The Fearless Harry Greb by Bill Paxton

Author:Bill Paxton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2013-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

Greb was then put in a cell until the mayor of the town could give him a hearing. The article went on to describe how, when Greb was finally released, the fighting continued. “When Harry was released, he made a rush at Thomas and with a smash on the jaw dazed the officer.”8 Greb and the giant policeman were then separated.

By early August, Greb was staying at the Conneaut Lake Camp full time and more people were brought in to help him prepare. A couple of his sisters and their families also stayed there for a while. Greb’s sister Ida was taking care of his daughter, so Dorothy was brought there too. Many newspapers sent cameramen up to the camp to take pictures and get stories because this was expected to be the middleweight fight that transferred the title. Everyone wanted to find out what the possible future World Middleweight Champion was doing to get ready.

The title fight was to take place on August 31 in New York. A couple of weeks before the fight Greb and his training group changed locations. On August 19 everyone left Pennsylvania and traveled to a new temporary training camp at Manhasset, Long Island. Greb’s sisters and daughter also traveled to the new camp.

Greb stepped up his training a notch and really gave it his all. Some of the techniques he used were sparring, using the medicine ball, jumping rope, running and punching a sandbag. After a long day of training in the hot sun, Greb needed to stay hydrated. Mason had been around the boxing game for many decades and had picked up a lot of old tricks. One of Mason’s unique methods of cooling off a boxer after a hard training session was to use his famous “Chinese Spray.” It consisted of filling his mouth with water and then spitting a spray of it onto the boxer’s face. The boxing commissioners had told him not to do it in the ring corner any more because it was unsanitary. Even during a fight Mason would spray his fighters returning to the corner after a hard round. The fighters welcomed it and found it refreshing. It was said that friends would frequently yell in the ring, “Give him Niagara Falls, Red!”9 and it would be part of the show.

After an extensive and successful training camp it was finally time for the fight. The bout was scheduled for fifteen rounds at New York’s Polo Grounds. Greb’s outdoor training made a lot of sense because this bout was to take place in the open air. The Polo Grounds was the home of the New York Giants baseball team, and was an incredibly large stadium now ready to host the middleweight championship fight.

The bout took place the night of August 31, 1923. First, however, there was an official weigh-in that afternoon. Both fighters weighed 158 pounds and Greb was expected to drink enough liquids to bring his weight up to 162 pounds when he stepped into the ring.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.