BoxRec

Check out this link to a newspaper photograph of Max Baer hitting the heavy bag while training to fight Joe Louis in September 1935.
Max Baer looks to have been in real mean and focused mood.


http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Jb ... 1200096&dq

Baer is best known for clowning away the title, but the guy had a real dark, bad-ass side that sprang up in certain fights. His effort vs Nova with his face being battered into the Elephant Man is one, plus his furious KO over Schmeling and his taunting/beating of Galento, who Baer truly didn't like as Tony had done his usual Mayorga-esque shi*-talking routine before the fight. I think he would've had greater success if the whole Campbell incident had happened.

What seems strange to me is that the photo must have been taken just a week before Max Baer had fought Joe Louis.
What must have happened between that time?
Maybe Jack Dempsey must have said something to try and psych Baer up but
instead it only demoralized him?
Maybe Baer's hands became sore and numb from the heavy punching workouts?
All I know is all these years whenever I tuned in to ESPN CLASSic usually
when the Louis-Max Baer fight was in progress,it take me a minute to figure out
that it was him in the ring and not someone else.
Baer really must have lost his fighting spirit and essence before he stepped into the ring that night.
Even Joe Louis was quoted later as saying that he felt something was wrong with Baer but he could not figure out what it was.

How accurate were X-Rays technology in 1935?
If no bones were broken what about cartilage damage,or torn hand ligaments?
,Would the doctors have detected that back then?
Was the John Hopkins doctor somehow,someway pressured by some unnamed person(s) (i.e Mike Jacobs)to say publicliy that
Max Baer's hands were fine so that some greedy people would
be given a green light to go ahead make some BIG MONEY from the fight to go on as scheduled?
(In August the promoer Mike Jacobs, had predicted a live gate of $500,000 dollars)
I did read that after the Braddock fight that one physician had recommended that Baer have an operation on his right hand.
Another suggested that Baer have both his hands put in casts for several weeks.

I havent watched any footage of it for a while, but I seem to remember at least one furious exchange of blows where Baer seemed to give as good as he got. Just saying.

I think that was in the first round.
Joe Louis was hitting Max Baer with some solid heavy punches to the chin, especially left hooks in the first round too.
IMOP Max Baer looked way too uptight and rigid.
I wonder how different this fight would have been if Baer was not been rushed into it,and instead had fought
Joe Louis in September 1936?

I've never believed the hand story b/c if Max's hand had been so bad going into the fight, certainly he would've needed surgery, or at least a cast, post-fight, both of which never happened. In addition, none of the people at the fight thought Baer looked like he had any hand issues at all.

I think Baer opened up in the first, got almost knocked out for his trouble, and then pretty much fought cautiously the rest of the fight, still receiving a beating in the process. But Baer should've probably been fighting a different fighter right after Braddock than an undefeated Joe Louis.

Still fairly early in Louis' career, which is forgotten a bit. An impressive win, but people did feel Baer was unusually ready to fold.

On the other hand, such would be the impact of being hit by Joe Louis D

As far as the"what If" factor.
Since Joe Louis so easily defeated a still well respected ex-heavyweight champion,
if he had not have defeated Baer,would he have been so (Seemingly casual
training to fight another ex-heavyweight champion(Max Schmeling)the next year in June 1936?