"I was in in Panama a few years ago, with Kid Norfolk, the coloured heavyweight, and champion of the Isthumus. The kid had licked them all and was taking it easy, as is his custom.
Things were getting a little monotonous when suddenly word slipped about the little republic that Harry Wills of New Orleans was in the country. Norfolk packed his grip and left for the United States. He made no bones about why he was leaving. Simply stated he was not in the New Orleans mans class.

Wills took on several heavyweights imported there as a source of amusment for the sport-hungry Americans and Panamanians and then the crop failed.
Sam Langford was brought down for a try-out with Wills. They fought twice. Langford took the full count both times from punches delivered in the region of the stomach. Sam lay on the floor and writhed in aparent agony for 5 or 10 minutes and the crowd on each occasion yelled 'Fake!!".

Harry's wife was there for the first meeting. She is a nice-looking coloured woman and seemed to be entirely of the opinion that her husband would shelve 'The Tar Baby' and so expressed herself to the crowd in unmeasured terms. She went about with a wad of good sized bills betting on her husband. Sam had a lot of supporters and when the end came pork and beans were assured for the Wills family for an indefinite period.

When the two men stepped into the ring it looked like a fight between an aberdeen angus bull and a cougar. Wills looked entirely too ready for the Boston gentleman and he stepped right up and stabbed Langford inummerable times in the face. This seemed to only irrate Sam and he made a move to clinch but Wills side-stepped and slapped him again with great earnestness. None of these things pleased the Tar Baby and he referred to Wills unbecomingly and he tossed an uppercut towards Wills chin, the intention of which was in no way disguised. This seemed to bring Wills to a realisation that Sam was cross about something and he wrapped himself around his opponent in such a manner that the referee, who was a very able-bodied citizen, could hardly pry them apart.

As they were seperated Sam looked at the crowd and smiled. Wills did not think this was the right thing for Samuel to do and expressed his indignation by cutting his eye open. My, but did Sam act ugly for a while. But he cooled down later and stood like a block of Vermont granite and took the jabs offered by Wills with becoming dignity. This sort of thing kept up for six rounds, then Harry reached down in his shoe and pulled forth a blow that looked like a streak of sunlight. His hand disapeared in Langford's midriff and Sam doubled up and fell flat on his face on the floor. He did not put out his hands to protect himself. His hands were as useless as a pair of worn-out socks and about as limp. He made serveral ineffectual efforts to rise. He did succeed in getting to his corner some 10 minutes later, with the help of Wills, the referee and two physicians, which showed great will-power.
Sam said the blow was a foul.

The second fight, fought a month later, was about the same as the first, with the exception that Sam did not collect Wills knuckles until the 7th round, but the effect was the same. Sam gathered his end of the purse after this fight and placing it in his pocketbook left the Isthumus.

I saw both fights. They may have been faked. I am not capable of judging, but Wills attitude during the fights and after them struck me very favourably. He is quiet, reserved and very polite outside of the ring. I believe that if Wills and Dempsey were to ever meet Dempsey will have his championship crown knocked into the Great Lakes."

(by Sid Smith - The Gazette Times - Oct 8, 1922)

.........

Sam Langford often fought the same opponents over and over as was typical of coloured boxers at the time. Langford and Wills tangled at least seventeen times (up to twenty-two times by some sources) between 1914 and 1922. They knocked each other out twice and Wills generally had the better of the series, although it must be noted that the first meeting occurred when Langford was 31 years old.

The first Wills v Langford fight was a 10-round newspaper decision win for Langford. The rematch (pictured here) in November 1914 and second fight in their long series went like this -
"With a left swing to the jaw, Sam Langford of Boston knocked out Harry Wills from New Orleans, in the fourteenth round of a scheduled twenty-round fight this afternoon at Vernon. Both men were knocked down repeatedly, Langford himself taking the count four times in the first two rounds. Langford early in the fight hurt his left ankle as he fell to the mat in a vicious breakaway. Wills' effective straight-arm drives gave him an apparent even break in most of the rounds, but Langford fought with a superior knowledge of the game that gradually wore out Wills. As the soreness left Langford's injured ankle, his footwork improved and the twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth rounds showed Langford winning. His speed, judgment and force then enabled him to play with Wills. The final swing was delivered after a torrent of blows had left Wills staggering." (Indianapolis Star)

Langford had more than ten fights each against Sam McVey, Joe Jeannette, Jim Barry, Jeff Clark, and Bill Tate.

