4. Harry Greb (106-8-3, 48 KO, 183 ND)

Born: June 6, 1894

Died: Oct. 22, 1926

 

Although Greb possessed an unusually long 74-inch reach for a man who stood 5-8, the 'Human Windmill' chose to tear into his opponents from first bell to last.  The fact that no films of his fights are known to exist just adds to his mystique, but it also prevents historians from getting a complete picture of how great he was.  With no films to study besides five minutes of workout footage and most of his contemporaries’ long dead, his ring record had to speak for him.  Needless to say, it spoke loudly.

 

Greb has the best paper resume in the sport’s history, and most of the men he defeated were at or near their absolute best when he trounced them.  The men from this list who he defeated are Tommy Gibbons, Mike Gibbons, Mickey Walker, Gene Tunney, Jack Dillon and Tommy Loughran. Men like Gibbons, Tunney and Walker were at one time or another heartily thrashed by him in bouts that underline just how much better Greb was than most of these men—as a middleweight, the great Mickey Walker clearly was not in his class.  When he first encountered Gene Tunney, the fighting marine, he beat him as though he was a pretender and finished the fight covered in the future heavyweight world champion’s blood, himself almost unmarked.  Meeting Tommy Gibbons in what was billed as a world title eliminator in their final fight in 1922, Greb beat him so completely and inarguably that Gibbons was considered by the press to have been removed from the title picture having previously been the man deemed most likely to challenge Jack Dempsey.  For each of these fights, Greb was virtually blind in his right eye.

 

When he moved up to heavyweight in search of the ultimate of sporting honours, he continued to outclass opponents despite their vast size advantages.  He continued to box as a middleweight or small light-heavyweight, standing just 5-foot-8 and boxing with the style of a speedster, he had little choice.

 

Harry Greb was a ring marvel, a one man destroyer who was not only hard to hit but a fighter who could sustain a fusillade of short-arm blows from all angles.  Somewhat lacking the full knowledge of the Queensbury rules his style was created more on what the referee and opponent would put up with.  Greb fought as an early day terrorist, without rules, inhibitions or prisoners taken, his opponents more often than not feeling as if they had to fight him off rather actually fight against him.

 

"He was always on the move – side-stepping, retreating, advancing" said Gene Tunney of their five battles, "a memory still terrifying…he was the greatest fighter I ever saw."

 

"He’d never stop throwing punches," confirmed Tommy Loughran.  "He had extraordinary ability along the lines of endurance.  He never seemed to run out of wind."

 

Greb attacked with a ‘sea of gloves,’ and was the fastest fighter of his generation and according to those that saw him, was faster than the fastest fighters of the next generation.

 

This terrifying speed, grindless engine and astonishing workrate made him all but invulnerable even at heavyweight.  Title challengers Bill Brennan and Billy Miske were both entirely outclassed at one time or another as well as numerous journeymen and contenders, some of whom outweighed ‘The Pittsburgh Windmill’ by nearly forty pounds.  It made no matter.  He tore through the best in the middleweight, light-heavyweight and heavyweight divisions who would entertain him.  He took no notice of the colour-line and met many of the top black contenders of his time, although in the form of the champions of the three divisions he terrorized he found that he himself was avoided.  In 1919, he went 45-0 against all comers from those three divisions, including light-heavyweight champions Battling Levinsky and Mike McTigue fighting dozens of world-class opponents at the rate of almost one a week.

 

His level of competition was mind-boggling, Greb’s record would have read 262-21-15.  It’s safe to say that none of today’s best fighters, even the greatest of them, would approach Greb’s level of activity in five life times much less one.  One can only lament on the footage of film reels lost; he quite simple may have been the best ever.