Joe Louis: the Rise and Fall of the Brown Bomber by Thomas Myler

Author:Thomas Myler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pitch Publishing
Published: 2019-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Round 7

Night of revenge

As champion and challenger made their way to the ring, there were cheers from the crowd of just over 45,000. Under his red-trimmed blue bathrobe, Louis wore purple trunks with the initials JL embroidered on them. As a tribute to his Irish heritage, Braddock wore a green satin robe with a white shamrock on the back. At the morning weigh-in, both boxers had scaled 197lb. Louis was a 2/1 favourite.

Spectators stood on seats and craned their necks to get a glimpse of celebrities from movies, including Al Jolson, James Cagney, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Edward G. Robinson, Cab Calloway, Bing Crosby, Clark Gable, George Raft, Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson and Mae West.

Introduced from the ring were boxing stars past and present such as Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Battling Nelson, Willie Ritchie, John Henry Lewis, Sixto Escobar and Barney Ross. A notable absentee was Louis’ severest critic, Jack Johnson. After referee Tommy Thomas gave instructions to the principals, they went back to their corners to await the first bell. Jack Blackburn whispered to Louis, ‘Tonight, “Chappie”, you come home the champ.’ Braddock, sitting on his stool across the ring, made the sign of the cross with his gloved right hand.

Braddock took the fight to Louis from the start, jabbing before going into a clinch. Braddock tried a right cross but Louis narrowly avoided it, snapping out his left hand, once, twice, three times. Suddenly, coming out of a clinch, Braddock landed a chopping right to the chin and the challenger sank to the canvas as the crowd roared. Louis was up at the count of two and backed away to clear his head. ‘He got up so quick, I guess I was surprised,’ Braddock remembered. ‘By the time I got to him, he had recovered. I went into the attack and tried to land another shot but he was moving away, and I guess that’s where I lost the fight.’

Louis recalled, ‘Blackburn told me later that I should have stayed down and taken advantage of the count. But I guess I was in a hurry. I just got up and went at it. The knockdown made me mad. He was a good right-hand puncher but my head was always clear. Before the bell, I staggered him with a left hook and a right cross.’

Braddock had a good second round too, keeping the pressure on Louis, but he sustained a bad cut over his left eye shortly before the bell. By the third round, Louis was beginning to take control of the fight with snappy left jabs and stinging hooks and uppercuts. By the fourth, Braddock’s energy seemed to be running out and he was missing more than he was landing.

‘After that, I got hit by more punches than in my prior 87 fights,’ he remembered. ‘Because I never got hit so much, I never was cut up so bad. I got 23 stitches in my face that night. He hit me in one of the later rounds and drove one of my teeth through the mouthpiece and straight through the lip.

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