1938: Boxing

More emphatically than at any other time in the long history of pugilism did the Negro dominate the ring throughout 1938. Joe Louis was world heavyweight champion, appropriately recognized as the ring's monarch. There were also two other Negro champions — Henry Armstrong and John Henry Lewis.

Henry Armstrong was holder of the world welter-weight championship and the world lightweight title as well. He became the first boxer in history ever to hold three championships at the same time, because, when he won the lightweight title after having acquired the welterweight championship, he had also the world featherweight championship, a crown the doughty little Los Angeles Negro annexed from Petey Sarron on Oct. 29, 1937. The weight of his title proved too much for Armstrong. Finding it next to impossible longer to make 126 pounds and fight at his ring best, he surrendered the featherweight crown, but not until after he had established himself as a triple champion.

John Henry Lewis, Arizona Negro, was leader of the world light-heavy-weight class, although his claim was somewhat open to dispute in some quarters. For failing to dispose of challenges hurled at him through the New York State Athletic Commission. Lewis saw his title declared vacated by the Empire State board. The action led to court proceedings in which Lewis was legally testing the authority of the Commission with the year on the wane and the prospect of a chance at Joe Louis heavyweight title confronting him. But, outside of New York. Lewis was recognized as the leader of the 175-pound class, giving the Negro race what might conservatively be described as a strangle hold on four of the eight championships in the professional ring.

If it were possible to determine leadership in boxing on outstanding performance alone. Armstrong would have undisputed right to whatever this distinction amounts to. In boxing, however, as in practically every other sport, things are relative. When the situation is considered objectively the palm must go to Joe Louis.

The heavyweight champion brought back the million-dollar gate. He defended his title three times, something of a record for a year's work for as far back as heavyweight championship history goes. He fought, all told, less than nine full rounds as he bowled over three rivals for his title, the climax coming on June 22, when he knocked out Max Schmeling, the Black Uhlan of the Rhine who formerly held the title, in one round, or exactly 2 minutes 4 seconds of fighting that was primitively savage, spectacularly furious and startlingly decisive. He battered the German so terrifically in the brief round the bout occupied, that Schmeling was removed to the Polyclinic Hospital, where he was confined for ten days with a back injury.

This bout, which established a record for brevity in heavyweight title defense, was fought in the Yankee Stadium, before 70,025 persons, a representative gathering that ran the gamut from Cabinet officer to newsboy. The receipts, including $75,000 accruing to Promoter Michael Strauss Jacobs for motion picture and radio rights, amounted to $1,015,096.

Louis received $349,288 for his work of 2 minutes 4 seconds, Schmeling's balm being a fortune of $174,644. A straight left started Schmeling on the road to defeat. It jarred him to his toes, tossed him against the ropes and then, with tigerish fury, Louis battered his foe to the ring floor three times while a startled crowd rent the air with its cheers.

Leading up to this match. Louis had knocked out Nathan Mann of New Haven, in 1 minute 56 seconds of the third round in a scheduled fifteen-round match in Madison Square Garden on Feb. 23. On April 1, in Chicago's Stadium, the champion bowled over Harry Thomas in 2 minutes 50 seconds of the fifth round.

All told, titles in four divisions changed hands. The succession involved three boxers directly and a fourth, in the middleweight division, indirectly.

On May 31, Armstrong hammered Barney Ross of Chicago through fifteen rounds in New York and won the world welterweight title. Back to the ring on Aug. 17 came Armstrong, to wrest the world lightweight crown from Lou Ambers in fifteen equally torrid rounds in New York. Disregarding a precedent which dictates that a champion ordinarily should rest on his laurels. Armstrong, surrendering his feather-weight title, went forth and, before the year ended, twice defended his welterweight championship within a period of ten days, winning decisions over Ceferino Garcia and Alf Manfredo. The doughty little California Negro thus completed two solid years in which he had been undefeated.

Sixto Escobar, Puerto Rican fighter, was victor in the other title battle in which a championship changed hands. In February he conquered Harry Jeffra of Baltimore, in a bout staged in Puerto Rico, to regain the world bantamweight championship.

The middleweight muddle followed Freddic Steele's loss of the title to Al Hostak. The latter lost the crown to Solly Krieger, who thereupon ignored a legitimate challenge from Fred Apostoli, accounted by many the world's premier middleweight boxer. As a consequence Krieger's title claim was unrecognized by the New York State Athletic Commission, which recognized Apostoli as champion. The Boxing Commission of California. Apostoli's native State, concurred. Krieger was somewhat in disfavor as the year ended, although the National Boxing Association accorded him recognition as 160-pound-class champion.

John Henry Lewis defended his title twice, knocking out Emilio Martinez in four rounds of a bout in St. Paul on April 25, and winning a fifteen-round decision over Al Gainer in New Haven. Oct. 25. However, Tiger Jack Fox, Spokane Negro, was regarded as a more creditably-established challenger than either Martinez or Gainer, and neither of these fights was generally recognized as of real championship standard.

The championships in the featherweight and flyweight divisions were likewise in dispute. When Armstrong surrendered the featherweight crown, the question of undisputed possession rested between Joey Archibald of Providence. R. L. and Leo Rodak of Chicago. The issue was not decided as the year ended. Lack of a leader threw the flyweight class, once one of the most popular ring divisions, into wildest disorder.

The improvement in professional boxing was reflected somewhat in the amateur sport. A record crowd of 22,234 in Chicago were present in May at an international tournament in which Chicago's Golden Glovers repulsed invaders from Finland. Italy, Ireland, Germany and Poland. The Amateur Athletic Union's national title fixture ran through three nights of stirring competition, in which, incidentally, the ascendancy of the Negro boxer was notable. The ten-year monopoly of Syracuse and Penn State in Eastern intercollegiate boxing circles also was shattered in the annual title tournament, when Army's boxing team annexed the team championship.