JUNE 13, 1935 -- JUNE 22, 1937

JAMES J. Braddock, the “Cinderella Man" of the Depression years, was born on June 7, 1906, and grew up in northern New Jersey. He moved from the amateur ranks into professional boxing in 1926, scoring 11 knockouts that first year, 8 in the first round. The following year he was also undefeated, winning 13 contests. In 1928 Braddock decisioned former welterweight champion Pete Latzo in Newark and on November 30 knocked out Tuffy Griffiths in 2 rounds at Madison Square Garden. Then, in 1929, Jim lost to Leo Lomski, knocked out former light-heavyweight champion Jimmy Slattery in 9 rounds, and stopped George Gemas and Eddie Benson both in I round.

On July 18,1929, Braddock fought Tommy Loughran for the world light-heavyweight championship, losing in his bid for the title via a 15-round decision in New York. Then he lost a decision to future light-heavyweight titleholder Maxie Rosenbloom. Over the next four years Braddock became just a mediocre fighter. He defeated Jack Roper, and men such as Phil Mercurio and Joe Monte, but lost to Lomski, Emie Schaaf, Charley Retzlaff, future light-heavyweight king John Henry Lewis, and Al Ettore, and was KO'd by Lou Scozza. Overall, between 1930 and 1933, Braddock lost 16 times while winning only 10 fights. Unable to support his family in these Depression years through boxing alone, Jim worked on the docks and also received welfare assistance.

On June 14, 1934, the new Jim Braddock emerged. Boxing the semifinal to the Primo Carnera--Max Baer heavyweight championship fight, Jim scored a stunning upset by knocking out highly regarded contender Corn Griffin in 3 rounds at New York. In his next bout five months later he defeated John Henry Lewis. In March 1935 he defeated Art Lasky in a 15-round heavyweight elimination contest. Braddock then gained a crack at the world heavyweight championship in a bout with titleholder Max Baer on June 13, 1935, at Long Island City, New York. Braddock was considered a pushover for the dynamite-punching Baer, and the odds were 10 to 1 against Jim. But Braddock pulled one of the most startling upsets in boxing history when he out punched Max to win the heavyweight championship on a 15-round decision.

Braddock did not box again for two years, keeping the title on ice. Then he defended the crown against Joe Louis on June 22, I937, in Chicago. Early in the contest he knocked Louis down, but Joe came off the canvas to defeat Braddock by a knockout in 8 rounds. Having lost the title, Jim fought just one more time, out pointing top contender Tommy Farr of Wales on January 2I, I938. He retired after 85 fights. He scored 51 victories, 26 by KO, was involved in 3 draws, 2 no contests, and 7 no decisions and lost 22 times, twice by knockout.

Since leaving the ring, Braddock was in the marine equipment army surplus business, and since the late 1950's was with the Operating Engineers Union, running generators and welding equipment.

For ten years following his defeat by Louis, Braddock received 10 percent of all Mike Jacobs' promotions in which Louis fought due to an agreement made when Braddock agreed to defend his title against Louis. This provided a substantial income for Braddock following his retirement. The Braddocks lived in the same home they bought when Jim was champion in 1937 - in North Bergen, New Jersey, just across the river from Manhattan. They had three children- Jay, Howard, and Rose Marie - and assorted grandchildren. This interview was recorded at their home in North Bergen on September 9, 1972. He died there on November 29, 1974.

In His Own Words:

I had quite a few amateur fights, over a hundred, I was the New Jersey state light heavyweight and heavyweight champion in them days in the amateurs. Then, of course, I drifted into professional fighting and got a break in the Garden a couple of times, I knocked a couple of guys out and I was more or less of a headliner in two years' time. Once I got into the Garden, then the crowds used to come over from Jersey to watch me. I was a pretty good puncher. They rated me as a boxer-puncher, not as a knockout puncher. When I first got in there in the first 4-round bout, I knocked out a fellow by the name of George LaRocco and he was a pretty good attraction. Then, as I come on, a couple of fights later in the Garden, it was a fellow from out in the West by the name of Tuffy Griffiths, who was licking all the light heavyweights. They brought him in and matched him with me and I knocked him out in 2 rounds, so that was another boost.

I was a light heavyweight. In them days I80 pounds, I stood 6'2". Guys like Slattery, Lomski, and them guys I could handle a little better because they didn't weigh so much. I used to have to fight them guys weighing 210, 220, and I only weighed 180 pounds. I was looking to put that extra 10 pounds on, which I never could attain.

After three years to fight for the [light-heavyweight] championship was a hell of an honor, as far as I was concerned. Tommy Loughran was a good boxer. I was more or less of a boxer-puncher, see. I figured I had to try to fight Tommy, not box him, because, as far as boxing goes, I would have been outclassed, and he beat me in 15 rounds easy with his boxing ability. He was a guy you could never hit with a good solid punch.

