By Steven G. Farrell: It wasn’t until June 13, 1935 when James J. Braddock defeated Max Baer in a fifteen round decision on Long Island City did the Irish have a champion that they truly could identify with again. “Cinderella Man’” stunning victory is still considered the greatest upset in boxing history. Braddock, a run-of-the-mill fighter, really has become the epitome of the Irish-American fighter: a courageous underdog with more heart than muscle. Russell Crowe drove the point in Ron Howard’s film version of Braddock’s career. Schaap (Cinderella Man: James J. Braddock, Max Baer and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History) contends that when news leaked out that Braddock and his family had been on public relief (welfare) earlier in the Depression (and had paid it all back after defeating Corn Griffith before the Baer-Canera championship fight in 1934) it worked in his favor publicity-wise.
Schaap also replays the old story where Max Baer and Jack Dempsey are be interviewed in Dempsey’s nightclub and the former champ is asked about the new champ’s chances against the challenger.
‘”He’s (Baer) going to get hurt, that’s what ‘s going to happen,” Dempsey interjected. “That is, Max, if you don’t start getting some sleep and stop chasing women around.”
‘”Chasing women around is the best exercise I know,” Baer said. “They’re harder to catch then washed-up Irishmen.”’
Baer, who claimed Jewish ancestry based on one grandparent, stepped into the ring out of fighting condition and was showed up by Braddock, the pride of Bergen, New Jersey. By the way, Braddock’s fight in 1929 with Tommy Loughran for the light heavyweight championship is the last time two Irish-Americans squared off for a boxing title of any kind as far as my research has led me. James J. Braddock had enough savvy and street smarts to know that he wasn’t made of the stuff of a true champ so he held on to the crown by not fighting for two years. Schapp writes: “Even while the public was falling in love with Braddock, its new champion, it was drawn to the ‘Brown Bomber ‘(Joe Louis). Braddock was considered a lucky Irishman who took the title from the lackadaisical Baer, but Louis at twenty-one, was already hailed as the most complete heavyweight ever.”
Braddock made sure to negotiate a good contract for $320,000 before he stepped into the ring set up in Comiskey Park, Chicago, in 1937. The massive crowd as well as Louis was stunned when the Cinderella Man floored Joe in the first round with a solid sock to the jaw. The knockdown was Braddock’s last shining moment in the ring; for Joe proceeded to massacre him. After the sixth round Bob Gould, James J’s manager said. “I’m going to have the referee stop the fight.”
Braddock, in a mythic display of an Irishman’s courage in a lost cause, retorted, “The hell you are. If you do, Joe, I’ll never speak to you again.”
James J. Braddock was finally floored for the count of ten in the eighth round. He was a decent enough man never to mention Joe’s race and Joe referred to him ‘as the bravest man he ever fought.” America was happy to see Joe Louis, an American at least, to become champion over any foreigner. Joe Louis was eventually panned in the press for his lame opponents who were collectively known as the ‘Bum of the Month club.” The exception to that rule was Irish-American light heavyweight champion turned heavyweight contender, Billy Conn, aka “the Pittsburgh Kid.” Conn was handsome, white, charismatic and gifted in the ring. He was also young, cocky, quotable, Irish and strikingly handsome which made him a great draw at the box office. Kennedy (Billy Conn the Pittsburgh Kid) wrote, “Many Irish Americans identified with Conn’s quest as an attempt to recapture the crown that was rightfully theirs. At this point in the history of boxing the Irish had produced more champs than anyone else. Conn could restore the legacy of Sullivan, Corbett, Dempsey, Tunney and Braddock. The bout took place in Harlem, the ‘capital’ of Black America, surrounded by a city with a large Irish population.”
Conn, at 180 pounds, was knocked out by Louis, 199 pounds, in the 13th round in their 1941 match when Billy was way ahead on points on all of the scorecards. When chided by the media for trying to knock Louis out Conn replied, “what’s the sense of being Irish if you can’t be dumb?’” An out-of-shape and aging Conn took on Louis in a rematch five years later but only lasted into the eighth. Regis Welsh, a noted sportswriter, wrote late, “Conn, once a great fighter, just has too much Irish to control his fighting abilities once he gets burned up.” Conn, like Braddock, had a good relationship with Joe Louis. Both men fought and trained with many black fighters. George Nicholson, a black sparring partner of Braddock noted that James j was a wonderful guy who treated everybody the same.” On the other hand, he couldn’t stomach Gene Tunney. The Irish oftentimes have more of a phobia towards social class than they do with race or religion. Joe Louis, who polished off the heyday of Owen Madden and the West Side Irish Mafia’s control of the fight game, was popular with both whites and blacks because of his dignified manner, quiet grace and clean style.
