‘How To Box’ by Joe Louis: Part 3 – The Right Hand

Published

3 weeks ago

May 5, 2023

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The Afro American was in Johnny Paycheck’s dressing room only minutes after his devastating knockout loss to Joe Louis in the second round of their March 1940 heavyweight title fight. Louis had been champion for three years and Johnny was his ninth successful defence. No press ever had access to a Louis knockout victim so soon after the offending punch and the sight made quite an impression.

His legs “still quivering” as his brain continued to try to absorb the catastrophic messages of disaster Louis had inflicted upon it, still fear-stricken, in a state of wonderment” Paycheck spoke with Art Carter, The Afro’s sports editor, “slowly and softly.”

“God, how that man can hit. I don’t remember anything after the first knockdown.”

The Afro American did not go easy on Paycheck in thanks for this easy access. Under a banner headline naming him “A Pathetic Figure” they went on to describe him as “a pathetic loser.” If Paycheck was pathetic, he was no more or less so than the Titanic right after it was ripped opened by the iceberg. Paycheck reacted courageously in my opinion, campaigning briefly and redundantly for a rematch.

Perhaps he believed lightning couldn’t strike in the same place twice.

For it was indeed thunder and lightning that laid him low in the shape of two of the most devastatingly effective punches in boxing history, two blows tipped by the same spear: the Joe Louis right hand.

The Straight Right

The straight right hand that won Joe Louis the heavyweight title of the world drove Jim Braddock’s gumshield through his top lip and opened a wound that would require twenty-three stitches. A crimson stain “a foot in diameter” spread across the canvas as the referee tolled off the ten. Louis had thrown a perfect punch by the highest of standards—his own.

“The straight right is one of the most dangerous blows in boxing,” says the Joe Louis manual How to Box. “It is always preceded by the left lead and carries lots of force.”

Louis had indeed preceded this murderous straight right with a left hand and it is an interesting one. Written up in the press almost exclusively as a “left to the ribs,” this is how the punch is generally described even in modern books on both Braddock and Louis, when in fact Joe throws a left hook at Braddock’s left bicep. At the beginning of the action, the champion is guarding against the murderous right hand with his left hand held high, running interference through Joe’s arch of attack. Whilst Louis probably could have pecked a right hand across that left, he couldn’t have thrown the punch exactly as it is described in How to Box without compromising his position. The hook Louis threw was far more devastating than the reported shot to the ribs and I do not believe for even one moment that this was a happy accident. Louis positions himself for the left hook – readers of Part 2 of this series will note that the punch is channelled primarily through Joe’s right leg—and then throws it within the parameters of his kill-zone, defined by the limits of his balance, which will be familiar to readers of Part 1. Braddock has taken no evasive action. The punch to the biceps does not seem to alarm him.

But it should have. It allowed Louis to commit to the mechanics of the straight right hand with impunity.

“Shift your weight to the left leg and wing the right side of your body forwards, driving your right fist straight out.”

A note must be made here of how easily Louis is able to transfer the weight to his left leg from his right behind a left hook. As Louis comes forward behind his left he transfers from right to left with naturalism. There is no moment for adjustment between the left leg taking the weight of the hook then the straight right, as described by Joe Frazier (see Part 2). Louis’ straight right is a fire that burns the oxygen the left hook produces rather than a punch that hinders it with minor reorganisations. It is the most natural pairing imaginable and no other heavyweight in history, to my knowledge, throws these two punches in this manner.

“Try to drive through your aim, and not just at it.”

After leading with the left, Louis would often cock his right hand in a salute to his intended victim, his elbow still holding position at his ribs whilst the right pointed straight to the heavens before launching it forwards at the exact moment he transfers his weight. This creates a wind-up that deals almost exclusively with straight lines. The title-winning right hand was such a punch, but Louis never made do with impact. This perfect punch ripped through Braddock’s face, scarring him for life, continued through the target and down, terminating finally at his hips, perpendicular to his thigh. His head remained poised though, maintaining a rigid balance through his lead leg and torso—he looks briefly like a pool player about to attempt a particularly tricky shot—and then Braddock is falling bonelessly to the canvas, seemingly in four separate pieces, wet and lifeless but curiously unruffled, a child counting out the 100 for hide-and-go-seek. Whether you believe Braddock when he said he could have gotten up but “saw no point” or the newspapermen at ringside who deemed him insensible, it is hard to doubt that Braddock wouldn’t have risen even if the referee had counted to such a number himself. All agreed that the punch was amongst the loudest ever heard at ringside, the audio and visual combining to make The Cinderella Man seem the victim of a gunshot.

Such punches are rare for most fighters, but not for Louis. Returning to March of 1940 and the Louis destruction of Paycheck, the first knockdown is the result of a similar blow. Only seconds into the first, Louis had bundled, jabbed and battered a clearly intimidated Paycheck back to the ropes. Then, the right. As a punch it is not quite the equal of the one that ended Braddock for several reasons. Firstly, the leading jab missed the mark, reaching the point of Paycheck’s chin but failing to get over as the challenger pulled his head back and to his left in the moment that Louis pushed forwards onto his left foot, firing his right. Having failed to get his man under control with the jab, Louis found himself fully extended with the right resulting in a lack of the follow-through seen on the title-winning punch. Instead of driving his whole forearm though a rebounding opponent who has just been jabbed, he got the point of Paycheck’s chin and another inch whilst his positioning is clearly slightly off as the challenger has managed to edge his way outside of the straight-armed portion of the champion’s kill-zone. The vibration jolted the fallen fighter all the way to his ankles. This, a less perfect version of the Louis straight right, is the punch that separated Paycheck from his memory. Likely a blessing, he never would be able to recall the moments between his bravely regaining his feet and the painful journey to the dressing room where he was able to express his wonderment to The Afro American.

