Seasoned fight observers will be familiar with the following scenario. A big fight approaches. The two fighters have a history, having sparred much earlier in their respective careers. They offer differing recollections of how the sparring sessions unfolded, each side indicating that they came out on top. The eager press and fans eat this up, speculating on how those long-ago minutes shared in the ring will influence the outcome of the impending clash, while the more level-headed observers (otherwise known as killjoys) note that the distant sparring will count for nothing.
This is far from a recent phenomenon. In June 1948, Jersey Joe Walcott was preparing for his rematch with Joe Louis for the world heavyweight title. Walcott had lost their first fight on points over 15 rounds the previous December, in what is widely regarded as a bad decision from the officials.
A couple of weeks before the scheduled rematch, a magazine article appeared, entitled, “I’ll Lick Joe Louis Again.” In the story, Walcott stated that he had held the conviction that he’d had the beating of Louis for 12 years, stemming from a sparring session way back in the summer of 1936. Jersey Joe appeared to remember it clearly.
“When my turn came, my first move was to feint Louis into dropping his left. I crossed a right that made his eyes narrow. I stepped around and stabbed him with jabs. I kept in motion from side to side. The harder he tried, the worse he looked. As he lunged and missed with one big, angry left hook, I came back with a right to the face. It wasn’t a hard punch and couldn’t have hurt, but it was perfectly placed and enough to knock him off balance. He stumbled awkwardly across the ring. The ropes saved him from falling face first, and he landed on both knees.”
Walcott went on to say that later that evening, after dinner, he was paid off and told he didn’t have the right style for Louis. The driver of a grocery truck gave him a lift back to his home in Merchantville, NJ.
As is often the case in these situations, Walcott’s version of events is disputed. What we know to be true is this. Alongside his stop-start career as a professional fighter, Walcott at this time was making around $12 - $15 a week working as a labourer, sometimes for 50 plus hours a week. Louis, meanwhile, was in training camp at the Stanley Hotel in Lakewood, NJ., preparing for his first fight with Max Schmeling.
It was often reported that Louis had trouble finding sparring partners who were both good enough and willing to work with the Bomber. He already had a reputation for dishing out heavy punishment in the ring, even while sparring. This had led to the princely sum of $25 a day being offered to the right candidates who could work with Louis in the ring to help him prepare and sharpen his skills.
The debate about this now infamous sparring session between Louis and Walcott had surfaced briefly before their first fight. When it was put to Louis that Walcott claimed to have scored a knockdown in the Lakewood training camp, the Bomber denied any knowledge of it. As he recollected, he’d had 26 spar mates across that camp and could not remember any of them clearly, but he felt sure he would have if one of them had floored him.
It’s no surprise that from the distance of more than a decade the two men could not agree on what happened when they shared a ring in the summer of 1936. However, even contemporary reports from the newspaper men of the time don’t exactly settle the dispute.
There does appear to be some agreement that Walcott made a good early showing, though mention of him scoring a knockdown is hard to find. One New York newspaper reported on May 19th that the Louis team’s problem of finding decent sparring had been eased with the arrival of Jersey Joe. Walcott was described as, “a fast, clever boxer with a snappy left hand and a tantalising weave style.”
According to this report, Jersey Joe, “was tried out and gave Louis such a splendid workout that he was engaged for regular service.” If one is to believe what we read here, then Walcott did have success with Louis, but rather than being punished with dismissal, was rewarded with an extended stay in camp. If indeed, being punched daily by Joe Louis can be considered a reward.
So, how long did Walcott remain in camp and why did he ultimately leave? Once again, opinions differ. Walcott’s reported manager of the time, Bill Brooks, claimed that his fighter’s good showing against Louis proved to the public what he had known all along.
“I showed the world that Walcott has the goods, and I’ve pulled him out of Joe’s camp. Walcott is too good to act as a paid sparring partner for any boxer.”
That Bill Brooks triumphantly removed Walcott from the Louis camp, does not appear to be the commonly held view. Another newspaper report concurred with the idea of a successful first day for Jersey Joe but went on to suggest that the work quickly got tougher for the Camden heavyweight.
