Joe Louis exhibitions prior to Carnera bout

[dawudboxer]

Hi,

Just wondering if Louis boxed in 4 exhibitions prior to the Carnera bout according to his wiki page on his record page, why have you still got one of them on his official record (Biff Bennett). Surely if you accept one you have to accept all of them? All 4 opponents weighed in which surely wasn't done for exhibitions, and all 4 took place on separate dates, when Louis would normally box more than one opponent whenever he boxed exhibitions and usually for only one round apiece. In this case they were 6 rounders. Please can someone let me know what new evidence was found to remove 3 of his fights from his record.

Thanks very much

Dawud

[dawudboxer]

Nobody seems to know why they were taken off then? If the exhibition tour was 4 fights, why is the first fight of the tour on Louis' record but not the other 3??

[wouter]

They have always been listed as exhibitions and have never been on his official record. I'm not sure why the Bennett fight is listed here, the other three have never been on his record at Boxrec. There were some contractual issues that prevented Louis from fighting in regular bouts until the Carnera fight.

[dawudboxer]

Actually, boxrec at different times in the last few years have had Louis at 68-3 and even 69-3 then changed it to 66-3. I've been on boxrec from the beginning and back in the day used to print the records off.

[dawudboxer]

If in the contract it stated that Louis wasn't allowed to engage in any sanctioned bouts prior to the Carnera fight, and the four bouts in question were all exhibitions, I don't understand why Boxrec has included one of them on his record. I know in one report the Biff Bennett bout wasn't called an exhibition but wasn't that the case with all of them? So he was either 65-3 and all 4 bouts were exhibitons, or all of them were real bouts and he was 69-3. Can you find out who made the decision to add the Biff Bennett fight? Joe Louis' autobiography included all of them btw but didn't include the Johnny Davis bout so had him at 68-3.

Thanks