I don't think Louis ever officially admitted he lost. He may have said it to Jersey Joe after the fight but he took it back when the two discussed their two fights on "The Way It Was" TV show. http://megavideo.com/?v=FN4RQ734
I just watched this minutes ago actually. It appears Walcott is sooooo fibbing about the ref distracting him for the crucial attack in the rematch
I'll have to look at the video. I don't know if he officially admitted it either. When Joe apologised to Jersey Joe after the fight, it's commonly held that he was apologising for the verdict. This is incorrect. He apologised to Walcott because Louis thought he had given a sub-par performance. *Edit* Having watched the video, Louis himself said he apologised for the way he fought, and not because of the verdict...nice video by the way.
He says the ref distracted him, saying he had been up him plenty about not fighting enough and was conveying this again.
That being the case, I always worry when someone is keen to toss the decision out. Speaking very generally it tends to be guys that love Walcott (you kow who!) or want to undermine Louis who ar keen to toss it out (which is why I was a little surprised you did, i guess). Tough fight to score, champion got the nod, plenty disagreed, is how I see it.
Cool...SuzieQ has it said by Louis to the referee (who alone scored it for Walcott of the officials - by a single round, just for saying it again) that "you normally score them right" or something to that affect. If that's true (?) it's the closest he came as far as I can see...but yeah, you're dead on, Louis was miserable about the way he fought and i've heard it said that his mind was made up to retire after the final bell. Louis was miserable about his performance, true.
Here's what my present mag had to say on Louis - Walcott. Twice he fought Joe Louis for the title-and, in 1946 he beat the Brown Bomber. Beat him decisively and fairly. But as one of the contempory writers put it, "he was prevented from claiming the title on a technicality-two of the officials forgot how to score a fight". Maybe it was pro Walcott, who knows.
My take on what Louis said to Walcott was "Sorry Joe" . Walcott said he took that to mean he was robbed. Louis amswered " I said that after every fight to every opponent." JT: Goin back a few pages, of course I know Vitali is far ahead of a LeRpy Jones. I was simply talking about how Holmes had zero problem teeing off against a fast, big man. Jones got pounded but going into the fight he was undefeated and a fast boxer who had beaten Mike Weaver amomng others.
Ok, I can see where you're coming from now. For a minute there, I was quite taken aback by your initial response to my post...it seemed to me to be quite aggressive, which isn't your style. I should have probably said something like: "From what I have seen of the fight, I thought Walcott won." Your position on the fight is not an unreasonable one, in my opinion. :good
Right, gotcha. I try to stay consistent about this too, hence my position on Greb-Tunney II (also unpopular in some corners) or Greb-Bogash (which seems to have been close, close) but I will snort out at a decision like Bogash-Britton or Flowers-Walker which seems to have been a pretty clear cut robbery...and there are obviously absolutley no footage at all of these fights. Basically I try to be cautios about tossing an official decision where there is no footage. If a fight looks close, i think it's the case that we should just go with what was said. My opinion.
I know what you meant, but you can probably see how mentioning/seemingly comparing Jones and Vitali as you did came across pretty funny. I'm no massive fan myself but he's 5 X Leroy Jones and i would never use Holmes success vs such a fighter in talk of a fight vs Vitali. Each to their own of course.