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:for the dessert cake, see Jos. Louis

{| border="1" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2"
width="245" style="margin-left:3px" align="right"
!align="center" bgcolor="salmon" colspan="3"|Joe
Louis
|-
|align="center" colspan="3"|
|-
!align="center" bgcolor="salmon"
colspan="3"|Career Snapshot
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Born
|colspan="2" valign="top"| May 14, 1914 
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Died
|colspan="2" valign="top"| April 12, 1981
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Total Fights
|colspan="2" valign="top"| 71 
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Won
|colspan="2" valign="top"| 68

|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Lost
|colspan="2" valign="top"| 3
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Drew
|colspan="2" valign="top"| 0
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Knockouts
|colspan="2" valign="top"| 54
|-
!align="left" valign="top"|Titles Won
|colspan="2" valign="top"|Heavyweight
|}


Joseph Louis Barrow (1914-1981), better known in
the boxing world as Joe Louis and nicknamed The
Brown Bomber, was a native of Lexington, Alabama
who became World Heavyweight Champion.

==Early life and career==

The son of a cotton picker and a homemaker, Louis
became interested in boxing after the Barrows
moved to Detroit in 1924. He went on to win
Michigan's Golden Gloves title, after which he
turned professional in 1934. Louis made his debut
on July 4 of that year, knocking out Jack Kracken
in the first round at Chicago, Illinois that
night. He won 12 fights that year, all in Chicago,
10 by knockout. Among his opponents in 1934 was
Art Sykes, a top contender.

==Ascendency==

In 1935, he boxed 13 more times, and started
touring the United States and Canada. He won each
of his fights, and he began to face better
opposition, beating former world Heavyweight
champions Primo Carnera and Max Baer, and former
Carnera world title challenger Paolino Uzcudun.
His last four bouts that year were exhibitions in
Canada, as one fight versus Isodoro Castagana,
supposed to take place December 29 at Havana,
Cuba, was suspended.

He began 1936 knocking out Charlie Retzlaff in the
first round. In his next fight, however, he was
matched with former world Heavyweight champion Max
Schmeling, who was thought to be fading when he
upset Louis by a knockout in 12 at New York. The
Germany|German had studied Louis and found a gap
in his coverage, which enabled him to hit Louis
hard in the early rounds, which led to a KO in
round 12. Louis and his supporters were
devastated. 

Schmeling now deserved a fight for the title, but
was denied a chance to challenge the world
champion.

That year Louis had four more bouts, winning all
of them, and three exhibitions. Among the
boxing|boxers he defeated were former Heavyweight
champ Jack Sharkey and Eddie Simms, who turned to
the referee and asked the referee to take a walk
on the roof with him after Louis hit him with a
punch, the referee stopping the fight right away.

1937 came by, and after a ten round decision win
over Bob Pastor, Louis was matched with world
champion James J. Braddock in Chicago for the
World Heavyweight title. Louis was dropped in
round one, but he got up and became the world
champion by knocking Braddock out in round eight.
He said after the fight, however, that he would
not feel like a world champion until he beat one
man: Schmeling. Louis retained the title three
times, outpointing the capable
List_of_Welsh_people|Welshman Tommy Farr and
knocking out Nathan Mann in three and Harry Thomas
in five. 

The rematch with Schmeling finally took place, on
June 22, 1938. This time the fight was hype on
both sides of the Atlantic, and many fans around
the world saw this fight as a symbol: Louis
representing the American interests and Schmeling,
who was wrongly seen as a Nazi, fighting for
Germany and white supremacy.

The fight itself ended quickly. With his superior
speed, Louis retained his title by a knockout in
the first round, avenging his only loss up until
that time and achieving something not too many
African-Americans of the era imagined anyone could
do: becoming a national hero both for the white
and the black population. Louis was black, so when
he won the title, he had become an example to his
fellow black Americans. But by beating a German
boxer, Louis won over whites too, something very
hard to do during the 1930s and 1940s in the
United States.

==During World War II==


In between serving in the United States Army
during the WW II|Second World War, Louis kept on
defending his title, totalling 25 defenses from
'37 to 1949. He was a world champion for 11 years
and 10 months, after which he left his crown
vacant. He set records for any division in number
of defenses and longetivity as world champion non
stop, and both records still stand. Apart from
Schmeling, Farr, Mann and Thomas, other notable
title defenses during that period were:

*his fight versus world Light Heavyweight champion
John Henry Lewis, knocked out in the first. 
*his fight with Two Ton Tony Galento, who upset
the boxing world by knocking Louis down in round
one, but Louis got up and knocked Galento out in
the fourth. 
*his two fights with Chilean Arturo Godoy, who
almost did something no other boxer from Chile has
ever done and no Hispanic had done before: Become
world Heavyweight champion in their first bout,
which Louis won by a close decision, and when
Louis won the rematch by a knockout in the eight
round, a riot broke loose at the Madison Square
Garden.
*his two fights with world Light Heavyweight
champion Billy Conn, the first of which is
remembered as one of the greatest fights in
heavywieght history.  Conn was much smaller than
Louis but also much faster, prompting Louis to
say, "He can run, but he can't hide."  For 12
rounds it appeared that Conn would prove Louis
wrong; his agile footwork, blinding hand speed and
ability to slip punches stymied Louis, and Conn
was so far ahead on points that only a knockout
could save Louis.  Near the end of round 12,
though, Conn visibly hurt Louis, so he decided to
go for a knockout in the 13th.  His decision to go
toe-to-toe with Louis turned out to be his
downfall, as the champion KO'd Conn with a vicious
barrage.  In the rematch, Louis won by a knockout
in the eighth round.
*his two fights versus future world Heavyweight
champion Jersey Joe Walcott, who would drop Louis
in round four of their first bout and lose a close
decision, then get knocked out by Louis in the
rematch in 11 rounds.


