I was perusing Jack Kid Berg’s record and it occurred to me how many title defenses he made of his world light-welterweight title in such a short space of time, to the point that I wondered if anyone else had made that many defenses that quickly. Berg won the light-welterweight title on 8th February 1930 from Mushy Callahan before making his first defense of the title on 4th April that year. He made a further 7 defenses defenses over the next year up to and including his final defense on 10th April 1931 before losing the title two weeks later by 3rd round KO to Tony Canzoneri. That’s 5 defenses in 1930 and then 3 more in 1931 or 8 in almost exactly 12 months. Not only that, but Berg was on a 30+ fight unbeaten streak going back two and a half years to October 1928 before he lost to Canzoneri. Some of those wins included beating reigning or future world champions as well, including points wins over Callahan in July 1929, Canzoneri in Jan 1930, Kid Chocolate in August 1930 as well as beating top contender Billy Petrolle in October 1930. Of course, when I thought about it, the answer to who else made that many defenses in such a short time was blindingly obvious… Joe Louis made 8 defenses in less than 12 months (the period from Dec 1940 - Sep 1941), including 7 defenses in a single calendar year (1941). That period is also what inspired the derisory term ‘bum of the month club’ to describe Louis’s title reign as at one point in 1941 (Jan-June of that year), he had made a defence in each month that had passed. Two more different fighters it’s harder to imagine - the fistic economy and power of Joe Louis and the whirlwind of volume punches thrown by Berg… but from the mean streets of Detroit, Michigan to the mean streets of Whitechapel in the East End of London, two great world champions are linked in history by more than just their alliterative nicknames.