100 Years Ago Today: Tiger Flowers Takes The World Middleweight Crown From Harry Greb

Talk about one heck of an awesome clash of legends. On this day, a full century ago, two all-time greats went to war with the world middleweight title on the line. In a return bout, world champ Harry Greb met Tiger Flowers, the venue Madison Square Garden in New York.

15 hard rounds later, Flowers was the new king. Flowers edged a starting to fade Greb – the inevitable fade coming after almost 300, yes, almost 300 pro fights – and the warrior who was born in Georgia made history by becoming the first African-American to hold the world middleweight title. However, some felt, and some historians still feel, Greb was hard done by on the official cards.

Upon entering the ring that night with his southpaw challenger and old ring acquaintance, Greb – for some people one of the top two or three greatest fighters in history – was a mind-boggling 263-17-17. Flowers had also notched up big numbers, his current record being an also hard to believe 108-15-5. The previous year, Greb had boxed, insanely, 25 times, as had Flowers! For sure, the sport was a whole lot different back then.

Greb, known by a couple of nicknames, including “The Smoke City Wildcat,” and “The Pittsburgh Windmill,” had ruled as world middleweight champ since August of 1923, when he had defeated Jonny Wilson by 15-round decision. Since then, Greb had been in with the likes of Tommy Loughran, Gene Tunney, Kid Norfolk, and Flowers. Greb’s wars are legendary, and win, lose or draw, the iron man who seemed to have almost limitless stamina thrilled his fans.

Flowers, just a few months younger than Greb at age 31, was getting his first shot at becoming world champion. Flowers had lost two fights that saw him challenge for the world coloured light-heavyweight title, one of these losses coming at the hands of common opponent Norfolk. Flowers had also cut his teeth in battles with the likes of Sam Langford, Eddie Palmer, Jamaica Kid, Fireman Jim Flynn, Lee Anderson, Johnny Wilson, and Greb.

Going into the February 26th fight, Greb had been stopped just twice, both times early in his career; in November of 1913, when Joe Chip KO’d him in two, and in December of 1915 when, in a fight with Kid Graves, Greb was “forced to retire after completely fracturing the radius of his left arm.” Flowers had been halted some ten times, included here his KO loss at the hands of the incredible Langford, who was almost completely blind at the time of the fight. Still, Flowers’ toughness, along with his skill, was without question. As Greb found out.

The writer of the day, or one of them, James P. Dawson of The New York Times, described the action as follows:

“A new world middleweight champion was crowned last night in Madison Square Garden when Tiger Flowers, Atlanta negro, slapped, slashed, cuffed and smacked his way to the decision over Harry Greb, Pittsburgh’s human windmill that has become creaky and slow. Flowers slipped into the first world’s title ever to be held by a negro in the middleweight division and the first championship to be held in any class by a negro since the days of Jack Johnson.

“A crowd of 20,000 fight fans saw the spectacle, a crowd which was the second largest ever assembled for a fight in the Garden. It witnessed the passing of the champion after a reign of more than three years and remained to cheer and acclaim a new champion and a just decision.”

It wasn’t just the fighters and their craft that was different back then, as you will have no doubt noticed.

Dawson wrote on, stating that, in his opinion, “there was no reason” for the decision being split, this as “Flowers easily outfought Greb in the only style in which it is possible for anyone to outfight Greb – by out roughing the Pittsburgher, who heretofore has been the marvel of the ring.”

Greb was indeed past his best, yet to repeat, some fans and writers did feel that Flowers was somewhat lucky to have got the decision all those years ago.

Two all-time greats who fought in a completely different, greater, more testing era. Tiger Flowers and Harry Greb, two greats who also met a tragic end, in eerily similar circumstances. Both men were dead at the age of 32, Greb passed in October of 1926, this after having suffered a heart attack whilst being operated on in an effort at repairing his nose and his respiratory tract. Greb had fought whilst suffering from severe vision problems, a stray thumb in a 1921 fight believed to have started the issue. Flowers died in November of 1927, this also on the operating table, as Flowers was undergoing surgery to remove scar tissue from around his eyes.

Tiger Flowers – 5 August 1895 to 16 November 1927.

Harry Greb – 6 June 1894 to 22 October 1926.