Up at nine, Paycheck is driven to a neutral corner, but has the wherewithal to block the next lightning Louis right hand. Recognizing his man is ready to be taken, Louis tries to set up a second right hand with a left jab. The straight right is often the finishing punch of choice for the Brown Bomber, although the left hook he tags on behind it for an effortless three-punch combination is a nice insurance policy. Paycheck avoids being stopped here by jabbing his left into the air creating a break with his own forearm which he’s able to apply to the Louis right as it zips past—this transforms the punch from a scalpel to a club and Johnny is able to survive.

Somehow he found his legs for the second round but his footwork was skittish. Gliding, clever footwork is arguably a part of the recipe for success against Louis but static small moves and feints do not impress him. Any boxer moving his feet but remaining in the kill-zone is playing right into Joe’s hands. He is a fighter that is programmed to destroy what is in front of him and the details are not particularly relevant. This mistake had cost Paycheck a nightmare start, and that pattern was set to continue. Remaining disciplined, Louis jabbed his opponent back keeping himself firmly in range but throwing only a probing left hand for the first few seconds, working on his timing before firing, at thirty-one seconds, the punch he had been brewing since the bell for round two.

It was all the more shocking for the fact that he had been “shufflin’ Joe” only seconds before, moving forwards in those small, measured steps, looking like the fighter some casual fans have come to misunderstand, especially post-Tyson. These gradual moves, these narrow approaches, these “shuffles” are the equivalent of Tyson’s menacing bull-rushes. They are bought with less energy but are layered with just as much menace and require nothing like the admittedly impressive physical acrobatics Tyson is forced to perform to close the distance.

As a punch, it may be even more perfect than the one that pole-axed Braddock. Just as he did then, Louis gets all his weight onto his front foot and follows through all the way, his forearm running horizontal to the black strip on his trunks before it comes to rest as Paycheck is rocked all the way back on his heels before collapsing at Joe’s feet, flat on his back. Louis engineered the punch so that Paycheck was circling into it as it landed, making it even more calamitous to the victim’s senses, a veritable iceberg of a punch, un-survivable for even the unsinkable.

I say engineered and I mean it. There is a final adjustment of the feet as Louis lands the jab that unlocked the final gate keeping him at distance. Coming that little bit closer allowed Louis to get outside Paycheck and drive his right through his victim’s left jaw and on as the recipient moves to his left. Throwing the punch without the adjustment would have seen him land straight-down-the-pipe on an opponent who is going away, still possibly lethal for a man as hurt as Paycheck but perhaps not the ultimate in killing punches, which is what it became as Louis made that move inside. It seems a small thing, but it is hard to teach and hard to learn and it requires both a cool head and sublime technique to execute. It is the difference between being a good puncher and good technician and a great puncher and great technician.

But in a roundabout way it reveals a weakness in the punch—and in Louis.

The killing field for Joe’s straight right is extremely narrow. As stated above, finding comparable punching technicians is not easy but as an out-fighter, the great strawweight champion Ricardo Lopez is perhaps comparable. Nothing like Joe’s equal as an infighter or short arm puncher, at distance the little man executes in combination as well as anyone and although he lacks the killing power of Joe’s straight right, I would consider him more flexible. He found ways to reach with the punch, to stab with it. He can be seen using it as a reverse jab. Most of all the width across which he is willing to throw it is much wider, his targeting for the punch is less impacted by tunnel vision. Louis has to bring his opponent into a very specific kill-zone to activate the trigger for that punch. He is arguably too much the perfectionist. He lets opponents get away—he let Billy Conn get away for a spell —because Conn could read and stay out of the narrow cone where the Louis straight gets lit up in.

For the knockout of Johnny Paycheck Louis used a covering jab and footwork to engineer an opening two inches across and then landed a technically flawless punch on that opening thereby creating a finisher which almost no fighter in any era would have survived. That is wonderful skill, and it must not be forgotten or minimized. But if there was a flaw in the punch it was the same flaw that would dog Louis for his entire career and beyond—that he was too specific. Whilst the beautiful improvisation of a left hook to Braddock’s biceps in order to facilitate a clear path for the narrow trench the straight right needed can dispel notions of stiffness in his boxing to a degree, Louis still needed a dirty counterpart to this precision punch.

The rolling thunder.

The Right Cross

What How to Box calls the right cross would most likely be referred to today as the overhand right. But as the great man once said: “What’s in a name?”

How to Box: “In order for the right cross to have the proper effect it should be remembered that its success depends upon the speed with which it is carried out.”

By any other name we recognize this as truth. The overhand right, the right cross, whatever it is named, the slower version is an open invitation to a counter. Of all the punches it is the most difficult to neaten up due simply due to the natural arc. Whilst every other punch tends to work in terms of the distance between point A and point B where A is the fist and B is the target area, the right cross travels a longer path as a consequence of form.

“Assuming the proper stance,” Joe Louis and ghostwriter Edward Mallory continue, “bend your body slightly forward from the waist, then throwing your body power into it, bring your right arm up, over and across (making almost a complete semi-circle).”

