BoxRec

...with a handful of rice!"

One Tommy Farr said that. Its 71 years tomorrow since he fought Joe Louis. By 'eck it seems like only yesterday.

A time to remember a tougher breed of heavyweight and one British boxing's finest....despite a procession of defeats at elite level he will always be remembered for the thundering challenge to Louis.

"Ali wouldn't have hit Joe Louis on the bum with a handful of rice!"

Nice cover. A top HW from Britain. I've never seen his fight with Braddock but many thought he should have got the decision. can anyone confirm?

I think some if not all of the fight is on You Tube, I could me mistaken.

I once thought I read a Michael Dokes reverential article but I must have been mistaken....

Ezzard wrote:Nice cover. A top HW from Britain. I've never seen his fight with Braddock but many thought he should have got the decision. can anyone confirm?

According to news accounts of the day, Farr was slightly ahead after eight rounds. Two of the judges had it even after eight. Braddock rallied in the last two rounds to pull off a close decision. Farr lost one point in the third or fourth round for continual low blows. The news accounts make it sound like Braddock really jumped on Farr the last two rounds, and hammered Farr with an assortment of hard punches.

Farr refused to shake hands with Braddock in the ring after the fight, and assaulted a newspaper photographer in the locker room. A true sportsman . . .

raylawpc wrote:

Ezzard wrote:Nice cover. A top HW from Britain. I've never seen his fight with Braddock but many thought he should have got the decision. can anyone confirm?

According to news accounts of the day, Farr was slightly ahead after eight rounds. Two of the judges had it even after eight. Braddock rallied in the last two rounds to pull off a close decision. Farr lost one point in the third or fourth round for continual low blows. The news accounts make it sound like Braddock really jumped on Farr the last two rounds, and hammered Farr with an assortment of hard punches.

Farr refused to shake hands with Braddock in the ring after the fight, and assaulted a newspaper photographer in the locker room. A true sportsman . . .

You see how we romanticise our heroes.

Right, he would have hit him everywhere else.

Louis-Farr is an interesting fight, from what I've seen anyway, I've only seen a few select rounds of it. From what I saw and from what I remember, Farr basically used movement and a jab and Louis seemed to have trouble with him. Not surprising. I haven't seen it in a while, hopefully ESPN Classic will show it one day.

Ezzard wrote:Nice cover. A top HW from Britain. I've never seen his fight with Braddock but many thought he should have got the decision. can anyone confirm?

I have the full fight..I think it may be up online.

He looks good working behind his jab well, but Louis wins
this fight. I dont think that he looked the winner especially
at the end.

Maybe a few Welshmen tell tall tales at how Farr went the
distance against the KO machine Louis and deserves the
decision, but I personally do not think he won.

The whole fight is on the article link at the trop, broken across 3 you tibe clips.

DavidPayne wrote:The whole fight is on the article link at the trop, broken across 3 you tibe clips.

Thanks. Should be interesting to see in full.

I Feel Fine wrote:Right, he would have hit him everywhere else.

Louis-Farr is an interesting fight, from what I've seen anyway, I've only seen a few select rounds of it. From what I saw and from what I remember, Farr basically used movement and a jab and Louis seemed to have trouble with him. Not surprising. I haven't seen it in a while, hopefully ESPN Classic will show it one day.

Ali and Farr fought completly differently, since that's what you're referring to

Farr's style was that of a standard boxer puncher, but he was very tough, fast, had excellent stamina/work-rate and a granite jaw. And all in all Louis put him through a meat grinder.

dempseyfire wrote:Ali and Farr fought completly differently, since that's what you're referring to

Interesting. All I said, that I can see, is that he moved and used a jab. In that limited sense you can compare him to any number of fighters, as I don't believe that Farr and Ali were the only ones to ever employ that strategy. Either way, it is true that Farr for much of the fight moves away from Louis and uses a jab and does alright. Louis ate jabs throughout the fight, and by not standing in front of Louis Farr didn't take too many of Joe's fancy combinations, other than on maybe a couple of occasions where Farr gets too close to Louis. Funny how that works, that an opponent who actually moved away from Louis for most of the fight was able to get through the match without taking quite as many combinations, as opposed to most of Louis' inept opponents who plodded right into them. Perhaps other mobile fighters with a bit more speed might have also made it difficult for Louis to land combinations at will...

Every so often throughout the fight he also caught Louis with some right hands, as many of Louis' better opponents were able to. For all the praise of Louis' technique, he did not defend well against the right hand, as Schmeling was able to demonstrate, and this showed up every now and then when he actually stepped in with more capable fighters than he was used to facing. Farr even manages to wobble Louis' legs a couple of times, but of course he wasn't the first or last to do that to Joe.

But, though its true that Louis put him through a "meat grinder" in the sense that he cut up Farr's face, that says nothing of the fact that it was indeed a fairly competitive fight until maybe some of the later rounds. As for the decision, based on what the videos show Louis deserved it, surely. But what david said wasn't entirely correct, we didn't see the complete fight, only select portions of each round. Which means, going by the rationale of many on this forum, that Louis deserves no credit for the win since we cannot say definitively that he deserved the decision since we have not seen the full match. That, after all, is the logic that many seem to use for the first Walcott fight, even though people at the time were almost unanimous that Louis should have lost. If the idea is that Louis might have won the parts of the first Walcott fight that we don't get to see today on film, then maybe, going by that logic, Farr might have won all the parts of the fight that these videos left out. Unlikely, but that seems to be what the logic is.

As for your comment, I've seen Louis fans compare Louis to everyone from Jimmy Young to Henry Cooper, so go roll your eyes at them.

Ezzard wrote:Nice cover. A top HW from Britain. I've never seen his fight with Braddock but many thought he should have got the decision. can anyone confirm?

It's covered, along with his bowl of rice claim I believe, in the 1970s documentary I have of him on DVD. He also states from his Brighton home at the time that he feels he would've beaten Ali had he fought him.

However the documentary is too biased for my liking and makes it apparent to the viewer that Farr almost won the fight.

Farr's jab in that fight cam in from a low angle, was fast and was
very direct. His movement was based almost entirely of the feed
back he was getting from his jab.

Farr was a pretty experienced in shape man. He gave Louis an
awkward fight, but Louis was very much the winner.

Had they rematched it is safe to say that Louis would have
stalked Farr down, cut his angles and landed better counters
instead of playing catcher.

Louis did seem to struggle against guys with a good effective
jab and that could move away and to the side behind it.

I think had Farr and Ali fought peak for peak, Farr would
be slowed up by the better speed of Ali. Both men would have
drilled jabs into one another, Ali's faster and more frequent...its
the combinations of hooks and uppercuts that would take their
toll however.