The fight with Clem McCarthy's blow by blow commentary. Video is speed corrected and synchronized with the audio. Subtitles available. There are cameos from mister James J. Braddock and Jack Blackburn. This content is protected
This was great! Thank you for posting. I mostly know Clem McCarthy from calling horse racing so it was fascinating to listen to him do a boxing match. He did a great job. He was accurate, interesting and without hyperbole. This is Louis, before his championship reign and he was much as we hear him described these days. Quick, economical and powerful. The one fact that did strike me from a present-day point of view was how small they looked, especially Ettore.
Do we have the horse racing broadcasts of Clem available? I'd be interested in checking them out. As for the size, I think the camera makes them look deceptively small. He also fought out of a crouch that made him appear even smaller. Louis was about as big as Holmes, Ali and Sonny Liston. at 20:38 you can get a better idea of what he looks like next to other people.
Very good. Even if it is not one of his marquee fights, you see more than enough of Joe Louis' greatness. What a deadly counterpuncher he was. This video should be mandatory viewing for all those who are posting that Joe Louis would be blown out by Tua and others...
Thanks Pedro. These fights with the radio broadcasts synced in are brilliant. Your efforts are greatly appreciated.
Thanks my friend, looking forward to more. I also liked that there were slo mo replays included - not all versions of the fight have that. For that time in particular (1936), those slo mo replays are of high quality. Obviously somewhat better, the replays of Joe’s debilitating shows on Schmeling are particularly super clear. Louis’ lightning counters against Ettore though, like wow! Ettore was working his left hook pretty well for a time. Louis had such great balance though - even when Ettore connected solidly with the left, Joe wasn’t compromised and struck back immediately with a fully leveraged right hand counter to drop Al. Ettore was a tough cookie in that fight - some of those shots almost tore his head. I seriously can’t understand how some people can’t see that Joe Louis, exactly as he was, would hold up extremely well today. Louis basically only moved and struck when necessary and appropriate. I guess some people are more used to watching “mod.”fighters pointlessly bouncing around, throwing lots of shots and missing with many of their punches - high tech stuff,
For this video I used 3 different video sources. One that has the entire fight but is very low quality, and two higher quality videos that don't show all the fight. I overlayed the high quality videos over the low quality one so for most of the fight you get the clear versions playing. However, when it comes to the slow motions, only the low quality footage had those, so in some instances I just replaced it with the higher quality footage but slowed down to match the speed (such as the knockdown highlight in round 4). It doesn't look as smooth as the original slow motion because that one has more frames despite the murkiness but I think the clearer picture makes up for it. You can see the difference at the end of round 5. The real time video is the highest quality, then the first replay is the zoomed out high quality vid. and then the second replay is the original slow motion from the degraded film. Even if the second replay is the worst when it comes to definition, its slow motion is much smoother due to it having significantly more frames than the artificially slowed down high definition videos. For the Tunney-Dempsey fight I actually just used the slowmo of the knockdown from round 7 and I sped it up to match the speed of the rest of the round and it's the best smoothest looking moment of the fight. Better lighting, more frames, and the footage was also upscaled by Smooth Legends so it looked that much better. As for Ettore, he had good movement, a good bobbing style and was quick to tie up Louis to prevent counters. His left hook was also snappy and accurate, remember he had recently knocked out Jersey Joe with that one, so Louis took it pretty well. Louis himself was quite hesitant in this fight and didn't go about doing his business too aggressively. He was also missing several right hands but Ettore was broken down nonetheless, there's only so many punches he could avoid. You can really see the difference between the pre Schmeling and post Schmeling Louis in those two fights against Sharkey and Ettore after his defeat, he is second guessing himself and generally looks puzzled as McCarthy noted. Max did a number on his confidence. There's a photo during the Schmeling fight that shows Louis gaze upon Schmeling's right hand in terror https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/JXk...loads/chorus_asset/file/24114973/97305891.jpg
Thanks Pedro. That’s very interesting and clever how you put it all together - your efforts and treatment are well reflected in the high quality of the final product. How Louis came back from the Schmeling loss (and with a vengeance) very much contributes to the perception of just how great a fighter he was.
What better way to build your fighter back up after defeat than to match him with an ex champ who beat the guy who beat your guy, and then another guy who had recently knocked out a future champ!