Louis joined the Army from 1942 to 1945 and spent
that whole period travelling around Europe
visiting with the fighting troops and boxing in
exhibitions. During this time, he became a
national spokesman for the Army, inviting young
men to join in and help their country in the war.
He even acted in a couple of movies, produced by
the Army to entice men to go to the war. After he
came back to keep defending his title in 1946,
Louis looked somewhat slower in his fights, and
his best years seemed to have gone. He still
managed to fend off every challenger until he
retired for the first time, after the second
Walcott bout. On March 1, 1949 Louis announced his
retirement from boxing.

==1950's==

In 1950, burdened by I.R.S. debt, he announced a
comeback and was promptly given a chance to
recover his title, but he lost a 15 round
unanimous decision to world champion Ezzard
Charles, who had won the title after Louis left it
vacant. He kept boxing, and in his next fight he
beat fringe contender Cesar Brion by a decision in
10. Seven more wins followed, including a rematch
with Brion and a decision over fellow hall of
famer Jimmy Bivins. In 1951, however, he would box
what would be his final fight: In front of a
national television audience, Louis lost by a
knockout in eight rounds to the future world
Heavyweight Champion, Rocky Marciano. Louis did
not embarrass himself that night, but it was
obvious his best years had gone by. He retired
with a record of 68 wins and 3 losses, with 54
wins by a knockout.

Louis became a professional wrestler in 1956 but
quit in 1957 due to injuries suffered during a
match.

Louis faced a drug problem, a fact not too many
people knew about but which was made public by a
boxing book published by Ring Magazine, just as in
Sugar Ray Robinson's case. But later on in life,
he was able to kick his drug habit.

==Retirement and later life==

A few years after his retirement, a movie about
his life, The Joe Louis Story, was filmed in
Hollywood. Louis remained a popular celebrity
until his twilight years, when he began suffering
various illnesses (Pugilistic Parkinson's
syndrome) and ran out of money. It was in the late
1960s that Louis also became addicted to cocaine.
He began suffering from paranoia and delusions.
His wife was forced to have him committed to a
Denver mental hospital in 1970. Louis was
eventually able to overcome his addiction. In his
later years, he got a job welcoming tourists to
the Caesar's Palace hotel in Las Vegas, where many
world boxing champions and legends from other
walks of life, including old rival Max Schmeling,
would visit him.  In fact, they became close
personal friends over the years, and the
compassionate Schmeling would often send him
money.  They remained friends until his death,
when Schmeling paid for the funeral and was one of
the pallbearers. Louis also became close friends
with Billy Conn. After Louis's death, Conn wrote
an article in Reader's Digest magazine called
"Unforgettable Joe Louis". He recalled their
classic fight and how close he came to defeating
Louis. He ended the article with the words, "I was
proud to have fought him and prouder still to have
been his friend". Max Schmeling was especially
heartbroken by Louis's death until his own in
2005. Someone once asked Max on his 90th birthday
if he had any regrets. "I only have one" he
replied "I regret Joe isn't still alive and we
were still friends".  

Joe Louis died of a heart attack in 1981. He was
buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington,
Virginia. His life and his achievements prompted
famed New York sportswriter Jimmy Cannon to write,
"Joe Louis is a credit to his race - the human
race."

He has a sports complex named after him in
Detroit, the Joe Louis Arena, where the Detroit
Red Wings play their National Hockey League|NHL
games. There is also a large statue of his fist in
Detroit as a memorial to the power of his punch
both inside and outside the ring. On March 25,
2004, two men, Brett Cashman and John T. White,
pleaded guilty on charges of defacing the Joe
Louis monument. They had allegedly covered it with
white paint on February 23 of that year.

Louis was named by Ring Magazine's as boxing's
number one puncher in history in 2003.  He was
also named as the magazine's Ring Magazine
fighters of the year|fighter of the year on four
occasions, bettered only by Muhammad Ali's five
awards.

Louis is a member of the International Boxing Hall
Of Fame, and will always remain there as one of
the best.

A memorial to Louis was dedicated in Detroit (at
Jefferson Avenue & Woodward) on October 16, 1986.
The sculpture, commissioned by Time Warner|Time,
Inc. and executed by Robert Graham
(sculptor)|Robert Graham, is a 24-foot long arm
with a fisted hand suspended by a 24-foot high
pyramidal framework.  

start box
succession box |
  before= James J. Braddock |
  title= List of heavyweight boxing
champions|Heavyweight boxing champion |
  years= 1937–1949 |
  after= Ezzard Charles

end box