HAD NO CHANCE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 172, 7 August 1937, Page 18

HAD NO CHANCE

BRADD0CK AGAINST L(MS. PELL LIKE POLLED 0X. 30,000 SPECTATORS STUNNED Battered and beaten, with his face cut into crimson ribbons, but game to the last punch, James J. Braddock lay unconscious in the resln at one minute and ten seconds of the eighth round of his championship fight with Joe Louis, writes Grantland Rice of the big heavy-weight conte'sl at Chicago on June 22. Braddo.ck fell like a poled ox as Louis whipped a blasting right cross to the open chin. It was one of the most terrific single punches I have ever seen in the ring. Up to this point Braddock had taken a mauling. His features were so badly scrambled that only a stout heart could have stood up against the deadly salvo. Fifty thousand spectators, who had paid in over a half million dollars, sat stunned as the Louis right cross landed and Braddock whirled in the air and fell as stark and stiff as a dead man. It looked for a few seconds after the count that Braddock might hav,p been badly hurt. He had to be carried to his corner with blood pouring from a half dozen open wounds His head was hanging to one side. There was no glint' of life left in his half-open eyes. Braddock never had a chance. H was outclassed by youth, speed anc power to an over-abundant degree Braddock had only his gameness anc his stamina to carry into a wai against a fighter who had him outclassed in every other way. A Different Louis. Louis was a far different fightei from the man that lost to Schmeling, He was cool and craftty. He took his time. He had Braddock on the dim, twilight borderland of the dream country more than once, but he tools no chance of any sort. He proved that he had come a long way in defence from his Schmeling debacle. Braddock wanted to swap punches with a fellow who could trade him one for three and still collect Here is one leading example. In the first round Louis had Braddock hall groggy. "There he goes," the crowd shouted as Louis nailed Braddock with a left hook that shook him to both heels. : But, in place of falling, Braddock came back with a savage charge; with a right uppercut that knockec Louis down. As the count startec Louis came back to. his feet, but Braddock had shown that, whatever mighl happen later on, he was not afraid. Then those fer de lance lefts oJ Louis began to split Braddock's lefl eye just as they closed Schmeling'j orh. Jim began to bleed. In th« second old Jim took another heavj beating from lefts and rights thai came too swiftly for him to duck oi block. By the fourth round Braddoci began to tire. In the fifth round he threw a stiff left against Louis' hose and started a counter-flock of jlood But Louis never blinked. He wa: bleeding badly as the round epded anc the crowd roared its approval of Braddock's comeback. The Beginning of the End. The beginning of the end came ti the sixth. In this round Louis was t dark whirlwind. Braddock took t worse hammering here than Max Baei topk through the entire New Yori show. Few expected to see the fighl pass the seventh round, but, in thc seventh, Louis grew cautious again He was taking no sort of a chance He was not out to gamble when h had a sure thing broken .and reeling in the way of a wide-open targc-t There might be something still left jr that Braddock right, and Joe Louis has no fondness for a. right hand. Louis kept pumping lefts and rights into Braddock's gory frontispiece ali through the seventh round, waiting toi the main opening. It came eariy ii: the eighth, when the Brown Bomber without any warning, suddenly exploded the right cross that left "Old Jim" at the end of the road. He came up from the ash can to the heavyweight championship of the world, bu1 even as he lay dead asleep ln the dusl of the resin there will be no returr journey to the ash can. He fought the best 'fight he had in his system. He gave everything he had. It was not nearly enough against the overpowering odds of youth and speed anc power. » So Joe Louis became the second coloured heavyweight champion ir ring history. Jcak Johnson was the first when he beat Tommy Burns ir Australia in 1908. Johnson lost his title to Jess Willard twenty-two years ago in Havana. Joe Louis provec himself to be the second best heavyweight in the world, for Max Schmeling still stands at the top. Ma> Schmeling knocked out the man thal knocked out Braddock, the champion. Another American writer made the following comment: — The new champion watched the knock-down count from a neutra corner, one arm dangling idly over the ropes. He was dazed himself, I thinl — dazed by the suddenness of the enc and by the slow realisation of what ii meant I can't say he fought a good fight It wasn't classical. He bashed Jiir around, but he didn't land a rea finisher in seven rounds. I called one round for Braddock, one even, anc the rest for Louis. Jim didn't fighl the careful fight he should have. He threw too many rights, and for thal reason he took too xriuch punishment I guess that will be all for Braddock. And and his little family wil wind up with something slightly iess than 100,000 dollars, and the lasl chapter will be written in the story oi the penni'less dockhand who rose tc glory and fell as suddenly.