Is crunch a special or physical attack?

Question

I know on the site it says its physical but I used it with Tyranitar on Fire Red and Mirror Coat worked after it so now I'm confused.

Answer 1

In generation three games, like sapphire, ruby, emerald, fire red, and leaf green, Crunch is a special move. In generation 1-3, a move being physical or special is based solely on it's type. Like shadow ball was physical because it was a ghost type. Crunch is physical in generation 4 because They changed it to be based on the attack itself.

So

gen 3-special
gen 4-physical