In 1937, Bob Pastor had boxed ten rounds with Joe, making the scheduled distance. Although he was soundly beaten, gaining one round on the two judges’ cards and the referee giving him nothing, Pastor celebrated like he had won the fight and the image seemed to resonate with the public. Pastor gathered himself for a shot at Joe’s world title in late 1939. Louis had been frustrated if not befuddled by Pastor’s tactics in the first fight and was determined to stamp his authority early in the rematch. The right cross was to be his weapon of choice.

Pastor’s tactics are interesting because they are a more realistic version of Paycheck’s later tactics, and, I would argue, part of a double foundation for Billy Conn’s strategy against Louis (along with some of the tougher lessons Fritzie Zivic taught him). Showing genuine mobility rather than Paycheck‘s queer half-feints and a sharp offense when Louis steps into range is a very reasonable strategy on paper. Unfortunately, Louis had already measured his man in that first fight and Joe and Chappie Blackburn had their tactics in place. Louis prods with his jab, an almost feint, the blinder as the old-timers called it, before slashing with his right cross. Louis doesn’t fight for position or use the left as a covering measure to reposition or to swat defensive ramparts out of the way; he uses it as a distraction, a killdeer bird, a lie, a message that the attack is weak.

The right hand he throws behind it is a punch far less fussy than the straight. It doesn’t need to be nursed into position and is the dirtiest punch in the Louis arsenal from the technical perspective. He lands it less than a minute into the fight against Pastor in 1939 behind the flapping pretty-birdy left. Pastor took it high on the head which likely saved him from an immediate count. Sagging into the ropes with his back to the camera, Bob’s expression is not revealed but he does seem to pause for a moment in consideration of the hardest punch Louis had landed on him up until that point—not even the punches Joe managed to get across in the first fight had prepared him for that one.

Pastor comes back at Louis and they maul momentarily before Joe, without taking a step back or to the side, makes space for another cross. It’s a reactive punch, thrown in answer to the tiny amount of room Pastor provides as he fights for his own balance. Louis follows all the way through on this punch, just as he does on the straight, his hips turned eighty degrees, Pastor turns with him under the force of the blow and as the punch finally comes to rest the two are looking away from their own fight, each of them looking out across the ring and into the 33,000 strong crowd before Louis snaps back into position and Pastor crumbles to his knees. How to Box insists that you throw the punch “with all the energy and strength you possess” and Joe commits to that tenant with enthusiasm, but what is displayed here is his continued control of total balance even whilst following through on such a punch. On the rare occasions his balance is compromised it is generally this punch that has caused the blip. But for the most part he arcs the punch as he describes, rockets through the opponent (or even misses) but remains welded to the canvas, his torso returning smoothly to front and centre after the follow-through. Watching the great heavyweights throw this punch one comes to understand how rare a talent this is. Even men like Dempsey and Tyson, compact power-hitters who also trade off balance and speed, can struggle behind.

But for all this, Pastor is up at one, Louis closes quickly and treats him to a straight right—behind a jab, naturally—which doesn’t quite make the cut as a Louis punch, appearing to hit at rather than through his man. This time Pastor gets up at nine and although he looks in control of his faculties as he hobbles back to ring centre streaked in resin, he looks very much the new boy at school, unsure just how far his new playmate is willing to go in this dangerous game. Louis gives as brief an answer as possible throwing two rare lead right hands to drop Pastor for the third count, but Pastor is running from these punches now and Louis is not catching him clean. This is where Louis really relies upon the cross. It’s a barrage punch he can throw at a retreating target, one that can’t be baited into contesting space or trying to punch back. If he was to rely upon the straight right hand in these situations, his right hand would become a non-factor against a hurt or fleet-footed opponent.

At the beginning of the second Louis tries both the straight right, to no avail, and a clipping hook which gets home without the desired result. After that he goes back to his money punch when up against a runner, rolling in the thunder. These aren’t broadsides, it’s not like Joe’s dirty punch is anything other than compressed, succinct, but it’s targeted in a less specific fashion, there’s no self-enforced flight-path or perfection bought with multiple preliminary moves. He just lashes them out there, catching Pastor high on the head with the first one, sending the smaller man on the run for nearly a full minute during which barely a punch is landed. Louis stalks him patiently and when Pastor finally tries a serious punch, a jab, he parries, then shows the challenger that birdy, that half-formed jab again and all of a sudden Pastor is on the ground again looking up.

Louis still requires patience to land, but it is telling that in a round where his fleet-footed opponent spent almost the entire three minutes on the run Louis threw more crosses than he did power punches of any other kind.

Pastor survived the second and spent most of the rest of the fight on the run, aside from the eighth, where he mounted his only offense, arguably winning that round. Louis had limited success but did well enough that he was able to go back to his corner at the end of the tenth and tell Blackburn, “The next round is the one, I’m going to get him.”

Pastor had indeed tired, and he made his fatal mistake within seconds of the restart, trying to jab and then move across Louis to his own left. Louis threw a covering left and then brought the right hand over as Pastor moved. In the end it was almost too easy. Pastor collapsed backwards like his ass suddenly weighed two metric tons and Louis had fulfilled his prediction.

“I didn’t even see the punch coming,” remarked the beaten challenger post-fight. “The next thing I knew the referee was counting nine.”

