Mike Jacobs Was Reluctant To Match Louis With Black Challengers

I didn't know Oma admitted to throwing the fight. If this interview available on-line?

"blind in one eye Woodcock"

Was he blind in one eye in 1946?

"The first Savold fight was fixed"

What is the evidence for this? Just a question I am asking out of honest interest.

"Woodcock whose name meant nothing in America"

This one is simply wrong as Woodcock was rated highly by the NBA. It is like saying Johansson in 1959 meant nothing in America. Not really true of involved boxing fans.

 

I would like to see this interview thanks. I think lots of us would.

in this case it was simply a case of two challengers where neither was given much chance against Joe Louis. One had more local support and had knocked out an undefeated #4 contender…the other was an older challenger and an indecisive winner with split results.

it was the 1947 fight with Baksi that blinded woodcock wasn’t it? You forget this was AFTER the Mauriello fight. He fought Tami in 1946 when he was 22-0.

 

I’m going to look up my copy of woodcock’s autobiography tomorrow. From memory his problems started after the Baksi fight. Not before.

Peter Wilson wrote that the Oma fight was unsatisfactory..but I cannot recall Woodcocks verdict on it.

 

Every town, village and hamlet had boxing arenas, boxing gyms and thus local boxing heroes. If you take a look at Harry Greb's resume, you can see he traveled all over the mid West fighting local yokels. That's just not the case in the 21st Century. Maybe in Kazakhstan but not in the US.

 

yes woodcock went blind in one eye after the 1947 fight with Joe Baksi, Proving he had two good eyes against Tami mauriello back in 1946.

 

indeed. The local circuits produced hometown hero’s. And the town came to see the local hero take on a traveler like Greb. A full house would come out to see one of their own take on any name fighter. Sometimes not even a name fighter. Just a journeyman from somewhere else. That’s Local pride for you.

TV killed all of that.

It’s hard to become a hometown hero. It’s the other way around now. The name fighter is the draw now. not the local fighter.

 

Plus, guys would barnstorm to pick up paydays.

Willie Pep in the mid-1950s won a 10-round decision over a non-descript (7-3-1) fighter in Mobile, Alabama.

They had monthly fights at an air field in Mobile and a circuit with Mobile and New Orleans fighters. Pep’s opponent was from New Orleans and I’m sure Pep would have been a draw having a big name. It came between fights in New York and Canada for Willie, so apparently he made the trip just for that fight.

Probably a combination of easy win + easy money (even if it wasn’t exactly a fortune) making it worth a long train ride or something like that. Often on longer trips like that guys would find fights along the way and try to pick up a few paydays on a swing through the South or Midwest.

 

I think Woodcock was a good fighter. The Lesnavich win proves it. Mauriello beat a good guy here.he should be credited for that. Baksi too. His best win is Woodcock.

 

This is the first I have heard of a Savold fix. Odd that a guy like Savold who had gotten back into being a highly rated fighter would agree to deliberately foul out. Or was the veteran British referee paid off?

Besides, it didn't do anything for Woodcock in America. American boxing fans are completely unimpressed with victories on fouls. Savold held his rating as the #3 contender in the end of the year ratings of both the NBA and The Ring. Woodcock was not in the top ten of The Ring. He was rated #10 by the NBA.

Joe Louis is on film right after the Walcott fight announcing that this was his last fight and he was retiring.

Oma hadn't been in The Ring annual ratings since 1945. Since then he had lost more than he had won. He was 3-5-1 in his last 9 fights coming into the Oma bout, with his three wins over journeymen or worse. The draw was with Ted Lowry. I don't know if the fight was on the level, and plenty at ringside seemed to think it wasn't, but it is obvious that Oma in 1948 was a has-been contender and a victory over him was at this point not going to do anything much for anyone seeking a shot at Louis or the next champion.

After his fight with Woodcock, Oma would turn it around with 13 straight victories over second-tier guys, before being tossed out of the ring with opponent Bill Weinberg for "clowning" and then being stiffened by Bob Satterfield. Oma bounced back with decisions over Nick Barone and Satterfield to earn an early 1951 shot at Charles. He was badly beaten. Oma's comeback in 1949 and 1950 and return to high in the ratings might have cast a retrospective glow over the Woodcock fight, but at the time in 1948 it was a so what victory.

Oma was a guy with some talent but who often didn't train, had a glass jaw, and was very in an out. He certainly has the knowledge of if he dumped the Woodcock fight, but it is also a way of claiming to be better than a man who beat him. Egos can be strange.

For me, whether the fight was a fix or not is mostly beside the point. Beating Oma in 1948 didn't prove much.

Nor did beating Savold on a foul.

 

It's interesting to note that the referee's awarding of the first Woodcock-Savold bout to Bruce actually redounded to Savold's favor. The British press roundly criticized the disqualification and the public came to view the referee's decision as being unfair to Lee. As a result, the rematch was one of the most well attended fights in the history of British boxing up to that point. After Savold defeated Woodcock in the rematch for the British version of the world heavyweight title, he made a tidy sum touring the UK in a series of exhibition fights. Lee's claim to the title was taken very seriously by the British sporting public.