The Man Who Wasn't Afraid

Only two minutes had gone by in the first round. There was a sharp exchange of blows, and Joe Louis, the world champion, fell backwards and landed on the seat of his purple pants. The crowd caught its breath, and then yelled. At the count of two, Big Joe got up again. But the 18,194 cash customers in Madison Square Garden had seen a rare sight--Joe Louis floored in the first round.

Some of the thousands had paid $30 for seats euphemistically marked "ringside." They didn't really expect to see a fight. They had come to see the one & only Joe Louis, the famed Brown Bomber who had knocked out 21 of the 23 men who challenged his heavyweight title in the past ten years--and this might be his last appearance. Nobody knew or cared much about the man Big Joe was fighting. Even the champ, who is honest clear through, admitted that his foe--old Jersey Joe Walcott--was a second-rater.

At least, Jersey Joe wasn't afraid of the champ. At 33, the battle-scarred Negro, who looked like Jack Benny's Rochester, had seen so many ups & downs that one more wouldn't hurt, either way. He had quit the ring several times. In those intervals he had driven an ice truck, mixed cement, gone on relief at $9.50 a week to support his wife and six kids. But once he got a chance to fight Louis, Jersey Joe Walcott (his unferocious real name was Arnold Raymond Cream*) went about his preparations thoroughly. He studied movies of Louis' fights, like a football coach looking for weakness in enemy defenses.

On the Whiskers. He saw, sure enough, that Big Joe had trouble defending against one punch: a counter-right after leading with his left. As a sparring partner of Joe Louis' eleven years ago, he had used that punch to put Big Joe on the floor one day. (Louis doesn't remember ever having been floored in training. Says Walcott: "I knocked Joe down in the very first round with a right hand punch that landed on the whiskers. They paid me $25 and hustled me out of camp for saying that Louis couldn't savvy my style. That's on the square and the champ can't deny it.") That was the punch that knocked the champ down in the first round last week.

By the third round, people were beginning to wonder what was the matter with Joe Louis. He kept shuffling forward, a bald spot visible on the crown of his 33-year-old head, stalking his man as he always did--careful, tense, relentless. But whenever Big Joe got set, Jersey Joe danced nimbly out of range. He bobbed and weaved, dropped his guard, ambled to the left, then the right, jiggled his feet, turned southpaw at times. He backed up--but not into the ropes: he had too much ring smartness for that. Louis, always moving forward, looked like the aggressor, but for all the damage he did he might as well have had both hands in a sling.

In round four, Jersey Joe belted the champ on the whiskers again. This time, when Joe Louis hit the floor, it looked as if he might stay there. He got up at the count of seven. Gradually, through the swelling roar, people realized that they were seeing a Joe Louis who had lost his stuff. Once he had used a deadly counterpunch as his best defense. Now, his reflexes were too slow. In the ninth, he had his best round, slugging it out with his lighter (by 16 1/2 lbs.) foe. But Jersey Joe Walcott, backed into the ropes, took it all, and gave something in return.

With two rounds to go, Jersey Joe's handlers told him he had the fight (and the world's heavyweight championship) in the bag. Under orders to stay away from Louis, Jersey Joe began playing hare & hound. When the fight ended, Joe Louis, instead of staying in his corner, ducked through the ropes. (He explained later: "I fought so lousy that I was embarrassed and just wanted to get out of sight.") His handlers pulled him back to wait for the decision.

Human After All. Most of the fans and Referee Ruby Goldstein had no doubt about it. They gave the decision to Jersey Joe. But two judges voted the other way. As his arm was raised in victory, Joe Louis, a forlorn figure, got booed for the first time in his long ring career. The cheers were for Jersey Joe. The fact is that Walcott probably deserved the decision--even if no one deserved to win a world's heavyweight championship by riding a bicycle the last round. Louis, some $190,000 richer and still champion despite his weary legs and battered face, shuffled over to Walcott and said apologetically: "I'm sorry, Joe."

All across the land, shocked radioside "fans tried to accustom themselves to the idea that Joe Louis, the indestructible, was human after all. For half an hour, Big Joe locked himself in his dressing room, away from reporters. When he finally let them in, there was an uncomfortable silence. When a photographer said, "Give us a big smile, Joe," Louis managed a wry grimace. "C'mon, Joe," somebody shouted, "you can smile bigger than that." Answered Joe in a low voice: "I can't open my mouth no more." Wasn't Walcott entitled to a return match? He certainly was, said Joe.

Joe Louis might have slipped as a fighter, but he had not lost his laconic candor. When a reporter asked if he thought Jersey Joe was a second-rater that night, Louis tapped his chest with his finger and said: "I was."

* He took his ring name from a crack Negro welterweight of half a century ago, who, like Jersey Joe's father, was born in Barbados.

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