to are likely newspaper photos that no longer exist in pristine quality. For some reason a handful of these looked worse in the book than the actual quality I have but they will never look perfect. The vast majority turned out as good as they would have anywhere else short of printing the entire book on photo paper.
orbtastic wrote:I bought it but haven't finished it yet.
One minor criticism - The windmill on each page, I found it really annoying after a few pages.
There's a ton of photos in the book too but some of them look like they've been photocopied several times and it might have been good to have them together in sections but I guess that's a minor, minor quibble.
The photos you refer to are likely newspaper photos that no longer exist in pristine quality. For some reason a handful of these looked worse in the book than the actual quality I have but they will never look perfect. The vast majority turned out as good as they would have anywhere else short of printing the entire book on photo paper.
Sorry you were bothered by the watermark.
I sense you're being a little sarcastic.
Both are valid criticisms and I said they were minor, however I've 100s of boxing books, probably nearing five hundred and this is the only book that has a watermark and photos like that. I'd imagine that's why the majority of them tend to have photos together in sections, on photo paper...
I understand you probably had restrictions with money and getting the whole thing off the ground but I've plenty of other private or self pressings of boxing biographies that aren't like this.