After over three hundred recorded bouts, Sam Langford retired in 1926 at the age of 43. In his last years in the ring, he was troubled by eye problems which eventually resulted in blindness. In 1944, Al Laney of the New York Herald Tribune decided to write a story about Langford, but he had trouble finding him. Several people suggested that Langford was probably dead, but Laney persisted and finally found Langford living at a rooming house on 139th Street in New York City. Langford had 20 cents in his pocket. Shortly after Laney's story was published, a fund was set up for Langford. As a result, he lived relatively comfortably for the rest of his days. Langford passed away suffering from diabetes on January 12, 1956 at a private nursing home in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Harry Wills retired from boxing in 1932, also at the age of 43, and ran a successful real estate business in Harlem, New York. He was known for his yearly fast, in which, once a year, he would live on only water for a month. Wills died, ironically also from diabetes, on December 21, 1958. He left an estate valued at over $100,000, including a 19-family apartment building in upper Harlem. His biggest regret in life was never getting the opportunity to fight Jack Dempsey for the World Title.

"The facts clearly show that in 1926 I tried desperately to arrange a fight with Harry Wills but the deal collapsed when my guarantee was not forthcoming. Wills and I had signed to fight with a promoter named Floyd Fitzsimmons of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Wills, I understand, received fifty thousand dollars as his guarantee for signing the contract. I was to have received one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars in advance of the fight. As the date of the fight grew nearer and my money did not appear, I became anxious and asked Fitzsimmons what was the matter. He wired me to meet him in Dayton, Ohio, assuring me that he would have the money for me there. I met Fitzsimmons in Dayton who handed me a certified check for twenty-five thousand dollars and a promise to let me have the balance almost immediately. I balked at that, demanding the full amount right away. Fitzsimmons tried to placate me by calling the bank where he said he had deposited the money. The bank, unfortunately for Fitzsimmons, informed him that it did not have that much money on hand, that there wasn’t enough to cover the twenty-five thousand dollar check he had given me. Furious, I returned the check to Fitzsimmons and told him the fight was off. Later, the Fitzsimmons syndicate financing the fight sued me for failure to honor a contract. I won the case."

(Jack Dempsey speaking in 1950)

"During my training (for Fireman Jim Flynn  - 1912) Harry Wills appeared on the scene, seeking a place as a sparring partner. I engaged him, but he remained only for a few days. He proved wholly unable to stand the grind and was compelled to acknowledge that the ordeal was too much for him. He returned to New Orleans." - Jack Johnson

1920

Harry Greb

Greb - Walker

NEW YORK - JULY 2,1925

Harry Greb (R) shakes hands with Mickey Walker after signing the deal to fight for Greb's Middleweight Title

(enhanced photo courtesy of CBS contributor JTheron)

Bagley

"It my first fight with Greb. I had taken a frightful beating. Awful. But the next morning my then-manager Doc Bagley said 'You certainly gave me a hard time last night, kid. Working on those cuts. It was rough.' While Bagley talked to me, the doctor was sewing up my eyebrows with a big needle. It felt as if he were pulling my eyeballs out. 'Yes,' I told Bagley, 'you had it rough.' But in my mind I said, 'I'm going to get rid of this fellow.'

(Gene Tunney)

Oct 28, 1920.

"Harry Greb, light-heavyweight of Pittsburgh, won the newspaper decision over Mickey Shannon of Newark N.J. in their ten round bout here Thursday night. Greb scored a knockdown in the ninth round, but Shannon recovered and was able to stay the limit." (Decatur Daily Review) The Pittsburgh Post reported that Greb went in and simply traded blows with the heavier Shannon, making little effort at defense. Shannon held his own in the first round and clearly won the second. Greb handed out a lot of punishment in the next four rounds. Shannon rallied in the 7th, but Greb fought back and cut his eye. Greb socked Shannon all over the ring in the last three rounds, flooring him for a 3-count in the 9th. Shannon was badly marked at the end.

And these are the gloves that Greb wore...

An epic comeback by Harry Greb in his 1923 fight with Soldier Jones.

..........

