It took 3,980 days. But finally, on February 26, 1926, the powers that be in boxing granted another black fighter a chance to challenge for a world title.
The occasion 3,980 days prior was the dethroning of heavyweight champ Jack Johnson by Jess Willard in Havana, Cuba. And Johnson, as you may have heard, had his detractors in the America of a century-plus ago. Assorted fighters, managers and promoters drew the color line, and it took nearly 11 years for another black man to get a chance.
Exactly 100 years ago today, Theodore “Tiger” Flowers got that opportunity, against all-time great middleweight champion Harry Greb, at New York’s Madison Square Garden, and he became not just the first black title challenger since Johnson, but the first black world champion since Johnson, decisioning the 5-to-1 favorite Greb.
There is no footage of the fight – there is, in fact, no known footage of any Greb or Flowers fight.
But based on the written accounts of the time, we aren’t missing much. The Flowers-Greb fight on February 26, 1926 at MSG, the second of their three bouts against each other, was not exactly a classic.
But it is a vital chapter in boxing history, and one that would give way over the next two years to a strikingly similar pair of tragedies.
The exploits of Greb, “The Pittsburgh Windmill”, are legendary. He fought 299 times as a pro and took on most of the best of his era – of any race – from welterweight all the way to heavyweight. Greb handed future heavyweight champ Gene Tunney his only loss and faced the likes of Mickey Walker, Tommy Loughran, Tommy Gibbons and Battling Levinsky. He also frequently called out heavyweight king Jack Dempsey, to no avail.
Oh, and he fought the last five years of his career with a detached right retina – basically a one-eyed fighter.
On August 31, 1923, Greb outpointed Johnny Wilson to become middleweight champ. A year into that reign, on August 21, 1924, he squared off against Flowers – by then rated by The Ring magazine as the top 160lbs contender – in a 10-round non-title bout at Legion Stadium in Fremont, Ohio. It went the distance and there was no official decision rendered, though a slight majority of the ringside media favored Greb, leaving the record books to show a “newspaper decision” in the champ’s favor.
Greb and Flowers were close in age – the former was born in 1894, the latter in 1895 – but Greb had been a fighter far longer, turning pro at 18, whereas Flowers got a late start. “The Georgia Deacon” temporarily relocated from his native southern state to Philadelphia during World War I, learned to box in former light-heavyweight champ Philadelphia Jack O’Brien’s gym, and went pro at 23.
Flowers’ bio in The Boxing Register, the record book of the International Boxing Hall of Fame, contains the line: “A southpaw, Flowers was sometimes called a ‘left-handed Harry Greb’, because of the way he hit opponents with the side of his fist.” Newspaper articles from the time also noted how stylistically similar the fighters were, aside from their stances.
After the non-title fight against Greb, Flowers plowed along as the top middleweight contender, going 34-3-1 with eight newspaper decisions over the next 16 months. (Of course, 34-3-1 would be a full career nowadays.)
Two days before Christmas, 1925, Flowers gave away eight pounds as he took on light heavyweight Mike McTigue in a 10-rounder at MSG. The notes under the result on BoxRec pretty well sum it up: “Referee [Eddie] Purdy voted for Flowers; the two judges (both inexperienced local businessmen) for McTigue. This decision has the reputation of being one of the worst ever rendered.” One of those “inexperienced local businessmen” was department store magnate Bernard Gimbel, whose surname surely conjures shopping-related memories for readers old enough.
That apparent robbery against McTigue was the final push Flowers needed to get his overdue title shot against Greb two months later.
The opening line of James P. Dawson’s ringside report in the February 27, 1926 edition of The New York Times captures the language of the time and the pugilistic action of the evening: “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.”
The article says there were 20,000 fans in the attendance, the second largest crowd ever for a fight at the Garden, though The Boxing Register tabs the attendance at 16,311. The New York Times reported a gate of $105,134.70.
The newspaper report explained that Greb was a 4-to-1 favorite an hour before the fight, but wagers kept coming in on the champ until he was 5-to-1 at the opening bell. Even though their non-title fight a year-and-a-half earlier had been a close one, few were picking Flowers to claim the title.
A round-by-round description of the action beneath the main article in The Times is as close as we’ll come to seeing a fight film of Flowers-Greb.
According to that report, the more accurate Flowers dominated the first round, though “Greb opened a cut over Flowers's left eye with a right as the gong sounded”. In the second round, a head clash left Greb with a matching cut over his left eye.
Flowers got out to a 3-0 lead on the Times scorecard with Greb mostly on defense in the third, but the champ found a degree of rhythm in the fourth and fifth, particularly with a punishing body attack.
