Former HW champions pick the winner in Louis-Schmeling II

It broke down like this.


Jim Jeffries - Schmeling
Tommy Burns - Louis
Jack Johnson - Schmeling
Jess Willard - Schmeling
Jack Dempsey* - Schmeling
Gene Tunney - On the fence but "leaning towards Louis."
Jack Sharkey - Louis
Primo Carnera - Louis (Early)
Max Baer- Louis (Early)
Jimmy Braddock - Louis (Early)


* Dempsey picked Schmeling the last time he was asked but he picked Louis at other times and once "hinted at a draw."

 

Interesting if not unexpected generational bias against Louis.

 

I don't think race is the dividing issue here. Everyone aside from Burns, who picks Louis, had their head kicked in by him. As for the rest of them, Tunney is probably the man with the most suspect outlook in racial terms and he neglects to pick Max. Johnson is a black man. Demspey flip flopped all over the place (it's hardly likely that this is because he was filled with racist hatred and then overwhelmed with remorse). This leaves Jeffries and Willard, the two least imaginative and least engaged champions who would have been well aware that Max nearly beheaded Joe only a short time beforeand not much else.

All the above are natural picks, in many ways, all aside from Tunney (who I might have expected to pick the "scientific", white fighter).

 

Well Louis was probably in the process of being made a totem for this new wave of boxers whilst the standard barer's for the previous generation insisted that men were no longer men etc. etc. But again:

Johnson had personal issues with Blackburn.
Willard and Jeffries really weren't on the scene any more.
Tunney was, and eschewed his natural pick.
Dempsey was all over the shop

 

In fact Tunney was harder on Schmeling in the aftermath than any of them - he had no time for the German's cry of "foul" at all, labelled him pathetic and told him to watch the fight film

 

You think!?

 

A little blunt, isn't it?