By Terence Dooley
I was sat in a sun-seared Villa in a Spanish village watching the sports channel with my grandfather, we were watching a boxing show from France and two young fighters were contesting the regional novice title. My grandfather had boxed as a youth and as the bout began one fighter caught his eye; the guy was tall and upright and got tagged early on in the bout. His enemy advanced on him, as the hurt fighter retreated, he vainly tried to return fire yet his balance was off. My grandfather said: “He won’t last long in boxing, he is trying to punch, defend and move; you can tell by the way he hits that he can’t punch. The other guy is going to walk through him.”
It was plain to see that the heavy, medium-speed hitting of the guy in the ascendancy had made his opponent wary and reticent to engage. One guy was on the retreat with his arms flailing, the other guy was marching forwards, moving here, moving there and then setting his feet to punch with power and precision. The guy who had been forced on the move was an allegory of aggression and was promptly swept aside in a single round. My grandfather shook his head: “The guy did Ok but is not a world-beater; Joe Louis could do that sort of stuff at any level and against any fighter.”
It is evident when you watch Joe Louis that he is the epitome of graceful gazumping; his unspectacular footwork could fool someone into thinking they can run from him yet in his prime Joe was a great deceiver when it came to distance and punch selection.
He was not a mover; he was not a crash, bang, wallop puncher either. He was an intelligent exponent of cutting down the ring and finishing off a foe when the opportunity presented itself.
One of the greatest examples of Joe Louis at work is his demolition of the ‘Livermore Larruper’ Max Baer in a punch-perfect fight.
Baer was a fearsome hitter himself and signaled his intent by coming out with his legs set and his right hand cocked for action, I presume that his plan was to get Louis to open-up and then counter. Louis did open-up yet he did so with such force Max was unable to get the counters off.
One of the first significant exchanges saw Louis dip his knees then explode a jab followed by a right hand that went in through the middle, he then smashed home an uppercut from the same hand. Louis was still not content, a pair of hooks, left and right, followed through.
Baer had invited the opening in order to land his right hand yet you cannot counter a guy who is well-balanced and whipping in combinations through your open guard. Louis was flat-footed when hitting and Max’s spread-legged stance meant he needed an onrushing target to hit, Louis had come forward, yet he was by no means rushed.
Louis was jabbing in this fight, Max pawed with his own left; Baer was trying to find the range with his jab instead of using it as his primary means of making range.
Even on the ropes Louis remained patient in the face of Max’s rushes, Joe knew he had a great foundation for his attacks and fired his own right hand, left hook and right hook to render Baer off-balance. Max was simply unable to find his balance as his whole stance was right-hand oriented.
The end began in the third round as Baer began to lean and crouch even when at mid-range; he seemed subdued in the face of the superior artillery of Louis. When he did finally straighten himself it was to force a clinch, Louis came out of the clinch and sent in a left hook to the body that made Baer’s leg involuntarily jerk of the canvas.
Now was the time. A right hand sent Baer to the canvas. Louis even shows him the right before throwing it from the outside-in to catch Baer on the ear.
The second knock-down was different yet still more emphatic. An arcing sequence of shots went in, up and under from Louis. Missing a left hook did not bother Louis unduly; he merely fired three more left hooks that put Baer down. The hooks could be thrown in a due to the fact Louis threw half-hooks, he threw them with less than a forty-five degree swivel yet they had full power. Louis even used his uppercuts without flamboyance, they were a means to get the opponents head up for the next decisive blow.
Unluckily for Max the bell rang and doomed him for another round. Max came out and offered all he had left, a backhand slap that indicated his own power had been broken. Joe Louis used his best punch well in this round.
What is the best punch among his impressive array? For me it is his left hook followed by the right cross, they are punches that are indivisible, the one is a direct consequence of the other and Louis threw them in perfect unison.
After a big right hand the brave Baer went down like a building with blown foundations. Louis had ducked under the left hand of Baer, Max’s last bastion of defense, and then he straightened-up throwing the right hand in that same movement, a left went in but the right had done the damage.
Louis undid Baer using a mixture of leverage and poise; he also used his underrated footwork to do just enough to keep him on Baer at crucial times.
Shortly after this bout Louis would be battered into defeat by Max Schmeling who exploited a chink in the Louis guard, his low left when jabbing, on film then battered right hands through the chink in the ring to force a dramatic twelfth-round KO. Louis would regroup and become a Champion yet he always had that burning desire to avenge his loss to Schmeling and iron-out the flaw that had cost him his undefeated record.