They belong together these two punches. If Louis had just been armed with the laser-guided straight right, he would have spent much of his career being out-maneuvered. Had he been armed with just the cross he would have visited with the judges more often, likely to his detriment. But they intertwine to create a right-hand offense that I’d consider unparalleled. If Louis has a tiny handful of betters where his jab is concerned and if there is a serious argument to be had regarding the status of his hook, there are no peers to his right-hand offense at his weight. For all that fighters like Foreman and Lewis who came after him were bigger and stronger, nobody has ever put together the fundamentals of great right-handed punching like Louis—and we haven’t even come to what made him really special yet, the way he wove these different punches together.

We’re getting there, I promise. The series is now at the halfway point. Next up for us, inside. Getting close and personal is the last thing you wanted to do if you were actually in the ring with Louis, but it should be safe for us. And we just might learn something.

The photo: Joe Louis Collapses Johnny Paycheck

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U.K. Boxing Montage: Conlan KOed; Wood Regains Title; Billam-Smith Upsets Okolie

Published

4 hours ago

May 28, 2023

Arne K. Lang

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British fight fabs had plenty of options last night. Important events were staged in Manchester, in Bournemouth, and in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The locals were delighted in Manchester and Bournemouth, but fans in Belfast were left crestfallen when their hometown hero Michael Conlan, the former two-time Olympian, was on the wrong end of a vicious KO.

Conlan, who was 18-1 heading in, had a four-inch height advantage and three-inch reach advantage over Mexican spoiler Luis Alberto Lopez. The Irishman attracted late money and went to post a small favorite. But Lopez (28-2, 16 KOs) emerged victorious, successfully defending his IBF world featherweight title which he won in British soil over Josh Warrington.

Although Conlan had a rough patch in the second round, he was seemingly in a good position heading into round five when the Mexican invader brought a swift conclusion to the contest, discombobulating Conlan (pictured) with a right uppercut that prompted his trainer Adam Booth to throw in the towel. It was the second time that Conlan came up short in a bid for a world title. He challenged for the WBA version of this belt in March of last year, losing on a spectacular last round knockout to Leigh Wood in a fight that he was winning until the final 90 seconds.

Also…

In a scheduled 12-rounder for a WBC featherweight trinket, five-foot-three Liverpool buzzsaw Nick “Wrecking” Ball advanced to 18-0, (11 KOs) with a 12^th-round stoppage of South Africa’s previously undefeated Ludumo Lamati (21-1-1, 11 KOs). Lamati’s corner tossed in the towel after Ball landed a series of hard punches in the final frame.

Lamati was on his feet when the bout was stopped but was in dire straits and was removed from the ring on a stretcher. There was no update on his condition as this story was going to press.

In a companion 12-rounder, Belfast’s Anthony “Apache” Cacace (21-1, 7 KOs) successfully defended his fringe 130-pound title with a wide decision over Damian Wrzesinski (26-3-2). The judges had 118-111, 117-111, and 116-112.

Wrzesinski, a 38-year-old Pole, fought with a brace on his right knee. This was the first fight for “Apache” in his hometown in eight years. The win may have set him up for a match with Welshman Joe Cordina, the IBF junior lightweight title-holder, or Shavkat Rakhimov who lost a close decision to Cordina in a bruising tiff last month.

Manchester

Mauricio Lara didn’t bring his “A” game to England. That became apparent at the weigh-in when he failed to make weight, losing his WBA world featherweight title on the scales. By rule, only Leigh Wood could win it or it would become vacant.

Thus was a rematch. (26-3, 16 KOs). Fourteen weeks ago, Lara went into Wood’s backyard in Nottingham and stopped him in the seventh round. Lara was behind on the cards when he felled Wood with crunching left hook. Wood beat the count but his trainer Ben Davison tossed in the towel which struck many, especially Wood, as premature as less than 10 seconds remained in the round.

In a previous trip to England, Lara had broken hearts in Leeds, stopping native son Josh Warrington. The Mexican invader, younger than Leigh Wood by 10 years, was expected to win again, but Wood, 34, simply out-worked him. He knocked Lara down in the second round with an uppercut and methodically kept him at bay, winning by scores of 116-111 and 118-109 twice.

Co-Feature

In his first appearance since his controversial defeat to Josh Taylor in Glasgow in February of last year, Jack Catterall improved to 27-1 (15) with a wide over Irish-Australian southpaw Darragh Foley (22-5-1).

The Sportsman called the Catterall-Taylor fight, a split decision win for Taylor, the most controversial fight in British boxing history and Catterall became a more sympathetic figure when Taylor, after several postponements, reneged on his promise to give Catterall a rematch, opting instead for a date with Teofimo Lopez/

Although Foley was in action 10 weeks ago, scoring his signature win with a third-round stoppage of favored Robbie Davies Jr., and Catterall was making his first start in 15 months, this was a one-sided fray in Catterall’s favor. He had Foley on the canvas twice en route to winning by scores of 99-88, 98-89, and 97-90.

Eddie Hearn has expressed an interest in matching Catterall with Regis Prograis assuming that Prograis gets past Arnold Barboza on June 17.

Also

England’s Terri Harper (14-1-1), who jumped up three weight classes last year, successfully defended her WBA 154-pound diadem with a unanimous but unimpressive 10-round decision over perennial title challenger Ivana Habazin. The judges had it 98-92 and 99=93 twice.

Harper was slated to fight former pound-for-pound queen Cecilia Braekhus last Saturday in the co-feature to Taylor vs. Cameron in Dublin, but hat match fell out when Braekhus came down with a bad cold following the weight-in.

