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Joe louis
1. Joe Louis Barrow
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Statistics Real name Nickname(s) Rated at Joseph Louis Barrow Brown Bomber Heavyweight
Height Reach Nationality Birth date
6 ft 2 in (1.88 m) 76 in (190 cm) "TYPE=PICT;ALT=UnitedStates" May 13, 1914(1914-05-13) Lafayette, Alabama, USA April 12, 1981(1981-04-12) (aged 66) Paradise, Nevada, USA Orthodox Boxing record American
Birth place
Death date
Death place
Stance
Total fights Wins Wins by KO Losses Draws No contests
68 65 51 3 0 1
Joseph Louis Barrow (May 13, 1914 – April 12, 1981), better known as Joe Louis, was the world heavyweight boxing champion from 1937 to 1949. He is considered to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. Nicknamed the Brown Bomber, Louis helped elevate boxing from a nadir in popularity in the post-Jack Dempsey era by establishing a reputation as an honest, hardworking fighter at a time when the sport was dominated by gambling interests.[1][2] Louis's championship reign lasted 140 consecutive months, during which he participated in 27 championship fights, 26 championship fights during his reign; the 27th, against Ezzard Charles, was a challenge to Charles' heavyweight title and so is not included in Louis' reign. All in all, Joe
was victorious in 25 successful title defenses, a record for the heavyweight division. In 2005, Louis was named the greatest heavyweight of all time by the International Boxing Research Organization,[3] and was ranked number one on The Ring's list of 100 Greatest Punchers of All Time. Louis's cultural impact was felt well outside the ring. He is widely regarded as the first African American to achieve the status of a nationwide hero within the United States, and was also a focal point of anti-Nazi sentiment leading up to and during World War II.[4] He also was instrumental in integrating the game of golf, breaking the sport's color barrier in America by appearing under a sponsor's exemption in a PGA event in 1952.[5]
By this time, Louis was ranked as the No. 1 contender in the heavyweight division, 1. [42] and had won the Associated Press' "Athlete of the Year" award for 1935.[39] What was considered to be a final tune-up bout before an eventual title shot was scheduled for June 1936 against former world heavyweight champion Max Schmeling. Although a former champion, Schmeling was not considered a threat to Louis, then with an undefeated professional record of 27-0.[43] Schmeling had won his title on a technicality when Jack Sharkey was disqualified after giving Schmeling a low blow in 1930. Schmeling was also 30 years old at the time of the Louis bout, and allegedly past his prime.[43] Louis's training retreat was located at Lakewood, New Jersey, where Louis was first able to practice the game of golf, which later became a lifelong passion.[44] Noted entertainer Ed Sullivan had initially sparked Louis's interest in the sport by giving an instructional book to Joe's wife, Marva.[45] Louis spent significant time on the golf course rather than training for the Schmeling match.[26][46] Conversely, Schmeling prepared intently for the bout. Schmeling had thoroughly studied Louis's style, and believed he had found a weakness.[47] By exploiting Louis's habit of dropping his left hand low after a jab, Schmeling handed Louis his first professional loss by knocking him out in Round 12 at Yankee Stadium on June 19, 1936.[48]
World Championship
1. After defeating Louis, Schmeling expected a title shot against James J. Braddock, who had unexpectedly defeated Max Baer for the heavyweight title the previous June. Madison Square Garden (MSG) had a contract with Braddock for the title defense and also sought a BraddockSchmeling title bout. But Jacobs and Braddock's manager Joe Gould had been planning a Braddock-Louis matchup for months.[49] Schmeling's victory gave Gould tremendous leverage, however; if he were to offer Schmeling the title chance instead of Louis, there was a very real possibility that Nazi authorities would never allow Louis a shot at the title.[49] Gould's demands were therefore onerous: Jacobs would have to pay 10% of all future boxing promotion profits (including any future profits from Louis's future bouts) for ten years.[50] Braddock and Gould would eventually receive more than $150,000 from this arrangement.[50] Well before the actual fight, Jacobs and Gould publicly announced that their fighters would face for the heavyweight title on June 22, 1937.[50] Figuring that the New York State Athletic Commission would not sanction the fight in deference to MSG and Schmeling, Jacobs scheduled the fight for Chicago.[50] Each of the parties involved worked to facilitate the controversial Braddock-Louis matchup. Louis did his part by knocking out former champion Jack Sharkey on August 18, 1936. Meanwhile, Gould trumped up anti-Nazi sentiment against Schmeling,[51] and Jacobs defended a lawsuit by MSG to halt the Braddock-Louis fight. A federal court in Newark, New Jersey eventually ruled that Braddock's
