Joe Goes Out

A vociferous claque of rooters burst into an excited hubbub when Rocky Marciano came bouncing into the ring. But the real roar of the crowd in Madison Square Garden came for the man with the magic name: Joe Louis. Only those right at the ringside could see that Louis at 37, balding and thick-waisted, was little more than a bloated, moonfaced caricature of the famed Brown Bomber. The gamblers, out of respectful memory, made Joe a 7-5 favorite-but it was the shortest price ever quoted on the ex-champion.

Cocky Rocky, winner of all of his 37 fights (32 by knockouts), acted as if he had never heard of Joe Louis. Crowding, bulling, pumping and pummeling with short-range piston blows, Rocky wrestled Joe around the ring. In the early rounds, Joe made a stand, fighting with some inner instinct that could still make his aging body respond on cue. Sharp, probing Louis lefts started a mouse under Rocky's right eye. But when Joe spotted openings in Marciano's vulnerable defense, he could not follow through with his once explosive right; when he did, it was almost invariably a misfire.

Left Hook, Right Cross. Louis looked wilted, and walked stiff-legged, like a man on stilts. But no one in the crowd, least of all Louis, saw what was coming. And no 'one in the crowd, even the most rabid of Rocky's fans, really wanted to see it. In the eighth, a solid left hook, thrown wildly from Marciano's awkward, hunched crouch, caught Joe flush on the jaw and sent him tumbling to the canvas. Louis had been knocked down in other bouts, and each time he had come up fighting. He did this time too, but there was no sting left to his blows, nothing to make a man back down before his attack. Rocky moved in for the knockout.

A short flurry missed. A sharp left hook smacked Louis against the ropes. Another left glazed the old champion's eyes. His hands dropped. For an agonizing second Rocky measure his man, then shot a right cross to Joe's chin that sent him reeling awkwardly through the ropes, flat on his back on the apron of the ring.

Farewell & Hail. Referee Ruby Goldstein, without even bothering with the formality of a count, threw up his arms to signal the end of the fight. Joe was out. Joe was clearly finished. Rocky, in the first wild joy of victory, kept repeating over & over, as if unable to believe it himself: "I knocked him out! I knocked him out!" Later, when he fully realized that he had flattened the man who had not been knocked out since Max Schmeling did it 15 years ago, Rocky said the proper thing: "I'm glad I won, but I'm sorry I had to do it to Louis." Joe, accepting condolences in a gloomy dressing room while soaking his bruised left fist in a bucket of ice, refused to state flatly that he was through. But the sportwriters were already writing their farewells to Joe-and sizing up a likely new champion.

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