The first round began with Greb forcing the fight while Jones “missed with lefts and rights.” Greb hooked lefts and rights to the body and face while Jones continued to miss. According to the Pittsburgh Post, “Both were swinging wild and Jones sent a left to the chin, which backed Greb up to the ropes. Jones hooked a left to the head and Greb went down.” It was just one minute into the first round. Being blind in his right eye, he probably didn’t even see the left punch coming. While he was being counted out, Greb “lolled and rolled about on the lower ropes.” While the count continued Greb was able to “regain his feet after a count of eight and wobble about like a drunken man.” Jones continued his attack “and another right caught Greb’s chin.” Greb went down again, this time holding on to Jones’s legs. Referee Joe Keally had counted to four when Greb finally staggered to his feet. Greb went in for a clinch to try to clear his head. While Greb was still “groggy” Jones landed two more left hooks. Mason called for Greb from a corner since he was “staggering and did not know which corner to go to.”

In between rounds Greb sat “limp” on his chair while Mason tried to revive him. “Mason worked frantically but wisely over him, rubbed his tired legs back into life, massaged his ears and brought color back into his pale face.”  

Greb came out at the start of the second round still blinking, tired and groggy, but slowly recovering due to the help of his manager. After a minute of the round Greb had seemingly recovered, and it looked like he would survive. Then Jones landed two more left hooks to the head which rocked Greb again. Greb went in for a clinch then later landed a left and right of his own. These punches were able to delay Jones’s attack until the bell rang to end the round.  

When in his corner Greb was silent, but then halfway through the rest time he began to “straighten up in his chair and began talking to Mason.” When the third round started the crowd was “standing on chairs, yelling and howling for Greb.” This seemed to refresh Greb, who then “began moving, swinging, jabbing, hooking and throwing with both hands.” With one of the best chins in boxing history, Greb had shaken off the cobwebs and finally recovered. Throughout the third round his energy continued to replenish itself with Greb throwing “right and left overhand punches to Jones’ head and face.” Near the end of the third round Greb threw a punch that caused a “gaping cut” over Jones’s right eye. The third round was awarded to Greb.  

By round four Greb was not only fully recovered but was dominating Jones. He was even able to stagger Jones with a right to the chin. The Post wrote: “Greb was battering Jones to all sides of the ring at the bell. It was a terrific round and Greb had a big margin, sending Jones to his corner with his right eye closed.” Now, unbeknown to most people, both boxers were fighting with only one eye.  

For the rest of the fight Greb proceeded to punish Jones so badly it was described as “a slaughter.” Greb landed twenty unanswered punches in the fifth round, and by the sixth round “Jones was wobbling around. It was another round for Greb and Jones seemed more tired even than Greb was in the first two rounds.” By the seventh Jones was “leg weary” and only managed to land two blows. Greb was back to his normal self and was completely dominating his opponent, who was staggering around groggily. At the end of the round the referee had to ask Jones if he wanted to continue. In round eight “Greb hooked a hard right to Jones’ chin and Jones went down for the count of nine, Jones arose and seemed helpless as Greb pounded.”  

Jones continued to stagger around at the start of round nine. During the round Greb punished Jones severely, “which made the soldier’s face a mass of blood.” Jones had one eye closed while blood flowed from his nose and mouth. The tenth round was much the same. When the fight ended Greb had lost the first two rounds but won the remaining eight in a very one-sided finish. It was said to be one of the biggest massacres Greb had dished out. A headline in the Post the next day read, “Pittsburgh’s great boxer displays wonderful gameness and recuperative powers. Tears into Soldier Jones, earning verdict by taking last eight rounds.”

(by Bill Paxton)

Sept 2, 1920 -

Dempsey tackled Bill Tate, Harry Greb and Marty Farrell in sparring this afternoon. He took them on in that order, boxing two rounds with Tate and three each with Greb and Farrell. The bout with Greb was a real one. It was the best work-out Dempsey has had. The Pittsburgher was in prime shape, and although he weighs only 165 pounds he gave the champion a real honust-to-goodness battle. Dempsey hasn't seen so many gloves in a long time as Greb showed him. Greb was all over him and kept forcing him around the ring throughout the session. Dempsey could do but little with the speedy light heavyweight, while Greb seemed to be able to hit Dempsey almost at will. Time and again Greb made the champion miss with his famous right and left hooks to the head and countered with heavy swings to the head and hooks to the body.

