The Last Week

The fight for the heavyweight championship was just a week away. The accident of war had given it the longest, (five year) buildup in history and canny Promoter Mike Jacobs, who generally knows what the traffic will bear, had scaled ringside seats at an imposing $100 apiece.*

At Pompton Lakes, N.J., where Joe Louis trained, he played gin rummy like he fought--coolly, with a slight trace of a frown. He laughed, though, when he got a first-card knock: "Boy, you sure got to concentrate on this game. . . ." Joe didn't like to lose, even when he was playing for fun.

After a nap, the 212-lb. champion climbed into the ring for a workout. His lethal right hand, the payoff weapon, looked like a lead weight. His left seemed to have lost its old lightning. His legs had thickened at the thighs. Said Joe: "I know I look lousy. . . it's just the way I planned it." He knew that the time to look good was for one hour on the night of June 19, in Yankee Stadium.

The Boss. Some of the training camp second-guessers thought G.I. Joe's come back pace was too slow after four years in the Army. He had boxed only 113 rounds against 235 for Conn. But he hit the road every morning at 6 a.m. to run and walk six miles (Conn ran only two miles), caught up on sleep by dozing through his rubdowns, drank only bottled mineral water.

Joe was his own boss. For the first time in 60 fights, he was doing his own managing, signing papers, paying bills. At 32, Joe Louis was a bit past his fighting prime but he had his strategy figured out: "If I boff him, Billy loses his head. When he loses his head, I got him." The fight odds were 13-to-5 in Louis' favor and never wavered when a millionaire Texas oilman bet $300,000 on Challenger Conn. The gamblers had seen Billy, the dancing master, outbox Joe for twelve rounds back in 1941, then fall from one murderous punch.

The Other Camp. Twenty miles away at an abandoned resort hotel on Greenwood Lake, Pittsburgh's 182-lb. Billy Conn looked good -- in training. There were no gin rummy games in his camp any more: Billy had lost $1,800 to his brother in less than a week. Now they played quick two-handed poker games, anteing $20 bills, and raising with $205. Occasionally Billy commanded Manager Johnny Ray: "Gimme another hundred." Said Manager Ray: "We're just a bunch of plain, ordinary bums having a good time."

Billy's big assets were his youth (at 28 he was in his prime), speed and the best left hook in boxing. He had come out of the Army weighing a blubbery 204; now his legs were lean, his shoulders solid. His strategy: "Make Louis back up . . . when you do, he loses half of his effectiveness."

*At Madison Square Garden last week, the fans showed what they thought of Uncle Mike's prices. Just before Willie Pep knocked out Sal Bartolo to become undisputed featherweight champion, the fight announcer ballyhooed the details of the coming heavyweight fight, and was drowned out by boos. The day before, Manhattan police raided the Jacobs Ticket Agency, just around the corner from Mike's office, found the best seats being scalped for $175.

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