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The Hauser Report: The DAZN Experiment

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On March 3, 2023, I posted an article on The Sweet Science entitled “DAZN: Charging More for Less”. The article criticized DAZN’s boxing programming, its decision to move its most attractive offerings to pay-per-view (where they will no longer be included with the subscription price), and the network’s price increase which raised the cost of an annual subscription from $99.99 to $224.99. The article concluded by stating that I had cancelled my subscription to DAZN.

After cancelling my subscription, I received the expected “we’re sorry you’re leaving” computer-generated emails from DAZN. I also received quite a few emails from readers telling me that they agreed with the position I’d taken and wouldn’t renew their own subscription to DAZN when it expired.

More significantly, I received an email from Fred Mellor (vice president, communications for DAZN). A dialogue with Mellor followed with Fred voicing the view that there was reason for optimism with regard to DAZN’s boxing programming in the months ahead. I responded with a suggestion.

I would make a $225 contribution (the cost of a one-year subscription) to a mutually agreed upon charity. In exchange, DAZN would give me a complimentary one-year subscription. The charitable donation would ensure that there was no intent on my part to hustle DAZN out of $225. And at the same time, I wouldn’t be paying what I felt was an excessive rate for the subscription. Rather, I’d be making a donation to a charity that DAZN and I believed in.  I would then take notes on what I watched on DAZN. And at the end of the year, I’d write an article on whether I thought I’d gotten $225 worth of entertainment.

Mellor agreed to the proposal. On March 17, 2023, I sent a check for $225 to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota and my new subscription to DAZN began. A progress report follows.

On May 10, 2018, promoter Eddie Hearn and Perform Group CEO Simon Denyer announced a joint venture at a press conference in New York. Speaking about what was touted as a one-billion-dollar, eight-year joint licensing agreement to provide content for DAZN, Hearn proclaimed, “We’re here to change the game and elevate boxing to a new level for fight fans in America. We have the dates, the money, and the platform. We were dangerous without this. But with this money and this platform, omigod! We have by far the biggest rights budget in the sport of boxing and we’re going to be ultra-competitive. We’re going to put on the greatest shows with the greatest talent. This is a brand-new era for boxing in the U.S. We’re here and we mean business. We have money never seen before in the sport of boxing. If I fail here, I’m a disgrace.”

Since then, DAZN’s boxing product has been pedestrian. And subscription buys in the United States have been a disappointment. According to Bloomberg, DAZN has lost more than six BILLION dollars since its 2016 launch.

More boxing is available to fight fans on traditional television and streaming outlets now than ever before. But most of it comes with a price tag attached in the form of a monthly subscription fee or one-time pay-per-view buy. The content itself also leaves a lot to be desired.

The biggest problem is that there are too many “A-side vs. B-side” fights.

Suppose you’re in high school. And the two toughest kids in school tell people that they’ve decided to settle their differences by fighting in a vacant lot after classes that day. You’d be inclined to watch it, right?

Now change the paradigm. One of these tough guys announces that he plans to beat up the class nerd after school that day because some other kids paid him to do it. They thought it would be fun to watch. That’s less appealing. Sickening, actually.

The latter scenario is akin to too many fights in boxing today. A-side vs. B-side fights lack drama. DAZN isn’t the only network to televise them. But it might be the worst offender among the major networks and it’s the only network that charges $225 a year (plus a hefty premium for PPV fights) to watch.

HBO at its peak was “the heart and soul of boxing.” DAZN has become “the home of A-side vs. B-side fights.”

To quantify this finding, I tracked the first twelve fight cards streamed by DAZN after my new subscription began. The survey doesn’t include DAZN’s “X Series” or comparable programming. These “trashboxing” cards feature what DAZN calls “crossover boxing talent” like “Fangs vs. Vampira” (two women fighters) and bouts involving a lapsed NFL running back, assorted social influencers, and combatants identified as “Viking, Sharks, Pizza, and YuddyGangTV.”

The survey numbers speak for themselves.

DAZN streamed 68 fights on the twelve fight cards that I tracked. In almost all of them, the A-side fighter was clearly identified in pre-fight press releases, listings on BoxRec.com, and (depending on local custom and promoter preference) placement in a particular corner on fight night.

The experiment began with Matchroom’s March 18 show in Newcastle and ended with Canelo Alvarez vs. John Ryder in Guadalajara on May 6. The A-side fighter won 62 of these 68 fights. The B-side fighter won five. There was one draw.