The end of Billy Conn’s tenure in the ring also heralded the end of the Irish presence in the sport as well. It wasn’t until the 1960’s with the emergence of Jerry Quarry did the Irish Americans have one of their own become a number one challenger in the heavyweight division. With his Beatles haircut and California cool, Quarry had more in common with the Beach boys than he did with his Irish counterparts like Sullivan, Corbett, Tunney or Braddock. He defeated former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson and top contender s like Ron Lyle and Ernie Shavers. However, “Irish Jerry” couldn’t beat the big guns like Mohammed Ali, Joe Frazier or Ken Norton. Jerry Quarry was most noted for three reasons: 1) he bled easily, 2) he made numerous successful and unsuccessful comebacks, and 3) he was an Irish-American. Once when Jerry and his brother Mike were put on the same bill against two black men, it was touted as “The Soul Brothers versus the Quarry Brothers” by promoter Bob Arum.
It took another decade before another an Irish-American emerged on the scene to fight for the championship. In 1982 “Gentleman” Gerry Cooney of Long Island, New York, became the last serious Irish-American heavyweight fighter when he climbed in between the ropes to tango with Larry Holmes for the title. Don King, in an effort to drum-up interest for a closed circuit audience, baptized Cooney as the “Great White Hope” while Holmes snorted that Cooney was the “Great White Dope.” In the 100 years from 1882, the race-baiting and name calling had jumped from the Irish-American side of the track
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to the African-American side. Ken Norton, an earlier champ, had started the bashing of Cooney before his own fight with the Irishman by boasting that he had a perfect record against Caucasians. Cooney set a record by knocking Norton out in 54 seconds first round. Ali, never the one to praise white fighters, actually said before the Holmes-Cooney that Cooney could hit Holmes so hard that “his brothers in Africa would feel it.”
Irish America has put out very few champions since World War Two with Sean O’Grady and ‘Irish’ Micky Ward (welterweight ) being the lone exceptions. Eoin Cannon , a contemporary scholar of Irish America, heavily influenced this paper with his perceptive of the packaging of Irishman in today’s fight game. Cannon, in his groundbreaking essay, “The Heavyweight champion of Irishness: ethnic Fighting identities today”, makes the valid point that Irish-American fighters still have a marketable image because of their symbolic representation of being heroic. Cannon writes “The Irish fighter is the humble man of limited skills who wins by hard work, sheer courage” and “The Irish fighter is also has a cheeky devil-may-care attitude.” Cannon makes his strongest point when he claims that the Irish fighter has the “inability to take the safe, smart route instead of the dangerous bruising one.”
Halloran (Irish Thunder: The Hard Life & Times of Micky Ward) describes in colorful details Ward’s three epic bouts with Arturo Gatti which took place after the events depicted in the movie The Fighter Which featured Mark Wahlberg as Irish Mickey. The odds are high that Micky Ward will be the absolute last one in the long line of Irish-American fighters.
In this paper, I have attempted to trace the sometimes tense but usually affable relationships between the leading Irish-American and African-American heavyweight boxers spanning 1882 to
1982.
The Irish day in boxing has long since departed and the African American fighters, after a very long reign at the top, are now being tossed aside by talented Hispanic, Asian and African fighters as well as a recent infusion of white Eastern European champion talent which was foretold in Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky IV. The race card and the race baiting will probably as being a part of the most individualistic and psychological sport.
Sources
Cannon, Eoin. “The Heavyweight champion of Irishness: ethnic Fighting Identities today.” New Hibernia: Review vol. 10, number 3, August 2006
Carney, Jim. Ultimate Tough Gut: the Life & times of James J. Jefferies. Westlake, Oh: Achill Publishing, 2009.
Cavanaugh, Jack. Gene Tunney: boxing’s Brainest Champ and His Upset of Jack Dempsey. New York: Ballantine Books, 2007.
Fields, Armond. James J. Corbett: A biography of the Heavyweight Champion and popular Theatre Headliner. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2001.
Irish American Boxers. Memphis, Tennessee: Books, LLC, 2010.
Isenberg, Michael T. John L. Sullivan and His America. Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press,
1988
Halloran, Bob. Irish Thunder: the Hard Life & Times of Micky Ward. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2007.
Kahn, Roger. A flame of fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring 20s. New York: A Harvest Book/Harcourt Inc., 1999.
Kennedy, Paul F. Bill Conn the Pittsburgh Kid. Bloomington, IN: Author House, 2007.
Mead, Chris. Joe Louis: black Champion in White America. Mineola, New York: Dover publications, 1985.
Remnick, David. King of the Worl: Muhammed Ali and the rise of an American Hero.. New York: Vintage books, 1999.
Schaap, Jeremy. Cinderalla Man: james J. Braddock, Max Baer and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005.
Sugar, Bert Randolph. Boxing Greatest Fighters. Guuilford, Connecticut: lyons Press, 2006.
Ward, Geoffrey C. Unforgiveable Blackness: the Rise & Fall of Jack Johnson. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.
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