Harry Greb: Blind in One Eye, He Memorized the Chart and Beat Gene Tunney

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Edward Henry Greb, the Pittsburgh Windmill, was born in 1894 to a working class family of German descent, turned pro in 1913 and fought 299 times in 13 years. He beat 16 Hall of Fame boxers and was stopped only twice, once because he broke his own arm mid-fight. His swarming, rule-bending style suited an era of newspaper decisions, when state betting laws often barred official judges and ringside sportswriters effectively scored the bouts, so fighters could box constantly at low risk. Greb fought 37 times in 1917 and went 45 and 0 in 1919. In 1921 Kid Norfolk's thumb caught his right eye, tearing the retina; Greb finished and won the fight, but the eye went permanently blind. He told almost no one and passed pre-fight physicals by memorizing the eye chart.

Fighting chest to chest, he read opponents by feel rather than sight. In May 1922 he broke Gene Tunney's nose and won a 15-round decision, the only loss of Tunney's career. Denied a light heavyweight rematch win, he dropped to middleweight and lured champion Johnny Wilson's manager into a title fight by staging drunken nights in speakeasies on colored water, then won the belt in August 1923. He beat Mickey Walker at the Polo Grounds in 1925 despite dehydration and leg cramps, and lost the title to Tiger Flowers in 1926. After his blind eye was replaced with a glass one, he died on October 22, 1926, at 32, of heart failure following nose and airway surgery in Atlantic City. Tunney served as a pallbearer.

• As his left eye also began to fail, Greb grew so afraid of waking in darkness that he slept with the lights on.
• During the Wilson title fight he openly told the referee he was busy gouging Wilson in the eye.
• Legend holds that Greb and Mickey Walker met in a nightclub after their 1925 bout and brawled in the street, with each side claiming victory.
• He ignored the color line and regularly fought top Black contenders including Kid Norfolk, Jack Blackburn and Tiger Flowers.
• He turned down Jack Dempsey's offer to be his chief sparring partner, saying no one could get Dempsey ready to beat Tunney.