This content is protected 1-3. Each was a close round. Both fought very cautiously. Louis in particular seemed extremely wary of Schmeling's power. I think he was aware of Schmeling's power and his counterpunching games. I gave Louis the 1st and 3rd, and Schmeling the 2nd. 4. Then comes the fateful 4th. About a minute in, Schmeling lands a good, clean right hand that hurts Louis, who starts turning to jelly and slowly staggering back. A quick two-fisted flurry by Schmeling, topped off with two more hard right hands sent Louis down on the palms of his hands, but he jumped back up quickly, although his condition was clear. Schmeling, need I say it? 5-7. It was like Schmeling's right hand was turned on once he floored Louis with it. He scored with it repeatedly. Louis was able to respond in kind from time to time, but never acted as a serious or long-term deterrent to Schmeling. 8. Louis hit Schmeling low twice at the end of the round (both accidental), an indication of Louis' tiring. Schmeling. 9-11. Things grew increasingly bad for Louis. As the fight wore on, his lack of defense against Schmeling's rights became more evident. In the 10th, Louis' jab was turning into a useless, pawing jab, not the jab Louis is known for. The 11th was slightly more solid for Louis. However, Schmeling won all three rounds. 12. Louis landed another low blow, but aside from that was actually having a better round than he had in a while, but Louis was there to be hit. A right hand, left hook, and right hook shook Louis up. Schmeling was quick to follow up with a whistling right uppercut and a left hook. Then another right hand. A right uppercut had Louis groggy, staggering towards the ropes, and a right hand is what dropped Louis for the second time. Louis rolled over, trying to get up, but then his back caved in. He was finished. Schmeling was well ahead at the time of knockout, having won 10-2 rounds. I thought Louis was pretty easily hurt by the initial right hand in the 4th that had him staggering around. I'm guessing that Louis mostly was not used to intelligent fighters, nor was he used to getting hit with powerful punches since he steamrolled everyone he fought up to this point. I did think Louis' chin looked less than average here, although he did stay up under a lot of pressure from 5 to 12. Verdict: Classic? Of course? Not as great of a shootout as you would imagine, but a beautiful fight. Schmeling's finest hour.
A harsh learning curve for Joe but,My God,learn he did. A lot of critics at the time thought that Louis would never be the same and they were right - He became even better ! Smart fight by Max.
Joe did so so well to actually come back from this! A lot of fighters have been ruined by beating s like this in their early career, never mind come back to hold the world title for a record amount of time and defence s. And credit to Schmeling. A lot of fighters were wetting themselves before getting into the ring with Joe Louis!
1 to 3---I gave all three rounds to Louis, but all were close with not much happening, except for some offense from Louis in the 3rd. Tactical fight so far. 4---Schmeling hurts Louis with rights and knocks him down, but Joe rallies and seems to have recovered well 5---big Schmeling round, in some ways better than the 4th except for no knockdown. Louis clearly badly hurt going back to corner. 6---another big Schmeling round 7---Louis rallies and wins this round. 8---Another fair round for Louis, although Schmeling did better in this one that the last. I scored it even. 9---A disastrous round for Louis. Schmeling got over a right lead early in the round and Louis was never the same again. He seemed up to then to possibly be able to rally but after that right was more or less a punching bag. Schmeling got in several more good rights. 10--Another big round for Schmeling. Louis has perceptibly slowed. His punches now seen only arm punches. His right, rather than crisp, is a looping arm punch. 11--Louis comes back a bit. I had this one close. 12--Schmeling KO'd Louis with a terrific series of rights. I would have had it fairly close in rounds. 6--4-1 for Schmeling. If the scoring were on points, though, Schmeling would have been a mile ahead. I would call the 4th, 5th, and 9th two point rounds. Overall, Schmeling looked great. One of the top wins in heavyweight history. One reaction I have is what a head-scratcher his poor performance against Baer is. Otherwise he seems the second-best heavyweight of the 1930's by far. It is often said that Louis dropped his left after jabbing, but it looked to me it was more being open to a right lead. It is the only fight in which I have seen Louis break the rules, with several low blows and what appeared to be using the laces. As a fight, this was the best I have seen in this series so far. Good skills and first rate action. And a pivotal historical fight.
I can see rating the Ross-Canzoneri-McClarnin fights higher, but this one did have bigger punching, so I would rate it the best fight on film from the 1930's. No problem having others rating differently. Certainly this is the most important historical fight so far from the 1930's.
Amazing how prepared Blackburn was for Joe to lose this fight. He basically predicted it (as well as that he would win, obviously) and flat out stated that it would be good for him to lose at one point. Joe wasn't listening to him really. That stopped with this fight.
I've got no problem with that. It was a good fight. As of now, I would have to say Canzoneri vs. Chocolate is the best fight of the 30s, in terms of action alone.
That was not the "complete" fight, the fight started at 2:36 and ended at 29:50, a total time of 27:14 including time between rounds. If the 11+ rounds had been shown straight through it would have taken 33 minutes, with time in the corner it would take 11 more minutes plus however long the 12th round lasted. I timed the first two rounds, round one began at 2:38, ended at 4:22 for a total time of 1:44. Round Two began at 4:33, ended at 6:13, for 1:40, then I checked Round Seven to be sure and it started at 16:15, ended at 17:48 for a total of 1:33. The video has obviously been edited. I didn't watch the entire fight, when I found that the rounds were shortened there is no way to accurately score it. A lot of what I did watch was two fighters standing in front of each other posturing and waiting. Their corners were probably telling them to "be first", but it looked like two guys waiting for the other and neither wanted to be first. I liked Louis' left to the body when he used it, he landed it a lot in the 7th round and when he used it off the jab, it looked particularly effective. Schmeling did well to handle the body shots.
I think the Schmeling performance in this fight would upset a lot of very good heavyweights ,many who are rated above him
An amazing show of discipline and ring savvy by Schmeling. He had a plan and stuck with it. Louis thought things were going his way for three rounds, and he became a little bit too comfortable. Schmeling let Joe think he was in control of the fight by allowing him to land all the punches which had worked for him in previous fights, but never in sustained combinations. Instead, Max ate a lot of punishment and boxed carefully just waiting for the right moment, which finally came in the fourth round, and then BAM!! But Joe remained dangerous until the very end. Schmeling still took a lot of punishment over the course of the next eight rounds, but still he refused to rush things by trying to trade punches with Joe . He kept to his plan and slowly chopped Louis down. The entire left side of Joe's face was swollen, but Max's face was pretty messed up too.
Thanks for your input Kasimir Kid. Alongside you and Jason Thomas I think we have a great series going here.
