OCR Text |
Show JIM BRADDOCK SAYS LOUIS IS. HARDEST HITTER OF ALL TIME right, and that hook was the end of me." "Do you think he'll nail Farr with a tew of those punches?" Hardest Hitler lei "I don't know," Jim said, "but if he does Farr will find out just what I did that Joe is the hardest hard-est hitter that ever lived." "You think he hits harder than Dempsey did?" "Hell yes. -I never was hit by Jack, but I know he never punched punch-ed the way Louis does. Do you know that before Joe hit me I never had been hurt ? No sir, in 12 years of fighting" no man had ever actually hurt me. Shaken me up sure, and stunned me. But Louis hurt. Hurt awful. Every time he hit me, even with those short jabs, I wanted to reach up and rub myself, .because I felt he had left great big lumps. He hit me harder than all the guys I ever fought put together. Nobody ever will know how that colored boy smacks until he actually hits you. He throws hammers, and I'm not lying." "And yet you want another crack at him?" I asked. Fought Louis Wrong IiV HKNKV Mi-LK.MOKK I'iiltU 1'ress Staff Correspondent NEW YORK, Aug. 24 KM!) The lust time I had seen the fellow he was crumpled on the canvas, with his legs tucked grotesquely beneath be-neath him and his face a bloody nii'HH. Today I found him snuggled deep in a great big chair, all wrapped up in a purple dressing gown, with his nose poked in a detective story. Smoke from a 50-center 50-center swirled about his head, and that big grin was back in its regular place. "Put down that book, Jirn," I said, "and tell me what you think Louis will do to Tommy Farr Thursday night." Braddock laughed. IMm't Koniember "You've come to the wrong man ' if you want information about Louis. 'Cause tell you the truth, I don't remember mucfl about him. I forgot to duck out in Chicago, and I don't remember a thing that happened after I did." 'You hung around eight rounds," I said, "so you must recall re-call something about that fight." "Not much," the former champion cham-pion answered, "not much. You rememher that last lick he hit me that right?" I said that I did that I could feel it clean back in the press section. sec-tion. "I never felt it. It must have been the hardest punch any guy ever got hit with, but as far as I was concerned a fly might just as well have lit on me. I was out when that one landed. He hit me a left hook just before he threw that fcure, I do. I'm not saying 1 11 beat him, but I'd give him a whale uf a fight. I thought I was right for that Chicago bout, but I wasn't. I needed a couple of scraps under my belt. And then that knock down I scared in the first round upset all my plans. After that punch I thought I could put put him away, and I threw my idea of boxing him overboard and started wading in. You can't wade into Joe. He'll knock the ibrams out of anyone who tries to." I reminded him that Farr was a guy who waded in, throwing punches. "He'll get cured of that in a , hurry," Jim said. "You tell him : for me he'd better not try it." Braddock, with all the scars of the Louis battle healed, will fight Max Baer in October. I asked him if he thought he was wise If he didn't think it was time he quit? "I am going to let that fight decide de-cide it," he answered. "If he licks me I'll call it quits.' If I lick him, and I can't miss doing just that, I'm going to have another whack at Louis. And the next time I won't walk in swinging. No sir, I sure won't. And don't forget to tell Tommy not to, either." (Copyright 1937 by the United j Press) |