Three of the five upsets were on Golden Boy cards. One was on a Matchroom promotion and one was on a small club show promoted by Boxing Insider in association with DiBella Entertainment.

Matchroom was the most persistent purveyor of fights with predictable outcomes. Five of the twelve fight cards streamed in the United States by DAZN during this period were promoted by Matchoom. There were 28 fights on these five DAZN cards. The B-side fighter won one of them.

One win in 28 fights is a 3.6 percent success rate.

Let’s examine the cards more closely.

Matchroom’s March 18 offering from Newcastle began at 3:00 PM New York time. That put DAZN in direct conflict with round two of the NCAA men’s basketball championship tournament. Five fights were shown on DAZN. In each instance, one corner was the presumptive winner’s corner. The other was for the designated loser.  Every A-side fighter on the card was undefeated, and the idea was to keep them that way. Jordan Ellison was the first designated loser. He’d already lost 44 fights, so not much was expected of him and he fought down to expectations. The other four fights had similar outcomes. I’m told that the main event in which Cyrus Pattinson (a 7-to-1 favorite) knocked out Chris Jenkins was a good fight. But Jenkins had won only one of his most recent five fights, and I’d turned off DAZN by then to watch basketball.

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 5 wins . . . B-side, 0 wins.

 That night, still competing with “March Madness,” there was a Golden Boy fight card on DAZN. Two early preliminary bouts were shown on DAZN and DAZN’s YouTube channel. During this early stream, an omnipresent banner across the bottom of the screen heralded the evening’s main event between Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez and Gabriel Rosado. Except one day earlier, Ramirez had been 7.6 pounds over the 175-pound contract weight and that bout had been cancelled.

The A-side won both of the early preliminary fights.

The rest of the card was supposed to start on DAZN at 8:00 PM. But it didn’t. Instead, there was a 30-second graphic that repeated again and again until 8:45 PM when the live stream began. Four more fights followed. In the first, Dalis Kaleiopu decisioned Jonathan Perez (who had 34 losses). The rest of the card stayed true to form until the final bout when Mercito Gesta won a strange split decision in upsetting JoJo Diaz (the dissenting judge scored the bout 97-93 for Diaz while another judge had it 99-91 for Gesta).

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 5 wins . . . B-side, 1 win.

One week later, on March 25, DAZN streamed a fight card co-promoted by Golden Boy and Zanfer Promotions from Guadalajara. The opening bout saw 16-0, 15 KOs knock out 5-11, 3 KOs. In the main event, Jose Zepeda faced off against Neeraj Goyat. Goyat is from India (not known as a home for world-class boxing). According to CompuBox, Zepeda outlanded Goyat 218-to-44. All three judges scored the bout 100-90 in Zepeda’s favor.

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 5 wins . . . B-side, 0 wins.

On March 31, DAZN streamed an eight-bout Wasserman Boxing card from London. The first fight saw 4-0 win a six-round decision over 4-27-1. In the main event, Harlem Eubank (16-0, 6 KOs) won a ten-round decision over Miguel Cesario Antil (who had one win in his most recent nine outings).

Fights shown on DAZN . . .A-side, 8 wins . . . B-side, 0 wins.

Do you see a pattern here?

Next up; the much-anticipated April 1 Matchroom card from London featuring Anthony Joshua vs. Jermaine Franklin.

The Joshua fight was one that I had looked forward to watching. The burden was on AJ (a 10-to-1 favorite) to make the fight. And he didn’t. Instead, he fought an overly cautious fight, jabbing and grabbing for twelve long rounds. His favored weapon (which the referee let him get away with time and again) was to hold Franklin’s head in place by pushing down of the back of Jermaine’s neck during a clinch and simultaneously throwing an uppercut. But AJ was unable to execute the maneuver well enough to do damage. The young Joshua would have knocked out this version of AJ. This version of Joshua settled for a 12-round decision over Franklin.

The entire Joshua-Franklin card was marked by long delays between fights and had the feel of an infomercial with puff-piece commentary and seemingly endless promos for future DAZN shows.

And remember; DAZN has regular commercials too.