Greb was a veritable whirlwind. Twenty-five pounds lighter than the champion and about four inches shorter, Harry made the champion step lively. He had to jump off the floor to hit Dempsey in the head when the latter was standing straight, but managed to do it and landed without leaving himself open to Jack's snappy hooks and short swings. One of the most notable things about Dempsey's boxing is the fact that he is not hitting as straight as he did in Toledo. This is not a particularly good sign. Why he should hook and swing his blows more is a mystery. He can hit straight when he wants to, and when he does his blows carry a wealth of power behind them, for the champion knows how to put his powerful shoulders behind his punches and how also to get the necessary asistance from his legs by rising to the ball of the rearward foot when the punch gets over. It may be that Dempsey does not care to hit straight from the shoulder, fearing to punish his partners too severly.


Sept 3, 1920 -

Dempsey sparred three sessions with Harry Greb, Pittsburgh lightweight, and another trio with Marty Farrell, Pacific Coast middleweight. Miske felt the lack of capable sparring mates and he was compelled to set the pace himself. He stepped the first two rounds with George Wilson, a negro heavyweight, the second two with Jack Heinen.

Early in the third round Greb's head collided with Dempsey's mouth, cutting the champion's tongue so severly that he spat blood for the remainder of the round.

The Pittsburgher was in fine fettle after the excellent showing he made against the champion. He was full of pep. With the call of time signalizing the beginning of activities, Greb promptly rushed Dempsey. The onslaught was so sudden that Jack was caught off his guard and it took a solid left hook into the body, plied with all the force at Greb's command, which is considerable, to jolt Dempsey into action. Then the fur began to fly.

It was a whirlwind three rounds that these two fighters staged for the edification of the biggest crowd that has yet shoe-horned its way into the grandstand at the baseball park in front of which the ring is built. There were fully 2,000 people present, and they were treated to as much action in those three rounds as is usually crowded into eight of a real bout.

The bout caused the crowd to burst into cheers and prolonged applasuse. In fact, during the intermission between the second and third rounds Ted Hayes, who acts as announcer at the Dempsey camp, was compelled to request the spectators to refrain from urging either of the men to greater efforts.

Although Dempsey insists that his wind is perfect and that he is not troubled by shortness of breath while working out, to those who have studied him closely it appears as if his wind might be in better shape. He was puffing very hard after boxing Greb. Of course, it was an unusually fast workout, but it seemed to take him longer than it should to recover his wind even after so strenuous a session.


Sept 4, 1920 -

Harry Greb, looking as chipper as ever in his U.S. Navy Jersey and his black tights, climbed into the ring to take Dempsey over the jumps for two rounds of three minutes each.

Just as soon as they squared off it was apparent that there was to be none of the continuous slam-bang stuff which had accompanied their previous engagements. Greb did not rush the champion and they feinted and pranced about for a full minute before either made a real lead. Toward the close of the round they met near mid-ring and there was a sharp exchange of body punches. The second round was a little livelier, but it wasn't a cyclone, and the crowd was somewhat dissappointed. The fans had expected to see more of a real battling than had featured the jousts between these two.

"Doc Kearns, who was managing Jack Dempsey, refused to let his tiger in the ring with Harry Greb. They did spar on two occasions. The first time was when Dempsey was getting ready for his title defense against Billy Miske in Benton Harbor, Michigan. Greb ripped into dempsey, punching the heaveyweight champion as he pleased, until Kearns finally threw him out of the ring for being too rough."

"It is not generally known however, that Greb and Dempsey did actually meet in the ring. It was at Jack's Atlantic City training camp. They were to box four rounds with sixteen ounce training gloves. Jack Kearns refereed. Harry came snorting out of his corner raising hell with the heaveyweight champion's middle. Dempsey looked confused, he hesitated about throwing punches at first. But he became desperate along about the second round and started putting ginger behind his left hooks. But Greb raced around so fast and poked so many jabs into Jack's face that the great Mauler couldn't land one solid wallop during the entire exhibition. The next day, in bold black type the size off an egg, some papers carried the headline "GREB MAKES DEMPSEY LOOK LIKE A KITTEN."


(Quotes taken from - New York Times / The Washington Post / Ring Magazine / Boxing and Wrestling Magazine)

"He has just lost another run-of-the-mill fight out there in the great dining room, where the ring is set among drink-laden tables, where dinner-suited spectators watch him struggle. He can't understand it : "The other fella never laid a glove on me. That ref never done me any favours, I can tell you." His body aches for rest and he has a face that's full of bruises.