Louis' string of lightly-regarded competition ended with his bout against 1. Billy Conn, the light-heavyweight champion and a highly-regarded contender. The fighters met on June 18, 1941, in front of a crowd of 54,487 fans at the Polo Grounds in New York City.[63] The fight turned out to be one of the greatest heavyweight boxing fights of all time. Conn would not gain weight for the challenge against Louis, saying instead that he would rely on a "hit and run" strategy. Louis's famous response: "He can run, but he can't hide."[13][64] However, Louis had clearly underestimated Conn's threat. In his autobiography, Joe Louis said, "I made a mistake going into that fight. I knew Conn was kinda small and I didn't want them to say in the papers that I beat up on some little guy so the day before the fight I did a little roadwork to break a sweat and drank as little water as possible so I could weigh in under 200 pounds. Chappie was as mad as hell. But Conn was a clever fighter, he was like a mosquito, he'd sting and move."[63] Conn had the better of the fight through twelve rounds, although Louis was able to stun Conn with a left hook in the fifth, cutting his eye and nose. By the eighth round, Louis began suffering from dehydration. By the twelfth round, Louis was exhausted, with Conn ahead on two of three boxing scorecards. But against the advice of his corner, Conn continued to closely engage Louis in the later stages of the fight. Louis made the most of the opportunity, knocking Conn out with two seconds left in the thirteenth round.[63] The contest created an instant rivalry that Louis's career had lacked since the Schmeling era, and a rematch with Conn was planned for late 1942. The rematch had to be abruptly canceled, however, after Conn broke his hand in a much-publicized fight with his father-in-law, major league ballplayer "Greenfield" Jimmy Smith.[65] By the time Conn was ready for the rematch, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had taken place, detouring Louis's heavyweight career.
Later career and retirement
1. Louis emerged from his wartime service significantly in debt. In addition to his looming tax bill — which had not been finally determined at the time, but was estimated at greater than $100,000[68] — Jacobs claimed that Louis owed him $250,000.[78] Despite the financial pressure on Louis to resume boxing, his long-awaited rematch against Billy Conn had to be postponed to the summer of 1946, when weather conditions could accommodate a large outdoor audience. On June 19, a disappointing 40,000 saw the rematch at Yankee Stadium,[68] in which Louis was not seriously tested. Conn, whose skills had deteriorated during the long layoff, largely avoided contact until being dispatched by knockout in the eighth round. Although the attendance did not meet expectations, the fight was still the most profitable of Louis's career to date. His share of the purse was $600,000, of which Louis' managers got $140,000, his ex-wife $66,000, and the state of New York $30,000.[68] After trouble finding another suitable opponent, on December 5, 1947, Louis met Jersey Joe Walcott, a 33-year-old veteran with a 44-11-2 record. Walcott entered the fight as a 10-to-1 underdog. Nevertheless, Walcott knocked down Louis twice in the first four rounds. Most observers in Madison Square Garden felt Walcott dominated the 15-round fight; when Louis was
declared the winner in a split decision, the crowd booed.[68] Louis was under no delusion about the state of his boxing skills, yet he was too embarrassed to quit after the Walcott fight. Determined to win and retire with his title intact, Louis signed on for a rematch. On June 25, 1948, about 42,000 people came to Yankee Stadium to see the aging champion, who weighed 213½, the heaviest of his career to date. Walcott knocked down Louis in the third round, but Louis survived to knock out Walcott in the eleventh.[68] Louis would not defend his title again before announcing his retirement from boxing on March 1, 1949.[79] In his bouts with Conn and Walcott, it had become apparent that Louis was no longer the fighter he once had been. As he had done earlier in his career, however, Louis would continue to appear in numerous exhibition matches worldwide.[13][79]
Post-retirement comeback
Personal life and death
1. "TYPE=PICT;ALT=" "TYPE=PICT;ALT=" Joe Louis with Jean Anderson, Chicago, 1947
Louis had two children by wife Marva Trotter (daughter Jacqueline in 1943 and son Joseph Louis Barrow, Jr. in 1947) and adopted three others. They divorced in March 1945 only to remarry a year later, but were again divorced in February 1949.[68][92] Marva moved on to an acting and modeling career.[76][93] On Christmas Day 1955, Louis married Rose Morgan, a successful Harlem businesswoman; their marriage was annulled in 1958.[92] Louis's final marriage – to Martha Jefferson, a lawyer from Los Angeles, on St. Patrick's Day 1959 – lasted until his death. They had a child and also named him Joe, Jr. The younger Joe Louis Barrow, Jr. lives in New York city and is involved in boxing.[84][92] Though married four times, Louis discreetly enjoyed the company of both African-American and white women, including Lena Horne, Sonja Henie, and Lana Turner.[20][84] 1.
