James J. Braddock - 1905-1974

Birth: December 6, 1905 in New York, United States
Death: November 29, 1974
Occupation: Boxer
Source: Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 9: 1971-1975. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

Braddock, James J. (Dec., 6, 1905 - Nov. 29, 1974), heavyweight boxing champion, was born in a Hell's Kitchen tenement in New York City. When Braddock was less than a year old, his family moved across the Hudson River to West New York, N.J. His father was a security guard, pier watchman, and furniture mover. Braddock grew up in northern New Jersey. He dropped out of school at fourteen to work in a New York City print shop.

Growing up in an era when the best-known Irish Americans were boxing champions, Braddock was inspired to take up prizefighting by the examples of John L. Sullivan, Jack Dempsey, and Mickey Walker. An older brother, Joseph, had nineteen professional fights and encouraged his brother to take up the sport. With his brother as his trainer, Braddock launched his amateur career at seventeen and had more than one hundred amateur fights, winning the New Jersey light-heavyweight and then the heavyweight amateur championships.

After turning professional as a middleweight (160 pounds) in 1926, Braddock went undefeated in his first thirty-eight fights. Braddock, who wore a green robe with a white shamrock as he entered the ring, was about six feet, three inches tall and was quick and tough, a puncher and a boxer. As he got stronger, Braddock moved into the light-heavyweight division (175 pounds) and gained recognition as a title contender. The Ring magazine rated Braddock as the fourteenth-ranked light-heavyweight in the world in 1927, then as the number one challenger in 1928.

Braddock won in a decision over former welterweight champion Pete Latzo in 1928 and knocked out former light-heavyweight champion Jimmy Slattery in 1929. On July 18, 1929, Braddock challenged light-heavyweight champion Tommy Loughran at Yankee Stadium. Loughran easily outpointed Braddock in fifteen rounds. Braddock, frustrated by Loughran's elusive style, was kept off balance by the champion's left jab. After losing to Loughran, Braddock's career went into a tailspin. He lost four of his next five fights, including a ten-round decision to future champion Maxie Rosenbloom. Between 1929 and 1933, Braddock lost more fights than he won and his name disappeared from the world rankings. After breaking his hand in a fight with Abe Feldman on Sept. 25, 1933, Braddock had to produce medical evidence of his injury to get paid for the fight. Braddock, who couldn't afford an operation for his hand, quit boxing.

In 1930, Braddock married Mae Fox; they had three children. To support his family after he quit the ring, Braddock worked as a long-shoreman, bartender, and laborer. When he failed to get work, Braddock went on relief. As his hand healed, Braddock attempted a boxing comeback.

Braddock's manager, Joe Gould, arranged a fight with heavyweight contender Corn Griffin in a preliminary bout to the June 14, 1934, Primo Carnera-Max Baer heavyweight title fight. Braddock outboxed and outpunched the heavily favored Griffin, stunning the crowd and the boxing world with a third-round knockout.

Braddock moved back into the top rankings with successive decisions over contenders John Henry Lewis and Art Lasky. In return, he was awarded a title shot on June 13, 1935, against Max Baer, a ten-to-one favorite. The hardhitting Baer, who viewed the fight as a mismatch, trained very little. The challenger respected Baer's power but thought that the champion could be beaten. Three years earlier, Braddock had watched Loughran outpoint Baer by using the left jab to keep him on the defensive. Braddock followed a similar strategy: "When I boxed Baer, I kept sticking him like Loughran did," he recalled years later.

Braddock, who was in better condition, patiently outboxed Baer to win the heavyweight championship. It was the most astonishing upset in the history of the heavyweight division. Braddock became a Depression folk hero, nicknamed the "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon. He was the prototypical boxing hero in a decade in which Hollywood produced such films as Golden Boy, City for Conquest, and Kid Galahad. W. C. Heinz, the boxing writer, wrote of Braddock: "In no list that you will ever see will he be listed among the ten greatest, but that is as it should be.... He may, however, in the sense that others see themselves in him and read their own struggles into his, have belonged to more people than any other champion who ever lived."

After two years without a fight, Braddock signed to defend his championship against former champion Max Schmeling in June 1937 at Madison Square Garden. Braddock's manager broke the contract with Schmeling in the face of opposition from Jewish organizations because Schmeling was a citizen of Nazi Germany. Instead, Braddock signed to fight Joe Louis, the sport's biggest attraction, in Chicago's Comiskey Park. It was far from certain that Braddock could have defeated Schmeling, who had knocked out Louis in 1936. By fighting Louis, Braddock was guaranteed $500,000 and 10 percent of the net profits from heavyweight title promotions over the next decade if Braddock lost the fight.

On June 22, 1937, the underdog Braddock defended his title against Louis. He knocked Louis down in the first round with a short, right uppercut. Louis took command in the second round, scoring with left-right combinations. In the eighth round, Louis knocked out Braddock. "When he knocked me down, I could have stayed there for three weeks," Braddock told Peter Heller. Braddock said that he had endured more punishment between the fourth and eighth rounds than he ever had in his boxing career. Dan Parker of the New York Daily Mirror wrote of Braddock: "The exhibition of courage the gallant Anglo-Irishman gave before that final bolt of lightning struck him on the side of the jaw awakened admiration and compassion for him in the heart of everyone in that vast crowd." Braddock's reputation was enhanced by the Louis fight.

On Jan. 21, 1938, Braddock finished strongly in the last three rounds to win a decision over heavyweight contender Tommy Farr. At the urging of his wife, Braddock retired with a record of fifty-two victories in eighty-four bouts, including twenty-eight knockouts and twenty-one defeats. He was elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame in 1964.

In the first decade of his retirement, Braddock received $150,000 from promoter Mike Jacobs as his percentage of the net profits from Louis title fights. Braddock served in World War II as a stevedore in the merchant marine. He later opened a marine-army surplus business in New Jersey and was a member of the Operating Engineers Union, running generators and welding equipment. Braddock was among boxing's more popular figures, even in retirement. He died at his home in North Bergen, N.J.
-- Steve Neal

FURTHER READINGS

[Braddock was interviewed at length about his career by Peter Heller, In This Corner...! Forty World Champions Tell Their Stories: The Candid View of the Champion's Corner (1973). He is profiled in John D. McCallum, The World Heavyweight Boxing Championship: A History (1974), and his career is analyzed in Chris Mead, Champion: Joe Louis, Black Hero in White America (1985). An obituary is in the New York Times, Nov. 30, 1974.]

SOURCE CITATION

" James J. Braddock."Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 9: 1971-1975. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1994.