He was up at six o'clock that morning, did half a day's work, met his manager in the afternoon, climbed into the car and came from Liverpool to London, stopping for a bite of something lousy on the motorway. Didn't get to the hotel until half past seven, went in the ring at half past ten. Now it's past eleven. He's a loser in London and home is in Liverpool.

The pursemoney - £100 - won't stretch to the cost of a room in that hotel for the night. Besides, he's due back at work in the factory in the morning. So, get changed, stuff the gear in the holdall, throw it in the boot, curl up on the back seat of the manager's old banger and try and grab some sleep on the long grind up the motorway.

He is back in the house as dawn breaks. Wake up the wife with the embarrassing admission once again: "Yeah, I lost..but that ref doesn't know what day it is." Breakfast, clock-on for work and go through the same excuses.

Perhaps somewhere on that grim night journey north a cold voice inside him whispered "This is how it's always going to be. don't kid yourself. You're never going to be a champion. There's never going to be stardom, money, headlines. You're a loser."

Later that week, the manager's on the phone to him "I've got this offer for another fight down south in ten days time. Only a hundred quid, but I think you can take this guy. They tell me he's just a raw beginner. You can handle him. Fancy it ??"

Yes, he fancies it. This one will be different. He has to believe in miracles."

Jack Hurley, the tall, thin, caustic manager and promoter who has a genius for developing mediocre fighters into rich ones, began snooping around for another boxer. Into his office one day in 1949 walked a skinny middleweight named Harry Matthews, who had won 67 out of 70 fights on the West Coast, had been fighting for 12 years and had succeeded only in getting deep into debt. Hurley agreed to take him on for his usual 50%. Matthews screamed in anguish. "Listen, young man," said Hurley, "you've been boxing for 12 years and you've made exactly nothing. Now, 50% of nothing is nothing. You don't know how lucky you are. What is happening is that you are getting 50% of me."

Hurley watched his new gladiator work out and was appalled. "He got all his ideas from amateurs. It's a wonder he hadn't been seriously hurt. His idea of how to defend himself was to grab and run. That's all he knew. He didn't even know how to eat. He'd eat two meals a day. I said, "if you were a truck driver, would you eat like that?' He said, 'No, driving a truck is hard work. If I were a truck driver, I'd eat like one.' I said to him, 'Let me tell you something, young man. If you and I are to stay together, you'll work so hard you'll think truck driving is a soft racket. Don't ever lose sight of the fact that fighting is a hard and brutal business, and you gotta be in shape for it. From now on you eat like a truck driver.' He did, and he finally went up to 182 pounds.

"But oh, he was such a bad fighter at first. He couldn't punch, he couldn't take a punch. He was an agony fighter. Looking at a fighter that can't punch is like kissing your mother-in-law."

Hurley brought Matthews along slowly and one night put him into the ring with a carefully selected opponent who had had only 12 fights and was too light to cope with Matthews. "I figured Matthews would make his name overnight," says Hurley. "He figured to knock the kid out easy. But it went 10 rounds and nobody got hit, although Matthews wins the decision. The next day Matthews comes into the office, and he says, 'How did you like the fight?'

Aug. 21, 1924 : Fremont, Ohio, USA

"In a well-noted and controversial contest for such a local show, the world middleweight champion Harry Greb met the "colored" scrambler Tiger Flowers for a 10-round bout in the small metropolis of Fremont, Ohio, and the "Georgia Deacon" so confused the "master boxer" Greb with a style reminiscent of Greb's own, but from a southpaw, that the fight descriptions varied dramatically. The defensive skills of both men gave some the impression that one or the other was having no effect with his powerful attacks. The results were portrayed as a "no decision" by some while other reporters gave as many as 8 rounds to the white man, yet the champ himself commented following the bout, "Flowers is the greatest boxer I ever faced in the ring. He can beat heavyweight champion Jack Dempsey in a contest of 10 rounds," as quoted by B.W. Dickerson, a referee and sports editor for the Grand Rapids Herald. Wire reports published the next day affirmed the view that Greb had controlled the action, but Greb's admissions otherwise were well-circulated, too. Based on this battle, Flowers would rise to challenge Greb for a title shot in February of 1926, when the African-American would wrest the crown from the supposed "master" by decision after a fierce 15 rounds in Madison Square Garden, and then successfully defend it against him six months later in the same venue. Neither of these decisions was popular among those in attendance, nor in the press afterwards, and Tiger Flowers's triumphs are little known today." (Western States Ticket Service)

*despite the headline from the associated press, this was a non-title fight.

