Legends on film. Can we be honest in both parsing and critsing ... Joe Louis i

Janitor, here is the report on the 1st Bob Pastor fight. Louis was suspect.

Associated Press, January 29, 1937

MADISON SQUARE GARDEN, New York -- Before a howling, near-capacity crowd of 18,000, Joe Louis, minus his fistic bombs, outpointed Bob Pastor, nimble ex college boxer, tonight in a ten-round pursuit match that presented one of the strangest heavyweight spectacles witnessed in the Garden's battle-pit in many a harvest moon.

Entering the ring on the short end of 10 to 1 odds, Pastor spotted Louis nearly twenty-five pounds, then put on a reverse brand of footwork with such success that he weathered the limit of ten full rounds without once being seriously damaged, much less knocked off his feet.

Baffled by his opponent's back-pedaling, swift-circling tactics, Louis not only failed to explode any of the punching dynamite for which he is famous but actually was hard-pressed to gain anything like a decisive margin on points over the artfully dodging former New York University fullback.

On the Associated Press score sheet, Louis was credited with only five of the ten rounds -- the first, fourth, fifth, eighth and ninth. Pastor took the second, third, sixth and tenth while the seventh was registered even.

Referee Arthur Donovan and the two judges, George Le Cron and Charley Lynch, scored unanimously for Louis. The crowd, officially put at 18,864 customers, with gross gate receipts of $111,570.60, booed the verdict lustily and jeered Louis as the obviously crestfallen Brown Bomber left the ring.

Pastor, who emerged unscathed as the first heavyweight to go the limit with Louis since the latter's knockout last June by Max Schmeling, didn't even lose the plaster patch that he wore over his left eye when the bout started.

Louis, slow, wild and completely baffled by his rival's tactics, showed the effects of Pastor's punches around the region of the ribs and kidneys, besides a sore nose that bled throughout the last five rounds.

Ringside critics, almost as completely wrong in their speculation over the outcome as they were in the Louis-Schmeling bout, quickly circulated reports of a "clean up" by Broadway betting men. Plenty of money had been wagered, it was said, against the chances of Pastor going the limit.

Louis, although always seemingly dangerous with either fist, failed to land anything resembling a knockdown punch. The Bomber's lefts jarred Pastor at intervals, including the fourth, fifth and eighth rounds, but he missed more blows than he connected. Shufflin' Joe looked so slow at times as he tried to match his smaller rival's speedy footwork that he resembled a cigar-store Indian trying to swap punches at long range with a jumping jack.

Pastor blocked many of the punches and ducked or side-stepped others, and scored on his own account with lusty clouts to the head and body.

Taken as the whole the match was more of a novelty in footwork than it was exciting or damaging to either party involved, but Pastor earned credit for outsmarting Louis at nearly every turn and showing sufficient aggressiveness in spots to make the negro look bad. The result, while disappointing to most spectators, looking for some blood and thunder, was nevertheless a blow to the prestige of the Brown Bomber.

Louis, scaling 203 1/4 to Pastor's 179, started slowly and finished the same way. Pastor, plucky as well as resourceful, actually swapped blows with his bigger, heavier-hitting foe without giving ground in the final round and won the crowd's favor by his brisk finish.

>>Care to comment on this? I would like to see and score this fight for myself. Donnavan was a crooked ref/judge in my view, and the Garden was Louis home court. Did Pastor do enough to win or draw here? Note how footwork makes Louis look poor. I think Louis is a knock em' dead type vs a stationary traget but is rather poor at hitting moving targets.

Not so. Walcott wa sa fool, and lost because he tired to get cute when he had the fight in the bag.

Liston, and he creamed them with shocking ease. The stuff they worked on Louis did not work with Liston. Liston's defense, better balance, and better footwork made fights vs smaller guys easy for him.

Jeffries also fought many smaller ranked fighters, and for the most part knocked them out, without being knocked down.

Maybe. Louis beat up a past his prime Carnera. Baer was such a poor boxer and a playboy. If he got a big pay day, would he even want to fight again?