Joe Louis, Underrated or just not that great???

I have shown the ref's in Louis fights produced questionable cards in some of his closest fights. This was my point. It is also well know that the 30's and 40's were full of problems with fixed fights, and mob influences.

As I said before I like to see how Dononvan scored the first Schmeling match

 

Ok then, lets post the first match here and score it. I want to see if its a complete shut out as you ascertain. The article is rather detailed, and says , "

If it is a close fight, then I want to see the official scores to see if they gave Louis favorable judging ( Scored rounds for him he should have lost ) once again in a close fight.

 

Donovan scored the Pastor fight 8 -2 to Louis.

 

I dont get the "the mob was involved" argument.

It's crazy. Louis was probably one of the least mobbed-up fighters at the time.
Jim Braddock was way more mobbed-up.
And who cares anyway ? Most of those prohibition-era racketeers owned a stable of fighters, and it wasn't all about fixing fights or meddling in fight business. They just liked to own fighters.
John Roxborough was Louis's manager, he was just a bookmaker/numbers man and businessman in the black community. He was no Al Capone.

Don King was a numbers runner AND a confirmed two-time killer, and connected to the mob. He strikes a more serious figure than Roxborough. I guess that means Larry Holmes must be overrated. :huh


And it's funny how the mobbed-up allegations only seem to matter when a fighter fought in "black and white" film era.
As soon as colour Tv comes in, people seem to say the mob influence disappears. I suppose that's because people remember the old movies where the gangster fixes the fight !

Renaldo Snipes and Jimmy Young were mobbed-up. It doesn't mean they had fixed fights or preferntial treatment. I guess several or most fighters have managers who are semi-legit or fully illegit, men with criminal records and clout in criminal circles.
Almost every boxing promoter and manager and fighter knows or is associated with someone with criminal credentials.

This is professional boxing. It's not hard to find a few rough characters without much digging.
A very strange accusation to single Joe Louis out with.

 

A very strange accusation ,from a very strange man!

 

What source says this? If this is correct, Donovan scored a fight a 8-2 for Louis when a news read says Pastor won four rounds and had one round even.

Just to clarify to the Mc's in this thread. I am not saying that Louis management for sure paid off the ref's or judges. I am saying that the close fights Louis was in seemed to have fishy scoring by the refs in a time line with a lot of shady score cards, DQ's, and such.

 

I have not been able to find a lay out regarding the scoring,so I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this ,but,that is the score credited to Donovan in the autobiography,"Joe Louis My Life".
"I know one thing,though ,the referee Arthur Donovan scored the fight 8rds for me 2 to Pastor. He saw the fight as it was, the few punches landed ,I landed".

"He bumped me with his head,and stuck his thumbs in my eyes".

"That's all the damage he did,he must have run 12 miles that night".




You should be aware that there was a political power play ,back drop to this fight.
Pastor was promoted by Jimmy Johnston, who was the man at MSG at the time.
MIke Jacobs ,who began to promote Louis via his newly founded , 20th Century Sporting Club,wanted to take over from Johnston, and, with this in mind tried to tie up the heavyweight title,by signing the leading contenders to his club.
Johnston had been the premier promoter with his monopoly at the Garden and his signing of Braddock.

Freddie Brown, in Pastor's corner told Pastor, "go the distance, make him look bad",Johnston wanted Louis discredited ,because he felt he could not
make the money with him that he was able to with white fighters.

You talk about Louis's management,in contrast to his predecessor Braddock who was mobbed up via Joe Gould ,Roxborough and Black were comparatively two pairs of clean hands ,both had run numbers ,but

Roxborough was a businessman ,and Black, a mortician.
Louis came under the aegis of Jacobs promotions after the Natie Brown fight.

Jacobs, compared to Johnston also comes out favourably.
In Jan 1935, Roxborough phoned Johnston with a view to getting Louis fights in MSG, Johnston's fiefdom.Johnston ,told Roxy.
"You're a coloured manager ,and so is your fighter you're not going to make the same money as a white fighter,and your boy is going to have to lose a few".Roxy nixed the idea of Louis going in the tank and Johnston,luke warm, from the start, pulled out.He felt black boys would not draw.

Jacobs told Louis all his fights would be on the level, but he had to keep a low profile.

Louis did fight in MSG in 35 ,against Uzcudun, but Pastor was his coming out party
After the Natie Brown fight, Jacobs signed Louis with himself as sole promoter for the next 3 years ,with a renewal option.

Jacobs got the reigns at MSG via the Hearst Milk Fund.
The Fund staged fights at the Garden to provide milk for poor children Johnston ,as the promoter kept putting their rent up.This went down like a lead balloon as a large proportion of the receipts from the fund went to charity.

Jacobs who was on good terms with the William Randolph Hearst sports writers, told them that if they would support his club he would not only lower their rent but also contribute a proportion of the gate to it.

