Heavyweight Handiwork

When a coffee-colored Negro boy named Joe Louis Barrow graduated from Detroit's Bronson School in 1931, his teacher gave him a report card to take home to his mother. On the card was written: "This boy should be able to do something with his hands."

Last week in Chicago, Prize Fighter Joe Louis lived up to this dubious compliment. In the presence of 45,000 spectators in Comiskey Park his hands knocked out James J. Braddock in the eighth round of their bout for the heavyweight championship of the world. Major results of Louis' handiwork were two: it made him the first colored man to hold the championship since crafty Jack Johnson allowed himself to be knocked out by Jess Willard in 1915, and it started a new regime in pugilistic finance, by which shrewd, bald-headed Michael Jacobs succeeded Madison Square Garden Corp. as the industry's No. 1 promoter.

When the heavyweight title changes hands, as it has done five times in the past seven years, the U. S. sporting public anticipates 1) dissatisfaction with the fight, 2) confusion after it. In 1930 Max Schmeling won the title from Jack Sharkey on a foul. In 1932 Sharkey won it back on a decision which many experts considered erroneous. In 1933, Primo Camera knocked out Jack Sharkey with what looked like a gentle push. In 1934, clownish Max Baer knocked out Camera in an eccentric bout. In 1935, Braddock outpointed Baer in a hopelessly dull bout. Last week's fight left the heavyweight situation in some respects even more confused than before, but the major difference between it and its predecessors was that this fight was ably fought to an unbeatable conclusion. When it was over, Braddock had attained more esteem in defeat than he had ever enjoyed as champion, and Louis had restored respect to the historic line of champions.

Fight Major defect in Joe Louis' fighting equipment, as shown in his defeat by Schmeling, was an inadequate defense against a right to the jaw. Major defect in most of Louis' opponents has been simple fear. Last week, as soon as the fight started, it became obvious that Braddock was not afraid and that Louis could still be hit with a right. After forcing the fighting through most of the first round, Braddock, pinned momentarily against the ropes, caught Louis with a short right uppercut that knocked his opponent off his feet. Louis jumped up without a count, managed to keep out of trouble for the rest of the round.

To the crowd, which had installed Louis as a 1-to-3 favorite but hoped Braddock would win, that knockdown was a happy surprise. It was the last surprise of the fight. Braddock thereafter fought aggressively as he had promised to do. Louis, his confidence restored since his Schmeling defeat, fought as he always does, with a cool, poised cruelty that turned Brad-dock's aggressiveness into a painful demonstration of his ability to absorb a beating. By the end of the sixth round Braddock's eyes were nearly closed, his nose was smeared off line, blood dripped from a long gash on his upper lip and he knew, as he said later, that unless he could land a lucky punch, the end of his career as champion was at hand.

It arrived 1 min. 10 sec. after the beginning of the eighth round. As Braddock took a wobbling step forward, Louis planted a right on the point of the champion's sagging jaw. The peculiar, wet-sounding detonation of what experts considered one of the hardest punches ever delivered in a prize ring told spectators on the rim of the park exactly what had happened. While Louis stood in a neutral corner, not bothering to look back. Referee Tommy Thomas counted ten over the unconscious ex-champion.

Finance. Prize fighting became important business in 1921, when Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier fought each other in Jersey City for a gate of $1,789,000. Unpublicized co-promoter of that fight, with the late famed Tex Rickard. was a shrewd young ticket speculator from Manhattan's lower East Side named Michael Strauss Jacobs. After the Dempsey v. Carpentier fight, Jacobs helped Rickard build and run the new Madison Square Garden. Promoter Rickard died in 1929. In 1934, Ticket Speculator Jacobs became a prizefight promoter on his own account.

Big business in pugilism means close co-operation between a heavyweight champion and his handlers on the one hand and a shrewd fight promoter on the other, like the partnership between Promoter Rickard and Champion Dempsey. Last week's fight was the first held for the heavyweight championship under other than Garden auspices since Dempsey won the title. To engage in it, because it promised greater profits. Champion Braddock and his manager had broken a Garden contract to fight German Max Schmeling.

Champion Braddock's net return from his share of last week's $715,000 gross receipts, ninth largest in ring history, was some $60,000,* far less than he was offered as a guarantee for fighting Challenger Schmeling. But Champion Braddock's loss was trifling compared to Madison Square Garden's. After last week's fight. Promoter Jacobs signed a five year contract for Champion Louis' exclusive services. Since a condition of fighting Joe Louis will doubtless be for all challengers a similar contract with Promoter Jacobs, Louis' victory last week gave Promoter Jacobs a virtual monopoly on all really largescale pugilistic enterprises in the future, set up a new promoting partnership which may eventually make the biggest Dempsey-Rickard coups look like small beans. Confusion. When Max Schmeling last year surprisingly knocked out Joe Louis for the first time in his career, his just reward was obviously a fight with Champion Braddock. When after contracting for the fight, Champion Braddock withdrew to fight Challenger Louis, Challenger Schmeling lived up to his end of the bargain (TIME. June 14), sailed home last month claiming to have won the title by default. His claim strengthened when the man whom he had defeated defeated the champion, Schmeling was last week training for a "world's championship" fight in London in September, against England's current heavyweight hope. Tommy Farr. Major problem of Promoter Jacobs this summer will be to persuade Schmeling to climb into the same ring with Louis for what may turn out to be the biggest prizefight gate in history.

Most likely immediate prospects were an August bout between Louis and Jack Doyle, a September bout between Braddock, with whom Promoter Jacobs also has an exclusive contract, and Max Baer. While the confusion about his ring activities continued. Champion Louis went home to visit his mother in Detroit where he got a report that his father, a onetime Alabama cotton picker, missing for the last 22 years and long given up for dead, had been discovered in the Alabama State Asylum, where he had been since 1915. one year after Joe Louis' birth. Said Champion Louis: "Yes. he may be my father. I'm checking up, and if he is, I'm going to help him at once. . . ."

Champion Braddock's share was 50% of the gross receipts after State and Federal taxes had been deducted. Of his original $300,000, Braddock had to give half to his longtime manager, Joe Gould, who pays training expenses. Of his remaining $150,000 almost half went for taxes, $15,000 more to settle a debt with Promoter Jacobs.

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