So what did Joe Louis do to adapt? Well quite simply one could say he burned coldly enough to execute Max in their rematch without adaptation. Yet Louis did adapt the problem with his left hand that had allowed Schmeling to pour right hands home in their first fight.
Max came out for the only round of their rematch with his right cocked, he was waiting for Louis to throw so he could counter the left of Joe. Well the post-defeat Joe did throw the jab - then he jabbed again and then he threw a short left hook. In doing so he flustered Max and took his right hand, and ultimately the fight, away from him, there was simply no space to shoot the right hand, if Max waited for the lefts to end he’d have to take a few and evidently he did not relish the thought.
Joe increased the effect of his handicapping of Max by leaning his left arm on the cocked right arm of Max when they went inside, Schmeling himself carried a low left and with that defense gone his right was his only line of defense, not a countering bomb.
As it became clear Louis was going to explode through Max the challenger for the title did try a wild right hand, only he was so bent to his own right the shot lost its bearings and sailed over the shoulder of Louis.
You know the rest. Louis took a sole right from Max and smashed Max to the ropes with his own right hand.
By now Max was gripping the ropes to try and correct his errant balance. A left jab made the range for Louis who powered in a right hook to the ribs.
Max was still holding the rope and seemed to be, strangely, shrinking away from Joe and shirking on his own attacks.
A left to the chest flowed into a right hand, Louis missed a left hook yet, and frugal as ever, he switched it into a jab when its arc was done. Another right hand went into the twisted, battered body of Max and he let out that famous scream of pain. Another left to the chest killed the scream at its source and a left hook, right hand (doubled-up) smashes into Max before Joe positions him for another left hand.
Max was cast adrift on those ropes, he was fallen in spirit and aptly Joe Louis, the puncher who turns motion into poetry, had reduced Max Schmeling into a metaphor of his poise.
Perhaps fearful Louis would pulverize Max’s spine referee Arthur Donovan called off the assault briefly and waved them back into range.
Schmeling was bowed and bent forwards, perhaps he felt he could try and halve the power on the shots of Louis but he instead Louis smashed home a right hand that left Max rolling on the canvas.
Brave, crazy or downright optimistic Max beat the count only for Louis to continue beating him. Louis pitched yet another right and it connected with less purity. Perhaps annoyed by his imprecision, or more precisely Max’s cowing at the last moment to spoil the flow of the blow, Louis straightened Max with his left before smashing a right hand home.
This time there was no dispute. Max must have been rendered temporarily insane by the shots he’d taken and should have been pulled out due to diminished responsibility as again he got up for more of the same.
Gently brushing the arm of Max aside Louis roughly sent in a right to the body then crashed home the last word in their conflict, fittingly it was a right hand that culminated in a, superfluous, white towel fluttering in the ring to save the stricken Max, it could have been thrown in after the second knockdown such was Louis’ dominance.
Louis did not meet other fighters; rather he met people whom he had not had the opportunity to KO yet. Between his wins over the two Max’s Louis picked-up the world-title in one of my favorite fights.
In brief Louis, in taking the title from Jim Braddock Louis displayed that you need to commit to a clinch with a big hitter. Despite an early knock-down suffered by Louis the bout was never in doubt for him, in this fight Joe Louis showed his usual power and posture; Braddock acerbated these gifts by making the fundamental error of not working a clinch. If you expect a clinch to happen and the other guy does not yield you leave yourself open to devastating shots, as Braddock did in this fight, Louis merely stepped back from attempted clinches and destroyed his opponent with relative ease.
By the seventh Louis was stepping across Braddock to gain fresh angles for his shots, he was patient; feinting at times for an opening, perhaps he was striving for perfection. It came as well, a Louis jab, pawed to the body, was turned into a left hook to the guts that did not connect fully, nonetheless it was a Trojan Horse that contained within it the right hand that sealed the deal.
No fighter is going to have perfect poise in every moment of the fight, the key is making sure you have it when it is needed, in range, when you are ready to do damage. Poise is balance and balance is stillness, what Louis did was get into range and then plant his feet with such stillness of balance the punches would flow naturally, sublimely and steadily.
His punches were stills that each illustrated pure technique, when viewed quickly these stills exhibit something further, a fighter who knew that poise is temporary yet balance can be permanent as long as your shots are thrown constantly and logically in order to correct your stance. If you can do this, as Louis could, punch will follow punch as surely as ebb follows flow.