“He stepped into the ring the first day the Brown Bomber worked out and all but showed up Louis. Louis was not in the least perturbed. The next time the two Joes got in the ring, last Wednesday, Louis tagged Walcott with a left hook, Walcott tagged the floor. And didn’t like it, even for $25.”
That Louis was more likely to retaliate in the ring, rather than have a sparring partner fired, was a belief shared by regular observers.
“Joe will stand for no monkey business from his spar mates. Let one of them tag him a little harder than ordinarily and Joe gets plumb mad through. The hapless spar mates usually find themselves listening to the birdies thenceforth.”
Maybe Louis had, indeed, used a second sparring session to put Walcott in his place and leave him “listening to the birdies.” One camp insider disclosed to the press that Walcott was just another case of a sparring partner not sticking around.
“We stand new sparring partners up, day after day, and what happens? One round and they leave without waiting for supper. Jersey Joe weaved with him one day, as Schmeling plans to do. The next day Louis knocked him down with a left hook.”
Renowned sportswriter, John Lardner, spent a day at the Lakewood camp to run his eye over proceedings and report back to his legion of readers. Walcott was certainly a part of the camp on the day of his visit as Lardner got to observe Louis and Walcott spar. John Lardner was clearly a hard man to impress.
“Walcott is not the worst sparring partner in the world. He mixes in, throws a few punches, then grunts when Mr Louis catches him with a lethal blow to the head or body. He stings Mr Louis every now and then, and the latter is determined to tag Jersey Joe before the training period expires.”
While Lardner had not been overly impressed with Walcott in the ring, another aspect of his physical prowess certainly made an impression that he was keen to relay to his readers. During the team’s morning runs, apparently Walcott would run backwards, while the others progressed in a more conventional fashion.
Louis told Lardner that Walcott was, “the most fastest backwards runner I’ve ever seen”, although it is not clear how many he had had the pleasure of watching. Upon hearing this, Lardner asked for a demonstration and Walcott obliged. Lardner’s report on Jersey Joe’s unusual athletic display, makes one wish that the event had been filmed for posterity so viewers could verify the veracity of the claim rather than rely on Lardner’s printed account.
“He (Walcott) sprints in reverse with the speed of an antelope. He runs backwards faster than the average man runs forwards. He can run 100 yards backwards in about 13 seconds.”
Jack Blackburn, Louis’ trainer, had no interest in Walcott’s aptitude for backwards sprinting while out on morning runs. All that mattered was what happens in the ring. On that he was clear.
“If that boy runs backwards in the ring, I will throw him right out of camp, and I don’t care how I throw him, backwards or forwards.”
Rather than get closer to the truth of the 1936 sparring session (or sessions) between Jersey Joe Walcott and Joe Louis, this investigation has only served to inadvertently introduce another mystery now lost in time: that of Walcott’s seemingly superhuman backwards running.
So let us return to the sparring controversy and Walcott’s claims made in his 1948 article. At the time that he put his name to that story, Jersey Joe was in confident mood as the rematch approached, but also feeling aggrieved at the supposed injustice of the first fight.
Did whatever happened in that sparring ring in Lakewood in 1936 have any bearing on what transpired in the Louis-Walcott bouts? Maybe.
It is easy to imagine a scenario where Walcott had success in the first sparring session with a version of the Bomber early in camp. As previously noted, Louis was more likely to make adjustments and take retribution against sparring partners who he viewed as having taken liberties, rather than have them fired from the camp. Maybe it was the case that the second sparring session was far less comfortable for Walcott and at that point in his career, he decided that was not what he needed and left the camp of his own accord. He would not have been the only fighter to make that decision after tasting Louis’ punches.
If that was how events transpired then it did, to some degree, mirror the events of 1947/48. Despite his advancing years, Walcott was in fine form at this time, while this was a Bomber in decline. Most reports have Walcott winning the first fight in December 1947, despite the result going the other way, and he would have taken confidence into the rematch. But, once again, the old Bomber made adjustments. In front of 42,000 adoring fans at Yankee Stadium on 25th June 1948, he knocked Walcott out in the 11th round. There was a long list of fighters who learned the hard way that early success against Joe Louis offered no guarantee of victory and Jersey Joe was just the latest.
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