Harper is seeking a unification fight with countrywoman Natasha Jonas. Habazin, a 33-year-old Croat, fell to 21-5.

Bournemouth

In his fourth defense of his WBO world cruiserweight title, previously undefeated Lawrence Okolie was soundly defeated by former sparring partner Chris Billam. The match was contested in Billam-Smith’s hometown before a raucous crowd at sold-out Vitality Stadium.

A 3/1 underdog, Billam-Smith who was 17-1 heading in, proved clearly superior He knocked Okolie down in the fourth round and again in rounds 10 and 11 en route to winning by scores of 116-107, 115-108, and 112-112.

About that curious 112-112 card. It Was turned in by U.S. judge Benjamin Rodriguez who had been working the Illinois-Wisconsin circuit. On social media, his tally is being called the worst scorecard of all time.

Did Billam-Smith’s fans leave happy? The correspondent for British Boxing News called the event “a night of breathtaking boxing action that will never be forgotten.”

The six-foot-five Okolie may have made his last start as a cruiserweight. He aspires to fight Oleksandr Usyk.

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‘How To Box’ by Joe Louis: Part 6 of a 6-Part Series – Putting It All Together

Published

3 days ago

May 25, 2023

Matt McGrain

‘How To Box’ by Joe Louis: Part 6 of a 6-Part Series – Putting It All Together

“You got to be a killer, otherwise I’m getting too old to waste time on you.”—Jack Blackburn

Much has been said concerning the Joe Louis duels with Max Schmeling. It was proof that Louis was vulnerable to right hands. It was proof that Louis wasn’t vulnerable to right hands. It was a victory for America over the Nazis. But Schmeling wasn’t a Nazi. It was boxing’s biggest fight. But it wasn’t about boxing. It was what made Louis a hero. But he was already a hero.

One of Abraham Lincoln’s most successful biographers, Roy Basler, wrote that “to know the truth of history is to realize its ultimate myth and its inevitable ambiguity.” Is there a more telling example of this truth in sports than Louis-Schmeling II? Sometimes the tale can obscure the truth. To put it another way: when was the last time you just wondered at it? Wondered at what Joe Louis did to Max Schmeling on a night when, admittedly, the world was on the brink of war and the African-American was on the road to reclaiming himself from the white power structure in the USA? When was the last time you ignored all those very important things and just marvelled at that fight, the recording of which reporter Henry McLemore called “the most faithful recording ever made of human savagery”?

I’m going to invite you here, please, to wonder at it again.

In one moment.

First, we must take a look at Joe’s best performance.

Buddy Baer

The bigger, less celebrated of the Baer brothers had his own rematch with Joe Louis at the beginning of 1942. The first fight had ended in the controversy of a DQ win for Louis and, as he always did when there was the merest hint of scepticism after a title fight, Joe arranged to meet the Giant Californian once again.

A huge man in any era, Buddy tipped the scales at 250 and scraped the ceiling at a little more than 6’6. As noted by the St.Petersburg Times, “a fellow of Baer’s size in good condition, and equipped with the usual quota of arms, legs and eyes must be conceded a chance in any bout, particularly if he has courage and a punch.”

Buddy had both in abundance, but he was not a natural fighter. “We have the feeling he would rather be out picking violets,” is how the Times chose to illustrate the point. While this is a bit much we all know what he means. Louis, who would famously be fighting for free that night in support of the Navy Relief Fund, was a natural gladiator. Buddy Baer was not.

If Max Schmeling is clearly the tougher of the two opponents and Louis wreaked similar havoc on each of them, what is it that makes this Joe’s greatest performance? Baer’s size? Might it be suggested that herein lies the key to arguing Louis the master of all modern super-heavies as he destroys one in this encounter? It’s a reasonable point, but no, it is not that. It was my own favourite line from How to Box by Joe Louis that brought me to this conclusion.

“There are two basic methods of attack,” the1948 manual tells us, “either by force or by skill. The attack by force is used only by the slugger who depends only upon hitting power. The attack by skill is used by the boxer who relies upon his cleverness in feinting, correct leading, drawing and in-fighting.”

This is a fine division, at once elegant and incomplete, of the boxer’s physical abilities versus his technical ability, his gifts as an athlete as weighed against his skill as a boxer. While Joe’s destruction of Schmeling is his most devastating display, he relies often in that short fight upon his natural gifts, his speed, his power. Joe fights ugly for short, vicious stretches against Baer, too, but not before he has demonstrated for us the height of his art.

Louis and his ghostwriter, Edward J. Mallory, describe the various feints Louis employed in his championship years and most interesting among them is the left jab to the body, the lie, and then the right uppercut to the head, the truth. It is a difficult move from a technical perspective, calling upon the weight to be transferred from the left foot to the right and for the fighter to move from long distance to the inside, downstairs to up, all without getting caught. Louis pulls this move off against a fresh Baer, twenty-five seconds into the fight.

Baer came out aggressively and Louis was momentarily crowded out of the fight, driven and harried back to his own corner first by Baer’s length, then his size. Buddy’s physical advantages overcame Joe’s technical superiority, for just a moment. They circle, and Louis takes a short step back, employing the draw, before throwing a nothing left hook. Louis notices that the challenger’s tactic upon being jabbed are to dip, then make a grab and try to tie the champion up on the inside, allowing him to use his size and weight to bear down on him. A fine plan for a big man, but in fact the fight is now lost.

