Precisely 85 years ago, one of the most fearsome heavyweight boxers in history stunk out the joint. Joe Louis was in the midst of his “Bum of the Month club”: a staggering run of 13 world title defences in 29 months against an assortment of stiffs, wild men and colourful characters. And when he arrived in Boston on 16 December 1940, most believed that Al McCoy would rapidly become his next victim. Only it didn’t quite turn out that way.
“McCoy was expected to crumple under the first punch Louis tossed in his direction,” the New York Times’ correspondent wrote. “Instead, the wily New England veteran made Louis appear ludicrous at times. Adopting a crouching, bobbing, weaving style, McCoy was an elusive target for the paralysing fists of the titleholder.” After the messy contest was stopped at the end of the fifth, a storm of jeers rang out. Louis had won, but only his bank balance had been enhanced.
Which brings us to the freak show taking place further along the eastern seaboard this Friday, when the former heavyweight champion and Olympic gold medallist Anthony Joshua faces the influencer turned boxer Jake Paul in Miami. Let us be blunt: this fight makes Louis v McCoy look like the Rumble in the Jungle. Whatever happens, it will degrade Joshua’s reputation – and damage that of his sport.
How can it not, given that Paul is a 13-fight novice, who has only boxed above the cruiserweight limit (14st 4lb) once and looked ploddy and mechanical in beating a 58-year-old Mike Tyson? While Joshua, for all he is on the slide, still has a sledgehammer right and a pedigree honed across 13 world title contests.
Throw in the fact that Joshua is likely to come into the ring around three stone heavier, and it is staggering that any governing body would sanction it.
If we believe the promises of Joshua, and his promoter Eddie Hearn, that the fight won’t be “managed” to take it easy on his opponent, the best we can hope for is that Paul does not get seriously hurt.
But really Joshua, as well as Netflix, should know better. And so should the sport.
Because when it comes to boxing, there is an unspoken social contract at play. We know the risks. If anything, they are even starker given the recent research on the dangers of subconcussive impacts on the brain. Yet those dangers are partly offset by the discipline and societal benefits boxing instils, especially in more disadvantaged areas.
This fight rips that contract up into thousands of pieces. And then spits on it.
Some will say that Paul should be lauded for bringing a new audience to boxing, not just with his trash-talking but by being a little out of the box. Perhaps. But history teaches us that there really is nothing new under the sun.
One of Louis’s opponents, “Two Ton” Tony Galento, who stood at just 5ft 8in but weighed well over 16 stone, fought a bear and a kangaroo to promote his fights, and told journalists that he was going to “moider the bum” before their meeting. All of which makes Paul’s antics look rather mild.
“He was a saloon keeper, and from the looks of him, he must have had a drink with every customer,” wrote Louis, who was hurt in the first and put down in the third, before pummelling his opponent in the fourth.It probably didn’t help his performances that the married Louis was spending large parts of this period womanising. “It was a bad period. I was going through something like what happens to an alcoholic when he falls off the wagon,” he later wrote in his autobiography. “I got drunk with all those beautiful, exciting women.”
Another opponent, the Chilean Arturo Godoy, give Louis a full-throated kiss on the lips after their first fight was settled narrowly in the American’s favour. “It was my worstest fight ever,” Louis admitted in the ring afterwards. “I ain’t never had no grown-up man kiss me on my mouth before.”
And then there was Lou Nova, who claimed to have developed a secret weapon, a “cosmic punch” from his yoga trainer, before he fought Louis. Add in the fact that Nova was a vegetarian and, by 1941 standards, he was seriously out there.
“I thought, what the hell is a cosmic punch and what the hell is yoga?” Louis said later. “When the press asked me, I told them I didn’t care about his cosmic punch; I was just going to give him my regular right over a left hook and knock him out. I didn’t like all the mysterious shit he was talking about.”
There is nothing mysterious about Friday’s fight, of course. Both Joshua and Paul have signed up because they will take home about £70m each. Netflix, meanwhile, believes it can top the 65 million concurrent streams it got for Paul v Tyson – a record – and further boost subscribers.
The rest of us don’t have to play along. The truth is that Paul would get nowhere near any of the 13 members of the Bum of the Month Club. And he should be nowhere near a ring with Joshua, either.
Incidentally, Louis insisted that he didn’t care about the dismissive name given to his long line of victims – or the criticisms he received. “A friend of mine told me that Alexander the Great started crying when he had no more worlds to conquer,” he wrote. “I wasn’t gonna cry. I had to make some money … but those guys I fought were not bums.”
It is hard to argue with any of that, especially given that Louis also had the taxman chasing after him. What is Joshua’s excuse?
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