71 years ago: Joseph Louis "Brown Bomber" Barrow vs. Arnold Raymond "Jersey Joe Walcott" Cream II

This very day, in 1948.

This episode of "The Way It Was" - featuring both principals as well as play by play man Don "The Voice of Boxing" Dunphy - aired on April 3, 1977...reaching more than halfway across the yawning chasm of time now elapsed since they fought:

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(42 years ago, but already then seemed a "classic from the vault" blast from the past when it premiered 29 years after Louis vs. Walcott II)

This was just a month shy of Joe's fourteenth anniversary since his pro debut...and 2½ months shy of Cream's eighteenth. Both fought hammer & tong, like they were still hungry up & comers. It would arguably be the last great performance from each man, with Louis going 8-2 in the rest of his career and Walcott just 7-5. Overcoming having been dropped by this foe thrice (and with a bit of controversy around his SD victory in '47), the "Immortal Joe Louis" found a way to dig down deep and do what immortals do - marshaling all his skills and ultimately triumphing via sheer will. If he retired on this high point he would have just the one avenged loss, and his legacy as the GOAT would be harder to dispute.

Here is Joe, thirteen years earlier:

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...and JJW cleaned up quite nicely himself:

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Two classy ambassadors for the sport, who, along with Floyd Patterson form a group that if not quite underrated (as you'd be hard-pressed to apply that adjective to any consensus ATG, besides perhaps Mike Tyson... But that's a whole kettle of fish to be saved for another thread, another day...) do get subjected to some harsh retrospective treatment, IMO excessively so, in terms both of their 'meek' personalities (unfairly held up to a brashly confrontational standard perceived as being established by fellow African-American heavyweight greats like Ali, Johnson, and Liston and their punch resistance (having thirteen stoppage losses betwixt them, albeit spread over 204 bouts...with the pair of Louis & Walcott specifically bearing eight in 140...) - as though flush bombs from Abe Simon, Max Schmeling or Ingemar Johansson aren't potentially going to switch off any human being's lights on a given night... or from, of all people, Rocky Marciano aren't going to crumble anyone fully a decade past their prime...