Writing for Boxing News, George Gigney observed, “The objective of broadcaster DAZN appeared to be alarmingly transparent: hype Joshua up at every opportunity and shove their upcoming schedule as far down viewers’ throats as possible. The amount of promotion DAZN did of their own programming during this show was staggering. Boxing fans aren’t paying and tuning in to be told what’s coming up. They’re paying to watch fights.”

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 5 wins . . . B-side, 0 wins.

There’s more.

On an April 6 Golden Boy card from California, the B-side opponents had credentials like (1) had lost nine of ten fights dating back to 2018; (2) had suffered three knockout defeats in three fights dating back to 2019; and (3) winless in three fights dating back to 2018. These fights ran true to form. There was an upset in the main event when Angelino Cordova, who had fought only two fighters with winning records in his entire career, decisioned Angel Acosta.

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 4 wins . . . B-side, 1 win.

That was followed by another Matchroom show; eight fights from San Antonio headlined by Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez vs. Christian Gonzalez. Rodriguez, a 15-to-1, favorite, won a 12-round decision. There was one upset when Marlon Tapales won a questionable split decision over Murodjon Akhmadaliev. And Jose Lopez (4-2-1) fought Jesus Martinez (3-0, 1 KO) to a draw.

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 6 wins . . . B-side, 1 win . . . 1 draw.

On April 22, Matchroom returned to DAZN with a fight card in Cardiff headlined by Joe Cordina vs. Shavkat Rakhimov.

Fights shown on DAZN . . .A-side, 5 wins . . . B-side, 0 wins

Then DAZN put its best foot forward and fell flat on its face.

April 22 marked the most anticipated fight of the year to date – Gervonta Davis vs. Ryan Garcia promoted by TGB Promotions (under the command of PBC impresario Al Haymon) in Las Vegas. Viewers didn’t need DAZN for this. It was a pay-per-view offering produced entirely by (and available through multiple platforms affiliated with) Showtime. But DAZN and Golden Boy have contractual relationships with Garcia and participated in the distribution. The PPV price in the United States was $84.99. DAZN subscribers could order the event for $59.99.

Except . . . There was a technical glitch that resulted in numerous DAZN subscribers who ordered the event through DAZN being unable to see the fight and others being charged multiple times on their credit card. Dan Rafael spoke for media and fans alike when he labeled the situation “an absolute mess.”

Simply put; a multibillion-dollar company (DAZN) owned by one of the richest men in the world (Len Blavatnik) had trouble delivering the pay-per-view stream of a fistfight.

Then, to make matters worse, DAZN initially balked at refunding money to fans who had been unable to see the fight or charged multiple times on their credit card, offering them a “free” code for the May 6 Canelo Alvarez vs. John Ryder PPV event instead. On May 4, Fred Mellor assured The Sweet Science, Any funds that were incorrectly taken are being returned.”

As for the fights on the Davis-Garcia stream; the A-side fighter won both bouts on a free DAZN undercard by knockout. The four fights on the PPV card also ended in wins for the A-side fighter.

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 6 wins . . . B-side, 0 wins

Moving along . . .

On April 27, DAZN streamed a six-bout club-fight card promoted by Boxing Insider in association with DiBella Entertainment in New York. Boxing Insider CEO Larry Goldberg has a financial model that differs from larger promoters. He doesn’t sign fighters to multi-bout promotional contracts. So while his match-ups sometimes favor fighters who buy their way onto one of his cards, he’s not adverse to competitive fights. In this instance, Goldberg and DiBella each had the final say on three of the six match-ups.

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 5 wins . . . B-side, 1 win

On April 29, DAZN streamed four fights promoted by Golden Boy in Texas. William Zepeda, a 20-to-1 favorite, knocked out Jaime Arboleda in the second round of the main event. Marco Periban who has won only once since 2016, lost an 8-round decision to David Stevens. Diego De La Hoya was upset by Victor Morales on a second-round stoppage.

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 3 wins . . . B-side, 1 win

That brings us to the May 6 (Cinco de Mayo Weekend) fight card headlined by Canelo Alvarez vs. John Ryder – a feel-good homecoming event with Canelo’s four super-middleweight belts on the line.

The fight was contested in Estadio Akron, a soccer venue in Zapopan (in the metropolitan area of Guadalajara). It was Canelo’s first fight in Mexico since he knocked out Kermit Cintron in Mexico City in 2011. Twenty-two Canelo fights and a dozen years had passed since then.

