| Date | June 22, 1937 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Venue | Comiskey Park, Chicago, Illinois | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Title(s) on the line | NYSAC, NBA, and The Ring undisputed heavyweight titles | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tale of the tape | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Result | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Louis won via 8th-round KO | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
James J. Braddock vs. Joe Louis was a professional boxing match contested on June 22, 1937, for the undisputed heavyweight championship. [1] The fight took place at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois.
Braddock had won the title by defeating Max Baer in 1935. Baer was supposed to get a rematch, but the fight never occurred. Baer instead fought the rising contender Joe Louis, and Louis defeated Baer, paving the way for Louis to fight Braddock for the title (although between the Baer fight and this title fight, Louis lost to former champion Max Schmeling). [2] Schmeling was the number one contender at the time, but Louis' management offered Braddock a very generous deal in exchange for the title shot (fearing the if Schmeling won, the Nazis would not allow Louis a title shot). The fight was Braddock's first and only defense and occurred over two years after winning the title. [3]
In the opening round, a close range exchange of punches ended with Louis being knocked down by an uppercut, but eventually recovered. From there the fight slowed down in intensity, and Louis began using his strong jab to take control of the fight, although Braddock proved tough and at times crafty.
By the seventh round, Braddock was hurt and his face was bloodied and swollen. Joe Gould, Braddock's manager wanted to end the fight but the champion convinced him to continue. Shortly after, a powerful left-right combination from Louis send the champion to the ground, and Louis won the fight by way of knockout in the eighth round, and was the new world heavyweight champion. [4]
This fight began an unprecedented reign by Louis that included an over 12-year continuous run as champion, winning 25 consecutive title defenses. Both the duration and number of defenses are records that still stand. Louis would later defeat top contender Max Schmeling by first round knockout the following year, avenging his only loss up to that point. [5]
While the bout was the end of Braddock as a major boxing force, fighting only once after this fight, part of his contract with Louis was to gain a portion of Louis' earnings over the next decade, which proved very lucrative for him. [6]
Confirmed bouts: [7]
Maximilian Adolph Otto Siegfried Schmeling was a German boxer who was heavyweight champion of the world between 1930 and 1932. His two fights with Joe Louis in 1936 and 1938 were worldwide cultural events because of their national associations. Schmeling is the only boxer to win the world heavyweight championship on a foul.
Joseph Louis Barrow was an American professional boxer who competed from 1934 to 1951. Nicknamed "The Brown Bomber", Louis is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential boxers of all time. He reigned as the world heavyweight champion from 1937 until his temporary retirement in 1949. He was victorious in 25 consecutive title defenses, a record for all weight classes. Louis had the longest single reign as champion of any boxer in history.
Arnold Raymond Cream, best known as Jersey Joe Walcott, was an American professional boxer who competed from 1930 to 1953. He held the NYSAC, NBA, and The Ring heavyweight titles from 1951 to 1952, and broke the record for the oldest man to win the title, at the age of 37. That record would hold for over three decades until it was eventually broken in 1994 by 45-year-old George Foreman. Despite holding the world heavyweight title for a relatively short period of time, Walcott was regarded among the best heavyweights in the world during the 1940s and 1950s.
Primo Carnera, nicknamed the Ambling Alp, was an Italian professional boxer and wrestler who reigned as the boxing World Heavyweight Champion from 29 June 1933 to 14 June 1934. He won more fights by knockout than any other heavyweight champion in boxing history.
Maximilian Adelbert Baer was an American professional boxer and the world heavyweight champion from June 14, 1934, to June 13, 1935. He was known in his time as the Livermore Larupper and Madcap Maxie. Two of his fights were rated Fight of the Year by The Ring magazine. Baer was also a boxing referee, and had occasional roles in film and television. He was the brother of heavyweight boxing contender Buddy Baer and father of actor Max Baer Jr. Baer is rated #22 on The Ring magazine's list of 100 greatest punchers of all time.
Boxing in the 1940s in many ways reflected worldwide events that affected other endeavors as well.
The sport of boxing in the 1930s was affected by one of the biggest economic struggles in the history of the United States: the depression era. Because of the suffering American economy, many boxers were offered lower amounts of money causing them to only box for passion. When the decade began, the world Heavyweight title belonged to no one. The sport of boxing suffered because of the lack of money to pay the boxers.
James Walter Braddock was an American boxer who was the world heavyweight champion from 1935 to 1937.
Jack Sharkey was a Lithuanian-American boxer who held the NYSAC, NBA, and The Ring heavyweight titles from 1932 to 1933.
Thomas George Farr was a Welsh boxer from Clydach Vale, Rhondda, nicknamed "The Tonypandy Terror". Prior to 1936, Farr boxed in the light heavyweight division, in which he was the Welsh champion. He became British and Empire heavyweight champion on 15 March 1937. Farr is considered to be one of the greatest British heavyweight fighters ever, and was inducted into the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame in 1997.
Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling refers to either of two separate fights between the two boxers which are among boxing's most famous bouts. Schmeling won the first match in 1936 by a knockout in round 12 and Louis won the second bout in 1938 with a knockout in the first round.
George Godfrey (II) The Leiperville Shadow was the ring name of Feab Smith Williams, a heavyweight boxer from the state of Alabama who fought from 1919 to 1937. He named himself after George "Old Chocolate" Godfrey, a Black Canadian boxer from the bare-knuckle boxing days who had been a top name during the John L. Sullivan era. Old Chocolate had been the fourth fighter to reign as World Colored Heavyweight Champion while the second George Godfrey was the 20th fighter to hold the colored heavyweight title.
Joe Gould was an American boxing manager best known for representing boxer James J. Braddock, dubbed "The Cinderella Man," who in 1935 upset Max Baer to become the world heavyweight champion. He also managed lightweight contender Ray Miller from 1930–1933.
Arthur Lakofsky, also known as Art Lasky, was a heavyweight professional boxer from Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Michael Strauss Jacobs was a boxing promoter, arguably the most powerful in the sport from the mid-1930s until his effective retirement in 1946. He was posthumously elected to the World Boxing Hall of Fame in 1982, and the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990.
For the judge who shares the same birth-name, see Clarence H. Burns.
Obie Walker, born Obie Dia Walker in Cochran, Georgia, was a professional boxer. Walker was the penultimate World Colored Heavyweight Champion from October 9, 1933, when he out-decisioned title holder George Godfrey in a 10-round fight at the Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to July 20, 1935, when he lost the title on a decision in a 15-round bout to former colored heavyweight champ Larry Gains in Tigers Rugby Stadium, Leicester, England.
The White Heavyweight Championship was a title in pretense created when the "White Hopes" of the time that African-American Jack Johnson was the world heavyweight champion had failed to wrest the title from him after four and one-half years. The first of the Great White Hopes, former world heavyweight champ James J. Jeffries had failed to vanquish Johnson in 1910, leading to an elimination tournament of "White Hopes" in New York City in 1911.
Bob Pastor born Robert E. Pasternak, was a prominent American boxer. He was a top-ranked heavyweight of the 1940s who once challenged for the world title, losing to Joe Louis in 1939.
