In Boxing, It’s Same New Story

It all began with Braddock. He was the original Rocky. If you saw Rocky I, that was the James J. Braddock story. Sylvester Stallone, a fight buff, was, no doubt, very familiar with the Braddock saga when he scripted the life and times of Rocky Balboa.

They said Buster Douglas’ knockout of heavyweight champion Mike Tyson was the greatest upset in boxing history. Maybe it was. But the Braddock upset is neck-and-neck.

It came in the Depression ‘30s. Nobody had any money, least of all a down-and-out fighter in New Jersey named James Braddock. He and his wife and kids were not only broke, they were on relief.

Braddock would get up in the morning and climb down the Jersey Palisades to the Hudson River waterfront, where he would get in the daily shape-up hoping for longshore work. When he got it, he got 50 cents an hour, lifting railroad ties out of ships and onto flatcars. His diet was day-old doughnuts sold at discount because they were stale.

He had been a light-heavyweight contender. He didn’t lose a fight his first 3 1/2 years, but when he got his title shot, he just wasn’t as good as the champs, the Tommy Loughrans and the Maxie Rosenblooms.

He tried to work the docks by day and fight at night. He fought the guys no one else wanted to fight--Al Gainer, Dynamite Jackson and John Henry Lewis, soon to be light-heavyweight champion. He fought them in their hometowns. He lost.

He was going nowhere. He fought eight bouts in 1932 and he lost four of them. He got stopped by an in-and-outer named Lou Scozza.

He was used, mainly, to make character for new, young phenoms. They invented the name “trial horse” for guys such as Braddock.

That, ultimately, was his good fortune. His manager, Joe Gould, used to haunt the Madison Square Garden offices looking for a pay night for his fighter, and when they were looking for the classic “opponent” to look good on the record of a new hotshot fighter out of Georgia named Corn Griffin, Braddock seemed ideal.

Corn Griffin knocked him down with the first punch of the fight. Braddock got up. He always got up. He knocked Griffin out in the third round. He got $250, which he paid back to the government for his relief. “I did that on hash,” he told his manager. “Get me some steaks, and I’ll clean out the division.”

Boxing had its own Apollo Creed as champ at that time, Max Baer, a guy with the build of a Greek god and the punch of a falling paving block, possessed of such a devastating right hand that he had killed two men in the ring with it.

When Braddock got matched with Baer--after whipping John Henry Lewis and Art Lasky, top contenders--the New York writers feared the worst. “Baer may injure him fatally,” warned Paul Gallico. “It will be surprising to me if we all don’t end up in police court,” wrote Davis J. Walsh.

Braddock not only lived, he gave Baer a thrashing.

Braddock could do two things Rocky Balboa could--he could take it and he was fearless.

The Buster Douglas story has similarities to the James Braddock story. The Douglas record, like the Braddock, is dotted with losses.

When he came through here this week promoting his upcoming title defense against Evander Holyfield, Douglas was asked if he could explain his so-so record leading up to the Tyson fight. Like Braddock, he had lost to nobodies. David Bey knocked him out in two rounds in 1981. Somebody named Mike White had knocked him out in five rounds in 1983. Someone named Jesse Ferguson beat him in 1985. And Tony Tucker knocked him out in 1987.

Like Braddock, he had the dreaded “NC” on his record. This stands for No-Contest and a set of circumstances where the referee stops the bout on the suspicion the fighters aren’t trying.

“I was busy doing other things in those days,” Buster explained.

“What other things?” Buster was asked. “Making a living,” explained Buster. “I was working in a carpet store, for one thing. I was laying carpet. I was losing fights outside the ring.”

He was trying to win fights on hash, too.

What the two Kid Cinderellas did with their titles has its similarities. In Braddock’s case, he was pointing toward a big-money shot with Joe Louis, when the young Brown Bomber made the mistake of scheduling a tuneup fight against Max Schmeling, who knocked him out.

That created terrible problems for the whole republic, let alone the champ. Braddock didn’t want to fight Schmeling because he could get only about one-tenth the purse he could command with Louis. The country didn’t want him to fight Schmeling because no one wanted the heavyweight title to go back to Hitler.

Braddock fought Louis in Chicago. He got knocked out in eight rounds. He floored Louis in the first round, but a Louis right almost tore his mouth in half in Round 8.

Buster Douglas had his own dilemma. It is clear his big-money shot would be a return bout against Tyson. But for Douglas to get the shot at Tyson in Tokyo last February, Evander Holyfield had to waive his rights as No. 1 challenger. Max Schmeling would not do that in 1937, even coming to New York for a phantom weigh-in for a phantom bout. But Holyfield stepped aside in return for a guaranteed shot against the winner.

Could Douglas have dishonored that pledge? Probably. It’s done all the time in the fight game, whose symbol should not be the clenched fist but the outstretched palm.

So, Buster is going to meet his obligations and fight Holyfield at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas on Oct. 25.

Here he departs from the Braddock script. James J. not only stiffed Schmeling, he made an arrangement no commission could approve today. He agreed to run out on the Schmeling match and meet Louis for the title. In return, he got 10% of the purses of Louis’ subsequent fights--not from Louis’ end, from the promoter’s.

James J. didn’t want to go back to hash. Or on relief. Or lifting railroad ties. Like the Rocky movies, he wanted a happy ending, too.