The story of Harry Haft who was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp in WW2, surviving by winning bare-knuckle fights in which the loser died during the fight or was executed. Eventually he escaped the camp and his life brought him to professional boxing and eventually meeting Rocky Marciano in the ring.

....................

"Harry Haft was born in Poland in 1925. “It was anything but good fortune to be born a Jew in Poland in 1925,” wrote his son. “Harry would think back on his birth as his first act of survival in an increasingly miserable time.”

One of eight children, Haft was sturdy and strong from the day he was born.  His mother, who was so heavy she did not even know she was pregnant with him, was working over a basin when he dropped from her body, landing headfirst on the floor.
His father died when he was three years old, and from the time he was a youngster, the wide-shouldered and extremely muscular fatherless Haft had a fiery temper, which was displayed mostly against anti-Semitic youths. Early on it was obvious that if provoked, he had no qualms about finishing arguments with his massive fists.

In 1939, when he was 14 years old, Haft witnessed the German occupation of Poland. Under Nazi occupation, Haft together with his older brother ran a smuggling business.
In 1941, Haft was deported to Auschwitz because he was Jewish.
Because of his strong physical stature an SS overseer trained him to be a boxer, and had him compete at fights to the death in front of the military personnel. The fights took place at the concentration camp Jaworzno, which was situated at a coal mine north of Auschwitz. Haft fought 76 fights at this concentration camp. When the camp in Jaworzno was dissolved because of the advancing Soviet Red Army, the inmates were sent on death marches.
Having witnessed countless acts of horrific sadism, Haft made his escape. He stole the uniform and weapon of a German soldier whom he had killed with his bare hands. He then tried to pass himself off as a lost soldier to an elderly German couple who he encountered at their farmhouse. When they suspected—or he thought they suspected—that he might not be who he said he was, he feared that they would turn him into authorities. Knowing he would be tortured or killed if that occurred, Haft shot them to death without giving it a second thought.
After eventually journeying to America, via the assisstance of American liberators, Haft arrived in New York and began boxing out of desperation.
While boxing in America, Haft encountered even more problems, especially when gangsters Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo tried to take control of his career. He won his first twelve fights, but lost against a more experienced boxer in Westchester County Center on 5 January 1949. After this loss, his career never recovered. His final fight was against Rocky Marciano, on 18 July 1949 in Rhode Island Auditorium, in what was Marciano's 18th professional fight. Haft claimed that he was threatened by the Mafia and forced to throw the fight against Marciano.

As Haft warmed up in the dressing room, he said three men entered and threatened to kill him if he did not go down in round one. After they departed, Haft asked his manager what he should do. The manager just shrugged his shoulders and said he did not know.
Having already survived Nazi death camps, the undeterred Haft refused to go along. An article in the Providence Journal described him as “a rusher with very little style,” and said that he “landed the first good punch of the fight, a hard right to Marciano’s midsection.”
Marciano hurt Haft in the second with a right hand that sent him reeling into the ropes. Two follow-up lefts had Haft groggy at the bell.
“Two hard punches to Haft’s head—a left and a right—were Marciano’s openers in the third,” reported John Hanlon in the Journal. “At the halfway mark, Haft rallied briefly. But it was too late.”
Marciano hit Haft with a left to the gut that he followed up with his fabled right hand. Haft was finished. According to the Journal, he “received a fine reception as he left the ring.”

After his loss to Marciano, Haft retired. He married in  1949 and opened a fruit and vegetable store in Brooklyn.
In April 2007, Haft was included in the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. He died in November of the same year, aged 82.


(Wikipedia / Robert Mladinich)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUpPcz6WR28

They met in mid-ring and Greb sent a right to the body. Greb blocked left and right and when Walker insisted on mauling at close quarters, Greb gave him some of his own medicine. Walker sent a left swing low. Walker outslugged Greb at close quarters and Greb broke up his attack by forcing him to the ropes , holding with his left and pummeling with his right to the body, landing solidly, Greb suddenly stood his ground and traded punch for punch with walker, making mickey back up. A right to the head almost sent mickey to the floor. It was a great slugging bee and had the crowd cheering. They continued the furious fighting until the bell. It was another Walker round, on his clean punching. Greb's seconds worked furiously on his arms and legs during the intermission.