Steve Marcus
The statue of boxer Joe Louis is shown near the sports book during a tour of Caesars Palace Thursday, May 21, 2020.
Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024 | 2 a.m.
Editor’s note: Today, we are reprinting the March 14, 1964, column from Sun founder Hank Greenspun on boxing icon Joe Louis.
A true champion!
The true champion doesn’t sit it out. Both of his arms can be broken, his face and head cut from ear to ear, but if he’s going to be counted out, it should be in the center of the ring or down on his back. Then he could say, “I tried but it wasn’t good enough.” The public will understand and appreciate.
Joe Louis was a true champion. He didn’t have to proclaim to the world that he was the greatest. The world acclaimed him.
Cassius Clay is the greatest. His own mouth tells you so. Joe’s fists did all the talking for him and this is what makes for a championship in boxing.
(Editor’s note: Later, Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali).
A group of us were sitting around the Sands Health Club while Nat (King) Cole was getting his back rubbed. Ash Resnick was dunning former heavyweight champion of the world Joe Louis for some money Joe had borrowed at the Castaways the night before. The famed Brown Bomber volunteered to pay Ash as soon as he had settled with the United States government, Department of Internal Revenue. He had Ash next in line.
Ash figured that would take about 50 years and he didn’t care to wait that long. With Joe though, 50 years was a little optimistic, for no man could make enough money in one lifetime, pay his taxes, and still have enough to satisfy what Joe presently owes.
Joe was taking his problems with the government with the same impassivity he took his opponents in the ring.
“That’s why I’ve always thought that Joe Louis is the greatest champion of them all,” Nat (King) Cole offered from the rubbing table. In the ring he took on Billy Conn, Bob Pastor, Max Baer, Max Schmeling, James J. Braddock, Jersey Joe Walcott, Lou Nova, Buddy Baer and anyone else who had the courage to challenge him.
Outside the ring he takes on the income tax guys, which makes him a champion inside and out.
No referee would ever count Joe out while sitting on a stool. They would have had to carry him out but that’s what champions are for. To give everything they got until they can give no more.
The reason Joe was great in the ring is he never telegraphed a blow, nor did he telegraph any emotion.
No opponent ever knew if he were hurt badly or just breezing along. He never glared like Sonny Liston nor grinned like Max Baer. He didn’t frighten an opponent with smiles of confidence or killer looks. His gloves told the story and not his face or mouth. But when he was called upon to speak into a microphone after a grueling battle, it wasn’t the pug’s usual, “I won, mom, put the meat on the table.”
He did not exult or gloat. He kept his guard up in the ring and while talking to reporters. His opponent would be out cold and Joe would report to the radio audience that it was a desperate battle. None of Cassius’ “I whipped the big ugly bum.”
When Joe was asked, after an easy win, if he had been hurt, the average fighter might have said “that bum couldn’t hurt my appetite.” But Joe, well-coordinated in mind and mouth, as well as fists, would reply, “I knew he’d been hitting me.”
As gracious to his opponent after the fight as he was determined to win during the bout. None of the Cassius Clay’s theatrics. Joe Louis came to fight and he didn’t need any window dressing or press pageantry to build the second-largest gate in boxing history, $1.9 million in 1946 for the second Billy Conn fight, which Joe managed to end in eight.
The largest gate was Dempsey-Tunney in Chicago in 1927, which drew $2.6 million. And those were the years that income tax was 2%.
“All a fellow had to do in those days was take out cab fare and take the rest home. Today,” Nat Cole volunteered, “the government leaves you cab fare.”
I asked Joe if he would have income taxes to worry about if they had closed-circuit television back when he was ruling the heavyweight roost.
“I’d just owe the government that much more,” was the quick response. Ash agreed that Joe might be right. “He’s the owingest guy I know.”
Joe would like to live in Las Vegas, but Ash can’t afford it. Las Vegas could afford to add Joe Louis to the list of champions who make this their home. He was the greatest.
