Any information on Lem Franklin

The thing about a lot of Joe Louis’ exhibitions is that while officially they werent sanctioned fights they were in fact hard fought fights with both guys doing their best to “win.” I dont know that I would put them on his record but at the same time it wasnt just two guys playing around and hamming it up either.

 

While the exhibitions were not fights, they did give contenders a chance to show case themselves.

a good performance against Louis might well have led to a title fight.

 

That is interesting. I have the 1976, 1980, and 1981 editions, and all call it "KO 6" as just a regular fight.

I scanned even older editions (all the way back to 1942) in the San Francisco library prior to the 1989 earthquake which damaged the building. These editions disappeared after that. I don't recall Louis' record having the Toles fight listed as an exhibition back then (but it has been a lot of years). Those were compiled by guys who were there at the time. I assume the 1984 edition was edited by someone who wasn't around in the mid-thirties, so I would like to know on what basis they started making their changes.

I also reading Farewell to Sport by Paul Gallico many years ago, and if memory serves, he had Joe Louis at 27-0 going into the first Schmeling bout, indicating he also accepted those bouts.

On the other hand, the whole issue is a bit beside the point. I am certain the two men were going all out, regardless of official "paper" approval of it as a real fight.

I remember watching in the 1960's a film of an early 1950's basketball game between the then NBA champion Minneapolis Lakers and the Harlem Globetrotters on a nostalgia sports show on twin cities TV. They showed a lot of old University of Minnesota football games from the Bernie Bierman era, some old boxing matches, and the like. They also showed several old Laker NBA championship games. The match with the Globetrotters was an exhibition, but the Laker coach John Kundla and a couple of players guesting said it was as important a game for them as they ever played. The NBA still had only a handful of black players. The Lakers none. But everyone knew there were a lot of great black basketball players and that the Globetrotters, for all their clowning, were formidable in a serious game. A loss would dent Laker title claims beyond repair.

 

The Toles fight in 1935 was an exhibition. Its not revisionism to leave it off his record. The problem is that some people have argued over the years (and this argument was very popular in the 1960s and 70s) that if a fighter knocks out his opponent in an exhibition bout it should be counted on his professional record. I dont agree with this logic. The same logic was applied to Jack Dempsey's record and for a time you would see his record extremely padded with a ton of exhibition knockouts on it. These werent legitimate fights though and dont belong on his record. In fact Dempsey's record still has some of these exhibition KOs on it over at boxrec.

 

I think the Toles bout is less a case of revisionism than a dispute.

Box rec lists the Toles fight as an exhibition.

The Cyber Boxing Zone lists the Toles fight as a real fight and a KO 6. Louis fought a ton of exhibitions and they are listed as such on the Zone, including bouts with Paul Cavalier, Mickey McAvoy, Andy Wallace, Roy Williams, and Willie McGee, among others, in 1935 and 1936.

a place called 2nd out.co.UK also lists records for the champions, and also considers the Toles bout a real fight and a KO 6 while listing scads of exhibitions.

I personally have nothing older than the old Ring Record Books, but I think it best to leave this an open question until a primary source is produced. For me, the strongest evidence I have seen so far is that the folks at the time appear to have accepted these as real fights.

 

Counterpoints.

John Henry Lewis had vision issues, and the fight was a financial gift to him. He had no business being in the ring at that point. However, it was nice of Joe Louis to give him a payday.

Was Toles a real fight? Say if this was true, wasn't he also Ring Magazine ranked when Louis was champion? Why no title shot for Toles here?

Walcott who was the same age as Louis beat him in the first fight. There is too much evidence to suggest he didn't. In the re-match, Walcott was way up on points, then showboated and got caught late.

I agree he beat Jimmy Bivins easily, but Charles who you did not list, really did a number on Louis prior to facing Bivins.

I also agree with Ed, that Elmer Ray was the #1 black contender avoided by Joe Louis, but will stand on points that Franklin who was ranked as high as #2 was much better than many of Joe Louis title opponents.

Can we all ( As a board ) agree, to be in the bum of the month club, you had to be white?

 

Chuck with all due respect, check the gates on Joe Louis vs John Henry Louis and Joe Walcott. I posted the information here. The live gate drew just fine. What Jacobs is saying does not hold water from a financial point of view.

Louis vs Walcott 1
A crowd of 18,194 produced a gate of $216,477.

Louis vs Walcott 2.
A crowd of 42,667 at Yankee Stadium produced a gate of $841,739!

• By contrast the rematch with Buddy Bear had a gate of $189,700

• By contrast the rematch with Godoy had a gate of $149,505

• By contrast the rematch with Simon has a gate of $132,420

Only the Schmeling re-math and Conn re-match had higher gates for Joe Louis....I think. Not researching all Louis gates, but my point was made, I hope by showing you and the board there was a lot of money to be made in All African American title fights.

Louis vs John Henry Lewis.

A crowd of 17,350 produced a gross gate of $102,015.43.
This fight was a mis-match, yet it drew just fine.

You can say Franklin wasn't the Harry Wills of his times ( I agree ), but my point is with 26 title defenses, and only two opponents being African American, what does that say about the color line mostly being in play? As you can see, it wasn't the gate that was the problem, it was Louis and his management.

 

I just spoke with John Ochs who knows more about this subject than anyone. He said Louis and Jacobs agreed to fight Franklin and had contracts ready to sign the night of the Pastor fight. Franklin was to get the benefit fight with Louis but got knocked out by the light punching Pastor and blew it.

 

Good information, but like I pointed out, Louis was fine offering title shots to white opponents coming off a lost, or losing 2 of their last 3 in some cases. Franklin did not get such a pass.

If the contract was there, why not let Franklin take an easy comeback fight, and then meet?

 

His trilogy is packed with info!

 

Probably because 3 months after Pastor stopped him he was ko'd in the first round by Harry Bobo,and 3 months after that ko'd again in the first round by Joe Muscato! Hardly the credentials needed for a title challenger!lol

 

This blows even the last frayed threads of the tenuous case for claiming Louis "ducked" Franklin out of the water.

 

Give it a break. You put down Buddy Baer as an opponent although Baer was coming off a stoppage of Galento. Your case is starting to devolve into nothing more than anti-Louis bias.

That someone or other might have been better than the worst of Louis' defenses is not really a very good argument. If used against Jeffries, for example, how many fighters at the time were better than Finnegan? It is not a fair way to judge a title reign.

 

Basically, John stated that after some disappointing losses and performances Hurley, once he took over Franklin's management, had a lot of work to do to rehabilitate Franklins image. He said that Lem was basically written off. Franklin went on his winning streak but the competition was less than stellar and in order to convince Mike Jacobs that he could draw he had to prove it at the gate. The Simon fight was a good start but basically the Pastor fight was the fight that sealed the deal and convinced Jacobs that he could make money with Franklin because that promotion went so well. So you see, Franklin had some baggage going into that very short period of time when he was a contender and when he went into the Pastor fight a favorite, with Pastor given only an outside shot at winning a decision, and then ended up getting knocked out by the light hitting Pastor it was over. There is no "but Louis" or "but, Louis that." He blew it. You don't come from being written off by everyone, to rehabilitating your career with TWO fights, then get blown out by a powderpuff puncher and then claim one of the greatest HW fighting machines in history is ducking you. If you are a complete idiot and have no concept of context like Mendoza then this argument might make sense if you squint really hard at it but no, it holds no water.

 

Hopefully we can put this to bed once and for all now.