A few seconds later Louis is shuffling back and away from Baer once more and as Baer moves forwards Louis throws another jab. Again, Baer dips and tries to crowd but Louis has no intention of landing the jab. Instead, he holsters his left, takes a step to the outside with his left foot and even as Baer draws himself into his shell and prepares his grab, Louis uncorks his right uppercut, slipping his weight across his body as a part of the natural movement of the punch, the absolute perfection of this skill. The punch is not a finisher but note Baer’s reaction when Louis jabs at him once more, moments later. Instead of trying to menace the champion with his size or a counter, he backs up directly; shy of the uppercut that the jab disguised last time around. This is the ultimate realisation of the feint—to imbue in the jab, a hammer blow at the best of times the virtual attributes of the uppercut. Baer has now to abandon his pre-fight plan for Joe’s most important punch, that jab.

Skill has determined that his superior size is now worthless.

Paraffin to the wound seconds later as Louis pulls the trick off once more, this time after following through on the jab. A right-handed uppercut to the jaw—the hardest punch to land from a technical perspective—turns the trick again and now Baer is hurt. Louis plants a left hook behind the glove just above the ear and then he is ready to unleash the combinations that made him famous.

People say Joe Louis has slow feet. There is something to this, although hopefully it has been explained in the proper context in Part 1—The Foundation of Skill. Even then, however, we discuss his speed relative to those opponents who run. Well footwork is not merely a byword for a foot race. I defy anyone who takes the time to pay close enough attention to the speed at which Louis adjusts his feet now as Baer retreats across the ring to name him slow.

Out of position for a left hook as Baer is going away slightly outside his right foot, Louis shimmies—there is no other word for it—a quick step forwards, channelling all his power through his left leg and hips. This allows him to land that deadly, rare, straight right and behind it, even though he each time has to shimmy and hop forwards, he lands a left hook and then that rolling right cross. With each punch he is covering ground and with each punch he touches down long enough to get the torque through his hips and crack home hard punches, knockout punches. Perhaps the most startling thing about this sequence is that if you press pause at the moment these blows are landing, they look as though Louis were punching from a stationary position. His balance is perfect, his rushing attack is in no way affecting the value of his punches, yet he takes literally no time to get set. He is a cobra packing a shotgun.

“Use the weight of the body in every punch,” (my italics) advises How to Box and it is a tenet Louis is married to. My expectation upon placing it under the microscope was that I would have to issue a warning similar to the one I described when analysing Joe’s straight right hand—that it bore sweet fruit when it worked but that it was to detail-specific to be really viable in the ring, and that countermeasures must be employed. To my astonishment I found that Louis threw power punches (if not always his jab) in this fashion without compromising his balance on offense. It is my suspicion that this is a unique skillset above 200 lbs. and that you would have to work to find fighters who can fight like this in even the smallest divisions.

Though the fight is only a minute old, referee Frank Fullam takes his first close look at Baer as he wobbles back to Joe’s short rope behind a left-right combination to the jaw and a right to the body that Louis lands after ducking into a clinch as Baer tried to throw his first punches in some seconds. Louis is made to miss in turn as Baer bores him back and away from the ropes, missing first with the right uppercut and then the left hook. These are the most difficult punches to remain composed behind, but Louis does so, remaining in punching position.

Head-to-head in a maul, Louis appears the loser as he slowly gives ground during an exchange of meaningless shots, but a split second later, he has moved out of the maul that Baer remains bowed solemnly into, and Louis begins the assault again. A bobbing top caught in two opposing tides—his, and the punches Joe is driving home—Baer’s size is now nothing less than a handicap in the face of the genius of Joe’s box-punching.

For the first knockdown Louis slips the non-existent jab he expects when he is on his way in, jabs to the stomach and bombs a right cross over his defence. Watch carefully and you will see Baer’s high guard rappelled right and down by the famous Louis follow-through before snapping back into place as Baer collapses in an enormous heap on the canvas, forty-pound weight advantage and all, the first time he has looked big since that first uppercut landed.

It’s hard to admire a man shooting fish in a barrel but take a moment to appreciate the blinds being drawn and the man Leroy Simerly (Herald-Journal) called “strictly a sixteen-inch gunner” in full flow.

Baer was magnanimous in defeat clutching Joe’s head in his oversized paws, almost comically huge next to the man labelled in newspapers the following morning as “the most destructive puncher the fight game has ever seen.”

Baer figured Louis to be champion for some time to come.

“Maybe my next child will be a son and I can raise him up to do the job.”

Three days later, Louis would pass his army physical. He would never reach the heights of the Buddy Baer fight again. It is a frightening thought, but it is possible that boxing never saw the very best of its greatest champion.

Max Schmeling

“Ain’t no sense foolin’ around like I did last time.”

Louis said more than once in the run up to the fight that he would end Max Schmeling in a single round. For the most part this was dismissed as hyperbole by a press which did not break ranks to predict anything earlier than a third-round knockout. Hyperbole was the furthest thing from the minds of Louis and Blackburn, however. This was a plan with its foundation built firmly upon the scientific reasoning that Schmeling had become so famous for.

When Joe Louis attended the welterweight title fight between Henry Armstrong and Barney Ross, it was not as a fan, although he was one, but as a disciple. It is possible that Armstrong was the only man in the history of the fight game capable of teaching Louis about controlled destructive violence in the ring, but the story goes that he did—and that along with handler Eddie Mead, he convinced Louis and Blackburn that a direct, rushing assault was the best strategy.

