Tiger Flowers vs Harry Greb 3

Tiger Flowers retained the world middleweight championship by a split decision over former champion Harry Greb after 15 hard and frequently untidy rounds at Madison Square Garden, New York, on 19 August 1926. Both men weighed 159 pounds. It was their third meeting and the second within six months for the championship. Flowers had taken the title from Greb by another split decision at the Garden on 26 February, a verdict which had also divided ringside opinion. Approximately 15,000 attended the return, many of them openly supporting Greb and expecting the 32-year-old Pittsburgh veteran to regain the championship through the relentless pressure which had characterised his career. Referee Jim Crowley voted for Greb, but judges Charles F. Mathison and Harold Barnes preferred Flowers, giving the champion the required 2-1 decision.

The contest was rough from the beginning and did not develop into a clean exhibition of orthodox boxing. Greb pressed forward in his familiar fashion, attempting to force Flowers into a close-range fight in which speed, work rate and physical pressure might overcome the southpaw champion’s more measured approach. Flowers repeatedly had to alter his tactics as Greb rushed, wrestled and worked at close quarters, but contemporary United Press reporting noted that the former champion’s attacks lacked some of the force associated with his earlier years. Flowers was the steadier of the two, recovering his position whenever Greb disturbed his rhythm and continuing to score sufficiently often to keep the rounds close. There were no knockdowns.

The surviving reports disagree substantially on individual rounds, demonstrating how difficult the contest was to score. Regis Welsh of the Pittsburgh Post had Greb winning the first, second, sixth, eighth and each of the last five rounds, with Flowers taking the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth and two rounds even. Other observers saw a very different fight. The New York Sun scored Flowers ahead by seven rounds to four with four even, while the Brooklyn Times gave Flowers six rounds, Greb four and called five even. United Press correspondent Henry Farrell had Flowers ahead 7-6-2, and an International News Service report credited the champion with ten of the 15 rounds. The New York Times, New York Daily News, Brooklyn Daily Eagle and Brooklyn Citizen were also among the newspapers which considered Flowers the winner.

What emerges consistently from the contemporary accounts is that Greb remained the more aggressive man but no longer possessed quite the same sustained effectiveness that had carried him through so many demanding contests. He continued driving at Flowers and trying to make the fight disorderly, but aggression alone did not settle the issue. Flowers remained composed enough to score while Greb came forward, and he re-established his boxing after many of the rough exchanges. United Press described Flowers as fighting consistently despite repeatedly having to adjust to Greb’s rushing tactics. The former champion continued to work and, according to those who favoured him, finished strongly enough to deserve the decision. Still, several New York writers believed his attacks were less damaging than their quantity suggested.

The disagreement was especially sharp because Greb remained an enormously popular figure in New York. When Crowley announced that Mathison and Barnes had voted for Flowers and that the referee himself had sided with Greb, sections of the crowd reacted angrily. Straw hats and newspapers were thrown into the ring, and the decision was loudly protested. Greb himself was emphatic afterwards that he believed he had won. Gene Tunney, who knew both men well and watched from ringside, also regarded the verdict as unjust. Yet experienced New York referee Patsy Haley thought the decision correct, and the majority of the principal New York newspaper verdicts, as recorded in the surviving record, favoured Flowers. The controversy was therefore genuine, but it cannot accurately be described simply as a robbery against Greb.

The championship had passed between two extraordinarily experienced fighters. Greb had defeated Flowers in their first meeting, a ten-round non-title contest in Fremont, Ohio, in August 1924, although even that verdict produced divided newspaper opinion. Flowers then defeated him for the middleweight championship in February 1926 before agreeing to this return. The third meeting therefore completed a rivalry in which styles and personalities were difficult to separate. Greb’s ceaseless movement, rushing and rough inside work had troubled Flowers repeatedly, but Flowers’ southpaw stance, steadier scoring and ability to maintain his method under pressure again persuaded two of the three officials that he had done enough.

The decision proved to be the final appearance of Greb’s remarkable career. He announced his retirement afterwards. Only weeks later his damaged right eye was removed, and on 22 October he underwent an operation in Atlantic City for injuries to his nose and respiratory tract. He died from complications on 22 October 1926, aged 32. Flowers’ reign was also nearing its end. He lost the middleweight championship to Mickey Walker on 3 December of the same year and died in November 1927 following an operation, aged only 32. Their final contest at Madison Square Garden consequently became more significant than could have been known that evening: two of the outstanding middleweights of the period completed their rivalry in a fight which remained debated long after the crowd had finished throwing its hats into the ring.

The third Flowers vs Greb fight tells you plenty about both men. Greb was still Greb in spirit, rushing, mauling, making everything uncomfortable, but by 1926 he wasn’t quite the force he had been. Flowers had already beaten him for the title six months earlier and, whatever people thought of that first decision, he knew how to deal with Greb’s pressure.

This one was close and messy, and I can understand why plenty at ringside fancied Greb. But I don’t buy the idea that Flowers got a gift. A lot of the New York press had him winning, and that matters. Greb was the aggressor, but aggression isn’t the same as clean scoring.

For me, Flowers deserved credit for keeping his head against one of the most awkward fighters who ever lived. Greb made fights ugly on purpose. Flowers found enough order in the chaos to nick it again.