TACITURN GENTLEMAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 57, 4 September 1937, Page 22

TACITURN GENTLEMAN

WRESTLING FIXTURES

LOCAL BOXING

REEVE AND PLUTO

LOUIS HATES CONVERSATION

DISPLAYS BOXING INTELLIGENCE

A writer in the "New York Times" magazine says that Joe Louis avoids meeting people, hates conversation (even fight talk), and says less than any man in sports history, including Dummy Taylor, and he was a mute. Dr. William Walker, who examined Louis before the Camera fight a year ago, was amazed at the man's silence.

"Closest thing to a wooden Indian I ever saw," swore the doctor. And that creates a perfect picture of Louis—outside the ring.

Fighting, he still wears the dead-pan stare, but he is anything but wooden. Fighting, he displays boxing intelli* gence tantamount to the stalking! instinct of the panther. He leaps in, light-ning-quick, at the slightest opening; is alert to any clumsy move that throws an opponent off balance. He becomes sheer animal, moving with the grace of the jungle cat; unhurried, watching for missteps, ready to loose the tremendous strength of his body and shoulders.

When he has pinned his prey he turns wooden again. Crowds roar; fight fans pound one another on the back or hug peanut venders in the aisles in the sheer thrill of the man's phy-

September 4.—E^omfteld v. Christy, at Auckland; Woods v. Wescoatt, at Glsborne; McCready v. Noland, at Christchurch.

September 6.—Blomfleld v. Judson, at Wellington.

September B.—McCready ▼• Wade, at Invercaxgill.

September.9.-—Christy v. Woods, at Palmerston North; Blomfield v. Marshall, at Hamilton. •

September 11.—Christy t. MeCrcady, at Dnnedin.

September 13.—Christy v. Weacoait, at Auckland.

September 15.—Christy v. Marshall, at Hasting*.

sical perfection and brute strengthLouis accepts it all without flickering a facial muscle. He says the noise does not bother him. Nothing does. He doesn't understand mob hysteria; isn't interested in it. •

A great many v people, seeing Joe Louis for the first time, compare him with Paul Robeson. Louis is 6 feet 1} inches tall (he's gained a full inch since the Camera fight) and weighs 216 pounds. Robeson is 6 feet 2J inches tall and weighs 215 pounds. The resemblance ends there.

Where a high-strung fighter might wear himself raw in preparation for an important bout, Louis is immune against harrowing thought. The night of the Max Baer fight, when his whole future depended on the outcome of the bout, noisy handlers and preliminary boys disturbed his rest period. His backers rigged up a green curtain to shut out toe noise and-Joe dozed off to await the summons ,to the ring, EARLY DAYS. When Joe was 9 years old his family moved to Detroit. They lived in a run-down tenement in Madison Avenue and Joe was sent to Duffield School, where the teachers bombarded him with instruction only to learn that he was insulated against It. Em-

barrassed because he had to associate with younger children, he began to cultivate the habit of silence and reserve that is his outstanding characteristic now. When he was IS h& sold newspapers and blacked boots. Two year* later he quit grade school and transferred to Bronson's Vocational School. When he left there he got a job delivering ice. That paid him 8 dollars a week. Eventually, he became a labourer in the Ford'plant on River Rouge at 25 dollars a week, Louis doesn't remember now that he had any fights at school, but that may be because he'd rather not open a conversational vein about his boyhood. He was about 18 years old and weighed 169 pounds when Thurstou McKinney, a neighbour's son, took him one night to the Mount Olive Athletic Club in Detroit, for a boxing lesson. He walked out of the club sore and bruised but with a vague idea that he ought to know more about fisticuffs.