Then after that I did put a little weight on. I couldn't make the light-heavyweight limit again so I went on with the heavyweights. Things were a little rough for a year or two. Damon Runyon was the guy that give me the name "The Cinderella Man." That's on account of in '32 and '33 and part of '34 I was more or less forgotten in boxing. Then I made the comeback and knocked out John Henry Lewis. I was on welfare. That was in '32, '33. I didn't fight that much and I was working on the docks. I had three kids and a wife I had to support. The family was growing up and I was making enough money to support them, the food on the table, and have a home, but things were a little rough. I guess with everybody at that time you'd find spots where you need a little cash that you didn't have. That was in the town right here. They paid me. I returned it; let them give it to somebody else because they were good enough to give it to me. [I was in] a spot where I could pay it back. He picked up the story, Damon Runyon, the way things were and then I come back to win the heavyweight title. I was a pauper and then I was a prince, so he gave me the name of "The Cinderella Man" of boxing.

It was one of them things that happens in life to people. You're not always in the right spot at the right time, and that happened to me. I was licked quite a few times. I lost about 21 fights all together out of 80-some-odd. That's boxing. You get the breaks and you don't get the breaks. If you get the breaks you're in there, you're up on the top, but if you don't you're on the bottom. I was more or less always the underdog. It didn't make no difference to me. Corn Griffin, that was in ‘34, I knocked him out on the Baer- Carnera card when Baer won the title. He had me on the deck. He hit me with a right hand behind the ear. He was a left hooker and I always had a lot of success with left hookers. I had a fast right hand and coming in with a left hook you meet a guy with a right hand and if you hit him in the right spot, which I done to him, I hit him right on the chin and that was it. He was boxing with Carnera in the camp and, according to the reporters, he was licking Carnera every day they boxed. He was rated a pretty good fighter at that time. Not only that fight, but in the next one, knocking out a guy that had previously outpointed me, John Henry Lewis, and then coming on in March the next year to beat Art Lasky, who was the number one contender, that pushed me right into the position of being the number one contender for Max's title. Steve Hamas and Art Lasky, they were the two leading contenders, and they fought and Lasky outpointed Steve. Steve then went to Germany to box Max Schmeling, who he had previously licked, and Steve was knocked out by Schmeling in Germany. So they matched Lasky and I. There was no talk about a heavyweight championship fight because they figured Lasky'd lick me. When I beat him in 15 rounds I hit him with everything. I mean, wherever his kisser was, I had a punch there, a left hook, a right cross, it was just one of them nights. It was one of my good fights. I beat Art in 15 rounds in Madison Square Garden, which was in April of'34. Then in June when I boxed Max Baer for the title, which was three months later, I started to put some weight on, about 10 pounds, which I needed, and I had no trouble beating Baer.

They gave me the shot at the title and then I went on to box Baer and beat him. They might have been figuring that I was a tune-up for a Louis fight. The idea was when you got in there to fight, when the bell rings you're in there to win, and if your ability matches the other guy's and it's a little better than his, then you win the fight. If it doesn't, it's to his advantage. That's the way I always looked at it. Any time I was to fight anybody, he didn't mean one thing to me, I mean about being scared of somebody. It was all an even thing in that respect. I thought I could lick Baer. I thought I can outpoint him. They never gave me the advantage that I had a chance. But my punching ability had a lot to do with it, too. I could punch pretty good. He was just another opponent and I was in there to fight him. I know what I got and I'm going to use it. If it's good enough to lick him, that's it. I knew from the start that I could lick him. I seen Tommy Loughran lick him in the Garden, see, and I boxed Tommy and I knew what kind of a boxer he was and I said to myself, this was ’29 or ‘30, this was five years before I boxed him, I said to myself if I ever fought Baer I'd do the same thing Loughran done with him, the left hand and move, which I done the night of the fight. That was on my mind all the time. I hit him with a couple of good right hands of my own. Oh, yeah, he landed. Dynamite puncher. If he hit you right, he'd knock you out in the third row. In my opinion, the guy was a harder puncher than Louis. Louis was a faster puncher and he hit you more punches, but Baer was a guy that could hurt you. He hit me a couple of times and I said, "Is that as hard as you can punch?" So that took a little bit out of him. I said to him, around the eighth round I said, "Hey, Max, you better get going. You're way behind." I kept sticking him.

You see, Max, he was a nice fellow but he never should have been a fighter. His ability was, if the guy could have got mad, you know, like guys get in a fight, he'd kill you with a punch, because he had killed a couple of guys," and I think that was on his mind. But I always said that Max should have been an actor instead of a fighter.