And the story had more than just a hint of truth to it. First Joe was seen at Henry’s training camp and then Henry was seen at Joe’s. Louis did not speak of it directly, but Blackburn was less equivocal:

“Last time Chappie fought just the way Schmeling wanted him to. This time it’ll be different. Chappie’s going to learn from Armstrong. He’s going to set a fast pace right from the start.”

Max Machon, trainer to Schmeling, did not see the danger, encouraging Louis to do just that:

“He would be as awkward as a school girl on her first pair of ice skates!”

Schmeling, meanwhile, wasn’t paying attention or had seen a bluff where there was none:

“I think in the first round we will just feel each other out.”

According to the World Telegram, “Schmeling will make no mistake in strategy. Louis doesn’t know what the word means.” This was the prevailing attitude at the time, but in fact a reversal of this equation was happening right under the noses of the dismissive newspapermen. Even those that sniffed out a possible tactical dimension to the Louis battle plan were disdainful of it. Perhaps they were right, and perhaps Blackburn and Mead were the masterminds behind the directness of the violence about to erupt in Yankee Stadium. But the fact is that Louis had been obsessively watching the first Schmeling fight, originally with a journalist (who could not believe that Blackburn had never shown it to the champion and had in fact discouraged him from seeing it), then with his trainer and finally alone.

Over and over again.

“I know how to fight Max now.”

Louis was to fight Schmeling in the opposite style, as far as How to Box is concerned, to the one he would use to destroy Buddy Baer. There, he fought by skill, here it was to be by force—speed, power.

Louis doesn’t stalk or attempt to draw a lead from Schmeling. At the first bell, he is after him straight away and when Schmeling tries to move, Joe moves with him, still in the small steps and still behind that ramrod jab but with more urgency than is normal. The hard jab and a closet left hook are landed before Max moves out of range, but the leaping left hook he uses to drive Max before him is a new flavor of Louis, especially against an unharmed world-class opponent. Louis had reportedly shadowboxed for forty to fifty minutes before emerging from his dressing room wearing two gowns to keep his body warm. Now he was making both Schmeling and Machon foolish in their pre-fight predictions. Not only was Louis wasting absolutely no time in feeling Schmeling out, but he also bore very little resemblance to a schoolgirl on ice skates. He looked more like coiled galvanized steel brought miraculously and terrifyingly to life.

Referee Arthur Donovan would later claim that this left hook caused Max’s face to swell and changed his pallor to a “faint bluish green.”

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The hook also carried him inside, but rather than moving for space Louis dug his heels in and pushed against Schmeling, denying him room, landing three hard uppercuts, pulling out and then stabbing back in with the one-two. When Schmeling puts his left glove over Joe’s right, cupping his own body protectively with his free arm, Louis reverted to his old habits, making room for himself as he punched, adjusting tactically to Schmeling’s increasingly desperate defensive manoeuvres.

After the German lands his only significant punch of the fight—a right hand as the champion moved away—Louis stalked a rattled Schmeling to the far rope and drew the inevitable pressure lead, before going to work with both hands to the midsection and switching upstairs. When Schmeling tries to hide up close after another one-two, Louis pushes him back and away, giving himself room for his aggressive rushes. Here, then, was the culmination of the tactical switch as he drove Schmeling back with the uppercut then invoked the most famous fistic assault between Dempsey and Tyson, hammering Schmeling back with both fists, the German catapulting away but seemingly caught in the Bomber’s horrifying gravity as he catches the rope for support with his right gloves and catapults himself right back into the kill zone. Louis is swarming all over him and Schmeling, now half turned away, is nothing more than a slab of meat and one that the champion goes to work upon in earnest, a butcher wielding two cleavers, finally landing perhaps his most famous punch, a right hand just above the kidney that fractured the transverse process of the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae, tearing the muscles surrounding it in the process. The scream that erupted from Schmeling was “half animal, half human” and according to David Margolick author of Beyond Glory: Max Schmeling and Joe Louis was so bloodcurdling that many patrons on that side of the ring reached for their hats as though compelled to retreat. If it occurred, this was a primal reaction but Louis, for me, was not giving the primal showing of legend.

“He is a jungle man,” wrote journalist Henry McLenmore. “As completely primitive as any savage out to destroy the thing he hates. He fought instinctively and not by any man-made pattern.”

This is not true. Louis had re-armed himself with some new tools for this fight and had shown a strategic surety the German came nowhere near matching—Schmeling was outthought for all that he was also slaughtered. When necessary, Louis switched between pure aggression and his drawing, counterpunching style with seamless ease and although he used his physical rather than his technical brilliance to master Schmeling, I would argue that “the hand of man” is more apparent in this performance than any other one of his fights.

“I thought in my mind, “How’s that Mr. Super-race? I was glad he was hurt,” said Louis in response to questions about his thoughts on the punch that had broken Schmeling’s back. Now he did cut loose, battering Max like he was a heavy bag and indeed from this point on the challenger put up about as much resistance. The final punch, when it came, had the same affect upon Schmeling’s face as a baseball bat would an apple, according to the Herald Tribune. The fight ended in confusion and uproar as first the towel, then Max Machon himself stormed the ring but Schmeling was as knocked out as any fighter had ever been. Louis had wiped the floor with him.

His reward, outside of the $400,000 he had just banked, was to be compared in the next few days in the press to every dangerous animal that walked the earth. Lions, tigers, bears, snakes, hawks and most of all panthers were what the champion was like and the racial climate in which he fought makes us look back and shake our heads at the casual racism. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and John F. Kennedy were all in America’s glittering future. But I do not think it was a matter of race—or not only of race.