 

To be honest, you are not saying anything ,all you have done is throw out a lot of nasty innuendos without any proof to substantiate them.
Louis really became a headliner with the Carnera fight in 35 ,his fights only went to the scorecards three times from then till 1947 ,in two of them Donovan was the referee,Goldstein the ref in the other,the Walcott fight, which is considered the most controversial.
GODOY FIGHT
Referee Donovan. gave Louis 10 rds Godoy 5rds
Judge Shortell .Godoy 10rds Louis 5 rds.
Judge Lecron. Louis 10 Godoy 4 - 1 even.

The dissenter is Shortell ,with a wild discrepancy to the other two.
The referee, and Judge Lecron's score, tallied with the NY Times score.

WALCOTT FIGHT
Referee Goldstein gave Walcott 7 rds Louis 6-2 even.
Judge Forbes Louis 8 rds Walcott 6-1 even.
Judge Monroe Louis 9rds Walcott 6rds.
No disturbing anomalies there.Particulalry as Walcott ,for the most part ,fought a retreating fight, and ,some judges give more credit for aggression than others.Even the referee who scored for Walcott,only gave him a 1 rd advantage over Louis.

If your accusations about these fights were correct,both Donovan ,and Lecron would have to have been bribed in the Godoy fight.
As to the Walcott fight, both Forbes and Monroe would ,similarly have to have been bribed. That is 4 officials, in 2 fights.

It is further interesting that Frank Forbes, a judge who voted for Louis in the Walcott fight, was the least generous towards him in the Ezzard Charles fight.
Referee Conn, Charles 10 rds Louis 5rds.
Judge Agnello, Charles 12rds Louis 3 rds.
Judge Forbes, Charles 13rds Louis 2rds.
It should be remembered that scoring a fight is very subjective.

I see nothing in the scoring of these two fights to make me beleive Louis's managers paid off judges and referees.

In fact, if I was given to wild ,unsubstantiated accusations, I would be pointing my finger in Judge Shortell's direction, as his is the only markedly different score of the 2 fights, but , thankfully ,I am not given to propagating wild stories, which libel long dead men who are not here to defend themselves, and for which, I have offered not one shred of evidence.

 

I have seen the vast majority of this one and 10-5 is a bad score. In fact Godoy gets the better of what I have seen and that includes many rounds. Louis is dumbfounded, does not throw many punches, and is often bulled against the ropes. Godoy out lands Louis at least 2 to 1. I never saw the punch stats here, but they would be well in Godoy's favor.

According to the history of punch stats, the guy who out lands the other 2 to 1, in a fight with no knockdowns is the winner something like 98% of the time.

If your using the NY Times, they felt Pastor was 5-4-1 for Louis, while Donoovan felt it was 8-2 for Louis.

Same thing. Walcott won this one based on the footage I have seen, and there has been plenty of chatter thought out the years that the wrong man won in this fight. The crowd felt Walcott won and booed the decision with great passion.

The scoring by the ref in this one is bad again. What gives? No way Louis won 5 rounds vs. Charles. It was a near shut out on the films.

I would still like to see the scoring in the first Schmeling match. If the scores are close here, are you willing to accept that maybe the scoring in Louis fights that were close had some dishonest judging in them?

 

You are taking to task the judging in 2 fights, in neither of which you have seen the complete footage. That is nonsensical ,if you had seen the complete fights and then scored for both challengers I would not have an issue with your opinion as both fights were reasonably close ,[particularly the Walcott fight], based on what I have seen of them,but you have not.

My problem with you on this issue is you have made some sweeping allegations of corruption regarding officials concerned in some Louis fights ,yet have come up with no proof whatsoever to back your claims.

Your last question is hypothetical because, you have revealed no such proof, and, even if you produced a judges card that differred wildly from others,that would not automatically mean that said judge was crooked/on the take.So my answer would be no.
In closing, I think you have categorically lost this argument, and your allegations have been entirely discredited.

 

There are so many controversial decisions in cases where there was clearly no corruption or mob influence, that it is silly to think that one or two controversial decisions in a career is proof of corruption. It isn't proof of anything other than the fact that it is difficult to get similar scores when different people score a fight using the 10 point must system.

IMO the 10 point must system sucks and gives lots of dodgy decisions with wide discrepancies. There are so many close rounds in boxing, having to score them for one fighter or other means within 3-4 rounds of a very close fight, one judge can have it 4-0 and the other 0-4, and neither of them has made any clear mistakes in their scoring. I would prefer a system where a round is counted a draw unless one fighter does something significant enough to clearly make the round his, like a knockdown, clearly hurting his opponent, or dominating thoroughly with skill for the majority of the round whilst his opponent does little.

 

The crowd also booed the Holmes-Witherspoon decision. Who did you have winning that one?

 

i was under the impression that the crowd also booed the louis-farr decision, even though louis won that clearly