Right from the eighth or ninth round I knew it, because he wasn't getting any better and I was doing a little better. I was reaching him with more jabs. I remember it was tougher getting back to the dressing room that night than it ever was before. They were pulling my hair, they were reaching over, I had bodyguards taking me through, they were reaching over just to touch me, to let you know they were there. It was a great night, and we got a lot of nice accolades from different people around the country.

Schmeling had knocked out Louis and he wasn't considered a contender and then in 1936 I was supposed to box Schmeling. You see, what it was, the Jews in New York, who were great fight fans, was against Schmeling on account of Hitler. They weren't going to support the fight and I had a lot of Jewish fans, coincidentally my manager was a Jew, Joe Gould. That never came off. Schmeling being barred by the Jews, he was out, and Louis wasn't in the position yet to be a contender because Schmeling had knocked him out.

I made the best shot with Louis when I defended the title. The Baer fight wasn't so good. The Baer fight I got about fifty thousand for my end but on the Louis fight I must have got a hundred and fifty for my end. When you get up in that bracket the tax is very high and everything is very high, and if you don't know your manager he'll add a little on, too. But here's what happened. Mike Jacobs, who had control of Joe Louis wanted a heavyweight championship fight for Joe. Now, my manager, who was pretty cute, too, said, "If you want the fight for Louis, we got to get 10 percent of all the heavyweight championship fights for the next ten years." This was in ‘37, that would have went to '47. And he said OK, so he signed the agreement and that's how Louis got the fight with me in Chicago. I got 10 percent of the promotions involving any championship because once Louis won the fight, Mike Jacobs, who controlled Louis, controlled the heavyweight division, and he had control of that title. But, if Louis got knocked out, we didn't make it with Louis, we made it with the promotions the next ten years regardless of who was the champion. As long as Jacobs promoted that fight we were in for 10 percent, like an annuity. We might have got one hundred fifty thousand out of it over the ten years, which wasn't a bad annuity.

As I said before, an opponent was an opponent. I figured I could lick him as well as I could lick the guys I'd licked before but things were a little different in them days. I was getting a little older. After the Baer fight, I started to develop arthritis in the left side. In fact, I had a doctor taking care of my arm so I could lift it. The morning of the fight in Chicago he gave me a shot in the arm so I could lift it. I knew I needed a left hand with Louis. Evidently, the stuff he shot in my arm didn't last long because I wasn't doing much with my left hand. I couldn't hold it up, no strength in it. I had Joe on the deck in the first round. He feinted me and I didn't go for it and I came right back and he went for it and he come to me but he was way down low and I had to uppercut him and I hit him and he went down. But if he was standing up and I hit him straight it might have been a different story. And the next punch I missed his chin by that much and hit him on the chest, you could hear the thunder of that punch off his chest all over the joint. If I hit him with that one, that might have been it. I figured if I could hit him a good punch in th chin, because Joe was always in trouble with punches around the face. But he was smart enough to keep covered up.

For 4 rounds it was all right but then he started to come on and he went to work on me. In the 4 rounds from the fourth to the eighth round, I got hit with more punches that night than I got hit with in the other 87 fights I had. Because I never got hit much, I never got cut up. But I got twenty-three stitches in my face. The punch he knocked me out with, he hit me with a left hook in the stomach, this was in the eighth round, and a right hand in the mouth, and I had, naturally, the mouthpiece in. He drove the tooth through the mouthpiece and right through the lip. You see what power that guy had. When he knocked me down, I could have stayed there for three weeks.

After a couple of rounds I knew I was in there with a great fighter, and this is going to be a tough fight. Still, you're looking to nail him. That's the idea of fighting, is to nail the other guy and don't let him nail you. So that's the way the fight was and I'm glad I had the opportunity to fight the guy because, as it come out, he's been one of the greatest fighters in history. Even though I lost, the fans out there enjoyed it. It was action for 8 rounds.

Here's the situation as far as that goes, having the championship and then losing it. You always got to figure you’re not the best man in the world, there might be somebody better. That's the way it was. That's the way boxing is. The champion don't always stand up. There's always somebody coming up to take him. That's a part of life.

[I boxed Tommy Farr.] He give Joe a tough fight. The last 3 rounds I started to dance and he never got near me so they gave me the duke. But I found out that I couldn't back up no more. I could go ahead all right but I couldn't back up, and you got to know how to back up when you're in there boxing. I was thirty-two, thirty-three at that time. I could have got hurt. I looked at my manager and my trainer when we got back in the dressing room. They knew what I was thinking. I said, "That's it." That's what I figured. What the hell, I could be in there making a good payday but I could get hit a couple of punches which would bother my legs, I'd be a cripple. I come out after thirteen years, I was all right, so I figured get out of it while it's good. You got to like it to be in there. That’s one business you got to like if you're going to be in it.