"TYPE=PICT;ALT=" "TYPE=PICT;ALT=" Joe Louis' headstone in Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia
In 1953, Robert Gordon directed a movie about Louis's life, The Joe Louis Story. The movie, filmed in Hollywood, starred Golden Gloves fighter Coley Wallace in the role of Louis.[94] Starting in the 1960s, Louis was frequently mocked by segments of the African-American community (including Muhammad Ali) for being an Uncle Tom. Drugs took a toll on Louis in his later years. In 1969, he was hospitalized after collapsing on a New York City street. While the incident was at first credited to "physical breakdown,"[92] underlying problems would soon surface. In 1970, he spent five months at the Colorado Psychiatric Hospital and the Veterans Administration Hospital in Denver, hospitalized by his wife, Martha, and his son, Joe Louis Barrow Jr., for paranoia.[92] In a 1971 book, Brown Bomber, by Barney Nagler, Louis disclosed the truth about these incidents, stating that his collapse in 1969 had been caused by cocaine, and that his subsequent hospitalization had been prompted by his fear of a plot to destroy him.[92] Strokes and heart ailments caused Louis's condition to deteriorate further later in the decade. He had surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm in 1977 and thereafter used an Amigo POV/scooter for a mobility aid.[13][95] Louis died of a heart attack in Desert Springs Hospital on April 12, 1981, just hours after his last public appearance viewing the Larry Holmes-Trevor Berbick heavyweight championship. Ronald Reagan waived the eligibility rules for burial at Arlington National Cemetery, and Louis was buried there with full military honors on April 21, 1981
Quick Facts:
Date of Birth: May 14, 1914 Date of Death: April 12, 1981
Parents: The son of an Alabama Sharecropper, called Mun Barrow, stepfather moved them to Detroit in 1924. Information on his mother is hard to come by.
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Education: Very little because as a child he lived in poverty Honors and Awards: Only boxer to retire with his championship belt. Won National Light Heavy Weight Amateur Crown of the Golden Gloves at nineteen years old.
Joe Louis ascended to the top of the boxing world faster than any other athlete in history. From his “Bum of the Month” campaign to his tragic death, Louis was one of the most interesting sports figures in history.
Known to many as the “Brown Bomber,” Joe Louis Barrow was born on May 13, 1914. He was the son of an Alabama sharecropper, and he was close to his large family. He moved to Detroit in 1924, where he won the National Light Heavyweight Amateur Crown of the Golden Gloves at the early age of nineteen. In 1933, John Roxborough, his manager at the time, thought his name was too long, so it was shortened to simply Joe Louis. In 1935, Louis turned pro. He won his first eight fights, but finally lost to Max Schmelling, a German who was a key part of Hitler’s “Aryan Superiority”. After twelve grueling rounds, Louis was finally defeated by Schmelling via knock out. In 1937, Louis won the Heavyweight Championship of the World after beating James Bradock but later said, “I don’t want nobody to call me champ until I beat Schmelling”
Joe got his chance for a rematch on June 27, 1938, and he took advantage of it. Once the bell rang, Louis paid no attention to his defense, and went wild on Schmelling. He would win with a first round knock-out. Schmeling fell to the floor two minutes and four seconds into the fight. Louis dealt a devastating blow to Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Joe defended his title until 1942 when he served in the army. During his service, he fought two charity bouts for military relief. When he left the service, he defended his title again until 1949, when he retired, still the champion. So many victories in such a short amount of time, however, took a toll in the form of taxes. In Louis’s entire career he earned $4,677,992, but paid $1,199,000 in income taxes. Unfortunately, drugs also took a toll on Louis in his final years. In 1969, he collapsed on a New York City street and was hospitalized. The incident was credited to a “physical breakdown,” but Louis later admitted it was caused by his cocaine use and fear of a plot against his life. With his health failing, Louis still went to major boxing events. On April 12, 1981, Joe had had ringside seats at a Larry Holms vs. Trever Berbick championship bout.
After the match, Louis went into cardiac arrest and died at age sixty-six. During his career, Louis had many wonderful moments in his boxing career. Joe Louis retired with the boxing title, won his first eight matches as a pro, faced men like Rocky Marciano, Tony Zale, Buddy Baer, and Johnny Paycheck. He is now said to be one of the best prize fighters of all time.
Bibliography
Byers, Paula K. Encyclopedia of World Biography. Detroit: Gale Research, 1998. Sherrow, Victoria. North American Biographies. Danbury : Phillip Lief Group Inc., 1994.
The Joe Louis Estate. “Joe Louis the Official Web Site.” Joe Louis Biography. 1999. The Joe Louis Estate CMG Worldwide. 14, Mar. 2000 .
For a more detailed biography on Joe Louis click HERE.