I just watched this on ESPN classic. Pretty good fight. These two are by far my two favorite 1930's heavyweaght fighters named Max. Schmeling was pretty tough, gotta give him credit for getting up after that monster right in the tenth. Baer looked like he was having fun.
I heard that Baer considered himself to be Jewish, adn stated that the only guys that he really wanted to beat up were Galento and Schmeling.
The Jewish thing seemed to be mostly about selling tickets/appeasing the powers that be but there did seem to be some needle against Schmeling. I couldn't say what it was all about though. If memory serves, Baer had Jewish people in his corner (though, of course, so did Schmeling!) so perhaps that was it.
Did anyone else notice the backhands Max hit Schmeling with? He did it on at least two seperate occasions when Schmeling was against the ropes. He'd hit him with the right, and then backhand him with the same hand. Funny as hell.
For a fascinating racial story you should check out Schmeling. Schemling's manager, Jacobs, a fascinating character who claims to have "won the title" for Schmeling (he called the fowl that saw the title change go to Max) was perhaps the only Jew to have done the Nazi salute on national tv...everyone else was doing it after all! Max stood by him despite serious pressure from the German government to ditch him; but he was probably mistreated by Max laterly, kept around only for his New York status.
One of Baer's best fights, he got himself in real shape for this one(which was not always the case with Max)
Yeah, but if you look at the picture, he had a cigar in his hand. It caused quite a controversy at the time. Very subversive.
As far as i was aware, Baer was a Roman Catholic but did have a Jewish grand parent and out of respect for his grandfather and the PR standpoint it made sense to have David's star on his trunks ps I could be wrong about the RC thing as i read it on an article on the net
Yeah, that was pretty funny. It was also funny when Baer grabbed Schmeling behind the head, pushed him into a corner then spun around and landed a right hand. He did it twice, Schmeling slipped it the third time. Other times he'd just grab Schmeling with his left hand and start hammering away with the right. I've never seen any of that **** before. Funny as hell, Baer was quite a character.
Baer used that backhand in other fights, too. There is no one in boxing history quite like Max Baer. He would be a superstar if he were around today.
