This must have been a huge event judging by the coverage in The Times. The story dominates the front page as well as page 1 of the sports section and sidebars run through the whole paper. I posted several of these after the main story.
I seem to have read or seen something, that Schmelling bailed ($$$$$) Lewis out later in life.
Joe Louis and Jesse Owens provided America... and the democracies... a couple of early victories over the nazi juggernaut.
those were the days.
~~el puno machina.
Harry Reid used to be a boxer.
His handlers had so much confidence in his abilities that they used to rent out the bottoms of his shoes for advertising space.. :-)
This is old news.
The very worst beating you’d ever see a counter-puncher absorb. Schmeling’s one hope against Louis was throwing a hard right over Louis’ jab; it worked in the first fight but no rational person would have expected it to work a second time.
1. Back then, heavyweight championship fights were such major events that they absolutely dominated the front pages of newspapers, the radio coverage, etc.
2. When Schmeling beat Louis in their first meeting, it was no fluke. Louis had been beating everybody up, but still had not reached his full development as a boxer and had some holes in his "game." Schmeling was a very smart ... and underrated ... boxer and did what smart boxers do, take advantage of your opponent's weaknesses. He beat Louis up in that fight, again it was no fluke. But in 1938, Louis had filled in those holes and had reached his full development as a fighter, plus he had a real mad-on for Schmeling that night. IMHO no fighter who's ever laced a glove could have beaten Joe Louis on that particular night in history.
3. Schmeling got the Coca-Cola franchise in Germany after the war and retained it until his death, and became a very rich man and a noted philantropist. He and Louis did become good friends in later life, and when Louis became destitute ... the story of Joe Louis after his boxing career is one of the saddest stories you could ever imagine ... Schmeling did help pay his medical bills.
4. Donning my asbestos ... Ali would have picked Marciano apart, probably busted his face to pieces and the fight would end up being stopped on cuts. Rocky was tough, one of those guys that you would have to pretty much kill to stop, but Ali had 30 pounds, five inches in height and 13 inches in reach on him, plus he had better defense than anybody Marciano faced. An Ali-Marciano fight would have been sort of like Ali-Frazier, only again Frazier had more physical tools than Marciano plus he always got it up for Ali because he had the same kind of perpetual mad-on for Ali ... still does ... that Louis had for Schmeling that night.
5. The better fight would be Ali-Louis, and IMHO if Louis is able to cut the right off on Ali, he wins because while he didn't have the foot speed of Ali, he matched him in size and reach and hand speed, and while Ali's punching power in his prime was much underrated, it was not in the same solar system as Louis.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6A5aeD6oT_k
Marciano KO's Walcott for the title:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=WzYvErqjtDI&feature=related
The Liston-Westphal KO I mentioned (although you have to sit through another Liston fight to get it):
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Eg-mvGAT80w
Schmeling was a very good man. During Kristallnacht he hid a couple of Jewish kids in his hotel room so they wouldn’t get killed.
“The German ex-champion threw exactly two punches.”
This sounds like the classic “two-hit fight.” Louis hit Schmelling, and Schmelling hit the canvas.
As a follow-up:
Schmelling became a paratrooper (Fallschirmjaeger) in WW2, and fought in the paratroop invasion of Crete. The Fallschirmjaeger were elite units, to the same degree as the American Airborne divisions. He survived the war and passed away a year or two ago.
Louis served in the military during the war, but I don’t believe he saw combat. He did make a physical conditioning training film for the Army. He looked good in dress shirt, tie & campaign hat.
Ping for later.
Excellent writing! You don’t see this today.
What! Where is the YouTube?