THE LIGHTWEIGHT TITLE

His second appearance in the ring was with John Miler of Detroit. Miler knocked him down six times in two rounds. That didn't discourage him. As Joe Louis (he dropped the family name, Barrow, after the Miler fight) he won his next thirteen bouts, roost of them with knock-outs. (Incidentally, lie pronounces his name "Lew-is," not "Loo-ie," as you'd expect from the spelling.) It is only four years since John Miler played bounce with the amateur Louis in Detroit. Since that time Miler has faded into obscurity; his chief bid for lame resting in the fact that he floored Louis. His victim of 1932, on the other hand, has become an international figure, has thrown hundreds of thou-J sands of fanatical fight fans into hysteria with his explosive punches. j

But he isn't at all the same brown stripling that Miler patted to the canvas like a rubber ball. In the four year* that have passed Louis has gone

, from 1691b to 216. His neck measure 118iin round. His chest measurement jof 41in normally takes on another Bin | when he inflates it. I He is slim at the waist—only 34in. | His thighs measure 25in; the calves 15, j the ankle 10, biceps 13, and he reachei I 6ft 4^in, both arms outstretched. Hi» I fists measure 14in around, ' I RAISING NEGRO PRESTIGE. Idealists who see in Louis a powerful influence for raising the prestige of a down-trodden race may be a little astonished to learn that he never regards himself in that light. His mind doesn't work that way. If you try to sound him on that point, he's apt to mumble: "Some my own people bett against me." Pinned down, he even denies he's at all race-conscious, but submerged in his make-up there ik sciething more than a trace of raceconsciousness. His managers and pro moters, the man who directs his ring campaigns from his corner, his sparring partners, his secretaries, and all the hangers-on at his training camp are people of his own race.

They have their own troubles handling Louis. Since he has become the Brown Bomber, the Dark Destroyer, Dark Lightning, and B.lack Beauty, Joe has developed something that in a more sensitive personality might b« called temperament. He sulks easily, and when he. does, his normal silence takes on richer and deeper shades. Where a soprano or . tenor might screech and tear out tufts of hair, Joe merely imitates midnight settlbg on a gloomy fen.

In training, or out, Louie sleeps iik* a new-born babe on a paregoric spree. His handlers seem to thinklhat's good for him; that it puts additional voltage in his ~ thunderbolt blows and ■ keeps him from getting nervous. In training Blackburn gets him out of his soft, white bed at 7 a.m., runs him up the road for an hour or so, and then let* him lumber off to sleep again.

At 10 he is turned out of the hay and shambles into breakfast. Then more sleep. Up again at 1 p.m., he spends an hour at .calisthenics,' the punching bag, and belting his sparring stooges around. That earns him an hour of rest and he relaxes with the natural ease of a tiger that's just absorbed a' Lurtebeest with a water-buffalo: : ' for hors d'oeuvre. After dinner ht may 101 l around and turn on the radio"and then lope oil for more sleep soon as the sun sets. "■■■■„ '

Within the past few months, the Brown Battering-ram,. has discovered golf. The sticks look like matchftsTin his great hands, but he seems to have caught on to the knack of the fame rather quickly. He is rather proud of his progress at it,, gets around in about 108 or so on an eighteen-hole course. He owns a low-slung, very shiny automobile, but is not a; good -driver,.despite his perfect muscular coordination. He is no more subtle in stepping on the accelerator than he is at.most other things. He loves to race a motor, just to listen to the roar of it. Hit backers would rather see him vie on* of the servants as a chauffeur, but ht insists on doing his own driving.

Offers have been made by the Wei-, lington Boxing Association for a lightweight title fight between Jack Jar? vis, the present holder, and Clarrie Rayner. of Blenheim. Two dates have been suggested, either September 23 or October 7.

A boxing tournament will, be staged on both/dates by the Wellington Association.and it is a matter for the two boxers to decide. When the date is fixed for the title bout then the other date will see Loveridge and Stan Smith in action. , .

Both contests will be exceptionally attractive ones and the championship fight will see a' very fast and fit Rayner endeavour to wrest the title from a rugged and determined opponent Loveridge and Stan Smith fought a hectic battle to a draw in Stratford recently and the return bout will find the Wellington "whirlwind" eager to mix it in his patron-pleasing manner. Loveridge, who has gained the reputation of a knock-out artist, will- en? deavour to remove Smith from the scene of action by the quick route.

According to reports, tho match between Reeve and Pluto at Pahiatua recently was a flrst-class one, tfith Reeve confounding the critics with bl» excellent performance. He fought * plucky and aggressive fight; to leave no doubt at all about the result.

Interviewed after the fight Pluto rtvealed himself as a fine loser. He had nothing but praise for Reeve, but at the same time mentioned that h» would like very much to; have • 4 r*> turn bdut with him.