Week 25
June 18 - June 24
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1937 – Joe Louis Wins Heavyweight Title
Joe Louis, known to the world as the “Brown Bomber,” began his reign of more than a decade as the heavyweight boxing champion of the world with his knockout of James Braddock.
A new Fistic King is crowned. The coronation was staged Tuesday night at
Comiskey Park in Chicago, when Joe Louis with the classic assistance of ringdom’s most powerful right catapulted the once mighty Irishman, James J. Braddock, from his throne. Seventy thousand spectators proclaimed lustily the advent of a new sovereign of the fistic empire as the ex-ruler lay gamely but helplessly on the floor of the rosinring. Thus came to a dramatic close one of the most puzzling periods in the annals of pugilism. The curtain that obliterates Braddock forever from the stage of the boxing world fell after one minute and ten seconds of the eighth round.
Joe Louis, fistiana’s most deadly man-killer, met up with his one golden opportunity Tuesday night and wasn’t found wanting. The Blasting Bomber, after seven rounds of nip and tuck fighting with James J. Braddock, plodded his way into an ideal position and let fly that deadly right.
The blow caught the champion midway between the top of his head and the chin
and sent him sprawling across the ring where he remained for not ten but 22 seconds.
The champion was out of his head, mind and sense of direction as his manager
and life-long friend, Joe Gould, knelt to lift him to his feet.
"Gentleman" Jim, game to the core, might still be resting amid the spark of
the stars and the chirps of the little birdies had he been left to arise of his own power. He had been game throughout the fight, battling against odds to retain his crown, but his gameness and ring craft just had to desert him when Joe’s killer punch stepped into the picture.
The fight itself was a thriller. Perhaps never before has a champion bowed
from the picture more gamely.
. . . There was never a dull moment in the 7 and one half rounds of fighting and for the first six stanzas the advantage rested with neither man. Not even the two contestants seemed sure of what would happen as they battled along through those tough seven rounds. They were both bleeding, Braddock exhibiting red coloring in the second stanza and Joe catching him in the fourth when the Bomber’s nose showed definite streams of blood. By this time, however, the champion’s face was battered and worn into a chop suey steak. He did not even resemble the man who had crawled through the ropes amid applause of the 60,000 who hailed him loudly as the champion.
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