From the sixth round on, however, The Georgia Deacon was in command almost the whole way in writer Dawson’s view. The southpaw outmaneuvered Greb and made him miss. He landed jabs and body shots. He clinched when warranted. He popped Greb with right uppercuts inside in the eighth, and froze him with right hooks to the body and head in the ninth.
Greb rallied to an extent in the 11th and 12th, but had little in the tank the final three rounds. The 15th round, as described by The Times: “The men shook hands. Flowers slapped his right to the face and to the body and head as Greb rushed in. Flowers slapped a left and right to the head and almost upset Greb with a right to the jaw. Greb rushed in but was wild. Flowers hooked a left to the body as Greb missed a right to the head. They exchanged lefts to the body and clinched. After falling short with a right to the face, Greb drove a right to the body. Flowers jabbed his left to the face and in a clinch they exchanged rights to the body. Flowers hooked a left to the body and they clinched. They exchanged rights to the face at the final bell.”
While The Times’ Dawson saw it as a lopsided win for Flowers, 11-3-1 in rounds, and a majority of the ringside press agreed that the title should change hands, there were some who scored it a draw or a narrow win for Greb. Officially, it went into the books as a split decision, with referee Ed “Gunboat” Smith, a former heavyweight contender and one-time opponent of Greb’s, scoring for the champ, but he was overruled by judges Tom Flynn and Charles F. Mathison. Nowhere on the internet today could the exact scores be found.
As Dawson summarized: “Flowers easily outfought Greb in the only style in which it is possible for anyone to outfight Greb – by outroughing the Pittsburgher, who heretofore has been the marvel of the ring.” He added, “there is no accounting for the complete reversal of form by Greb other than that he has passed the crest, that even the wonderful physical powers that heretofore were his have weakened, as those of so many other fighters and athletes have weakened in the past under the stress of continued activity. Greb fought like an athlete who is burned out. He had not the sustained speed and stamina and endurance which have carried him to so many glorious victories in the past”.
Apparently, the term “washed” was not in the vernacular a century ago.
Whether the verdict was correct or not, whether Greb was badly faded or not, Flowers made history, becoming the first black world champion since Johnson.
He gave Greb a rematch on August 19, 1926, also at MSG, and again Flowers won a split decision that some observers disagreed with. Greb was among those dissenters, stating: “Well, that was one fight I won if I ever won any.”
Greb promptly announced his retirement at age 32, with a record of 105-8-3 (48 KOs) and 183 no-decisions.
The next time you start feeling sorry for yourself and insist you’re having a lousy year, pause and consider Harry Greb’s 1926.
He lost his middleweight title, then lost the rematch by a decision he felt was unjust. And it gets dramatically worse from there. That September, he had his right eye removed, replaced with a glass substitute. In October, he had surgery in Atlantic City “to repair facial injuries caused by boxing and an auto accident”, The Boxing Register explained. But there were complications during the surgery, and Greb died on the operating table on the afternoon of October 26.
Flowers fought on – after completing his trilogy with Greb, he lost by disqualification in an over-the-weight fight against “Slapsie” Maxie Rosenbloom, lost his title that December in Chicago on a highly controversial decision to Mickey Walker, drew twice with Rosenbloom and fought at least once in every single month until November 1927.
That month, with a professional record of 115-14-6 (53 KOs), with 21 no-decisions and one no-contest, Flowers underwent surgery in New York City to remove scar tissue around his eyes. Just like his rival Greb the year before, he never emerged from that surgery. Flowers died on November 16, 1927, aged 32, the same age Greb was when he died.
Greb is considered by some historians – particularly those who factor in his exploits at higher weights – the greatest middleweight champion ever. In a 1995 article ranking the five best of all-time in each division, The Ring’s Steve Farhood placed Greb third at 160lbs, behind Sugar Ray Robinson and Carlos Monzon and ahead of Stanley Ketchel and Marvin Hagler. Greb was inducted into the IBHOF in 1990’s inaugural class.
Flowers had to wait a little longer, just as he did for a title shot upon becoming the No. 1 contender at middleweight. Greb’s southpaw counterpart entered the hall as part of the class of ’93.
But, hey, Run the Jewels never wrote a rap lyric about Greb.
Flowers was immortalized in 2016’s “Kill Your Masters”, in which fellow Georgian Killer Mike declared: “I’m Jack Johnson, I beat a slave catcher snaggletooth / I’m Tiger Flowers with a higher power, hallelu.”
Ten years ago, Flowers was linked with Johnson through hip-hop. One hundred years ago, he became eternally connected to Johnson in the boxing history books.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