It is a fact, however, that some of the pressmen that talked about Louis in these terms were black.

Louis himself, by virtue of his skill in the ring would take a hand in steering his race toward calmer waters.

It’s us.

We all look at Louis and see something primal because there is something primal within all of us. He speaks to it.

And that’s fine. Boxing needs its violence every bit as much as it needs its heroes. If this series of articles was about anything it was about stripping away that projection, that stardust, that lie and looking at the fighter underneath, because that is a beautiful thing that all too often is overlooked. Louis had one of the best jabs, one of the best skillsets, was one of the best counterpunchers, one of the best boxers at any weight, ever—and I hope I have shown that his supposed tactical rigidity and strategic naivety is something we have projected onto this “animal” this “killer” this “bomber,” too, for all that these were not his greatest strengths. He had help and Blackburn was an important part of arguably the greatest story our sport has ever known but as Joe Louis said, “Once that bell rings, you are on your own.

“It’s just you and the other guy.”

And I sure wouldn’t want to be the other guy.

For those of you who have taken the considerable time to read these articles on Joe Louis from the first word to the last—thank you.

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Action Galore in the U.K. on Saturday — Title Fights at Three Separate Venues

Published

4 days ago

May 24, 2023

Arne K. Lang

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Action Galore in the U.K. on Saturday — Title Fights at Three Separate Venues

England’s premier promoters – Eddie Hearn (Matchroom), Frank Warren (Queensberry), and the new kid on the block, Ben Shalom (BOXXER) — have competing shows this Saturday. The headline attractions shape up as competitive fights, especially the battle in Belfast where hometown hero Michael Conlan (18-1, 9 KOs) is a very slight favorite over Mexican spoiler Luis Alberto Lopez.

Belfast, Northern Ireland (ESPN+}

This fight is expected to kick off first with the ring walks at 9 pm local time (4 pm ET). At stake is the IBF world featherweight title which Lopez (27-2, 15 KOs) won with a well-earned majority decision over Josh Warrington in hostile Leeds. It was Lopez’s 10^th straight triumph. The Mexicali campaigner has been training in Las Vegas under Kay Koroma.

Conlan, the two-time Olympian, fought for the WBA version of this title in March of last year in Nottingham.

His war with Leigh Wood was the sort of fight that shortens a fighter’s career, but Conlan has shown no ill-effects. His lopsided decision over Miguel Marriaga in his last start followed a first-round blast-out of Karim Guerfi.

Also…

In a fight slated for 12, Liverpool’s Nick Ball (17-0, 10 KOs) squares off against South Africa’s Ludumo Lamati (21-0-1, 11 KOs). The five-foot-four “Wrecking” Ball, with his buzzsaw style, has been called Britain’s most exciting fighter. In a companion 12-rounder, Belfast’s Anthony “Apache” Cacace (20-1, 7 KOs) meets Damian Wrzesinski (26-2-2), a 38-year-old Pole. Cacace has been a road warrior. This is his first fight in his hometown in eight years.

Manchester (DAZN)

In a rematch for the WBA world featherweight title, Mexico City’s Mauricio Lara (26-2-1 (19 KOs) squares off against Leigh Wood (26-3, 16 KOs).

Fourteen weeks ago, Lara went into Wood’s backyard in Nottingham and stopped him in the seventh round. Lara was behind on the cards when he felled Wood with crunching left hook. Wood beat the count but his trainer Ben Davison tossed in the towel which struck many, especially Wood, as premature as less than 10 seconds remained in the round. In a previous trip to England, Lara stopped Josh Warrington in Leeds.

At last glance, Mauricio Lara, the younger man by 10 years, was a 3/1 favorite to take the measure of Wood once again.

Co-Feature

In his first appearance since his controversial defeat to Josh Taylor in Glasgow in February of last year, Jack Catterall (26-1,15 KOs) opposes Irish southpaw Darragh Foley (22-4-1, 16 KOs). The Sportsman called the Catterall-Taylor fight, a split decision win for Taylor, the most controversial fight in British boxing history.

Unlike Catterall, who may have some ring rust, Foley was in action 10 weeks ago, scoring his signature win with a third-round stoppage of favored Robbie Davies Jr.

Also

Adding spice to the card – assuming a suitable opponent can be found – is Terri Harper who was slated to fight Cecilia Braekhus last Saturday in the co-feature to Taylor vs. Cameron in Dublin. That match fell out when Braekhus developed flu-like symptoms following the weight-in.

The 26-year-old Harper (13-1-1, 6 KOs) owns the WBA 154-pound world title after previously holding the WBC belt at 130 pounds.

Bournemouth

Lawrence Okolie (19-0, 14 KOs) makes the fourth defense of his WBO world cruiserweight title against Chris Billam-Smith (17-1, 12 KOs).

Okolie, who blows hot and cold in terms of delivering a fan-family fight, returns to the ring two months after winning a snoozer in a mandatory defense against New Zealand’s David Light.

These two are well-acquainted, having sparred hundreds of rounds when both were trained by Shane McGuigan. Okolie has since abandoned McGuigan in favor of SugarHill Steward. Billam-Smith is on a nice roll – he’s won eight straight – and he will have home field advantage at Vitality Stadium where extra seats have been added in expectation of a sellout, but Lawrence Okolie, at last glance, was a 4/1 favorite.

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