It was widely publicized that the price for Canelo-Ryder would be $79.99 without a DAZN subscription and $59.99 with one. DAZN’s home page listed the PPV price with a DAZN subscription as $54.99.

The first four fights on the PPV undercard went as expected. Most notably, Julio Cesar Martinez (a 10-to-1 favorite) knocked out Ronal Batista in the eleventh round.

Ryder had said all the right things leading up to Canelo-Ryder, declaring, “I’m not here for a holiday. I wouldn’t bring the team with me, have the team around me that I have, if I didn’t believe I could win.” But he’d lost previously to Callum Smith, Rocky Fielding, and Billy Joe Saunders (each of whom was soundly thrashed by Canelo) in addition to being knocked out by Nick Blackwell and decisioned by Jack Arnfield.

This was a step down in the level of competition for Canelo after consecutive fights against Saunders, Caleb Plant, Dmitry Bivol, and Gennady Golovkin. He was a 12-to-1 betting favorite.

Ryder fought with honor but didn’t have the tools to win. There was never a moment when the outcome of the fight was in doubt. Canelo dropped him in round five and cruised to a 120-107, 118-109, 118-109 triumph. According to CompuBox, he outlanded Ryder in every round, compiling a 179-to-80 advantage in punches landed. And Canelo’s punches were harder. Much harder.

I have no problem with Canelo fighting John Ryder in Guadalajara. The setting gave the event a nice feel. I have a big problem with DAZN charging its subscribers (who are already paying $225 a year) an additional $54.99 to watch it.

Fights shown on DAZN . . . A-side, 5 wins . . . B-side, 0 wins

So where does all of this leave us?

To repeat the numbers mentioned above; DAZN has streamed 68 fights from twelve fight cards since the experiment began. The A-side fighter has won 62 of these fights and the B-side fighter five. There was one draw

Did DAZN stream some good fights where the favorite won but was tested? Absolutely. But there were far more fights where the favorite wasn’t tested in ways that fighters can and should test one another. And the personnel on DAZN’s commentating teams vary depending on the particulars of each show, so there’s no consistency to bind the network’s boxing programming together.

As for the future; DAZN appears to be doubling down on its A-side vs. B-side formula. On May 2, it announced a three-year extension of its deal with Matchroom to stream fights in the United States and Mexico.

And the trash boxing will continue. On August 5, DAZN will stream Jake Paul vs. Nate Diaz on pay-per-view. Joe Markowski (CEO of DAZN North America) calls Paul “one of the biggest names in boxing.”

Jake couldn’t beat Tommy Fury. Diaz has never boxed professionally.

In sum, DAZN is buying boxing content in bulk and streaming a lot of fights. But it’s not compelling programming.

The network also streams sports other than boxing. But pool and darts don’t interest me.

DAZN has a far more positive view of its boxing programming than I do. Two days before Canelo-Ryder, in response to a series of written questions addressed to Markowski, Fred Mellor told me, “We are proud of the continuously high-quality boxing schedule we have delivered to our subscribers since our market entry in 2018. We are also very proud of the consistent quality and breadth and depth of our schedule, which we believe is unmatched. Fight fans should stick with us for the rest of the journey.”

Asked why DAZN (unlike streaming services such as ESPN+ and Netflix) doesn’t announce the number of subscribers that it has in the United States, Mellor answered, “We do not release our subscriber numbers by geography as this will inevitably lead to us being defined by this limiting metric, which is not how we see the business being defined in the future.”

So to ask again . . . Where does all of this leave DAZN’s subscribers who are being billed $224.99 for a one-year subscription?

Think of a $20-dollar-per-person, all-you-can eat buffet. The buffet table has orange jello, baloney, carrots, wilted greens, pasta in a watery tomato sauce, and stale rolls, all of which look like they were left over from a discount-airline catering service. Then, lo and behold, you see a platter of freshly-peeled shrimp.

“This might not be so bad after all,” you tell yourself. But as you make your way toward the shrimp, a server tells you, “Sorry, there’s a supplemental charge of $59.99 for the shrimp. You only signed up for the regular buffet.”

Thomas Hauser’s email address is thomashauserwriter@gmail.com. His most recent book – In The Inner Sanctum: Behind the Scenes at Big Fights – was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In 2004, the Boxing Writers Association of America honored Hauser with the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism. In 2019, he was selected for boxing’s highest honor – induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

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

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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 12th-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

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‘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

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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 10th 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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