“That’s what gave us the Brown Bomber.”Ī rugged Irish kid who grew up in North Bergen, N.J., Braddock didn’t seem destined for fame. “He broke the color barrier,” boxing promoter Don King says of Braddock. Braddock also managed to gain a controversial bit of financial security in the process. The fight – which was opposed by the boxing commission and had to be cleared by a federal judge – helped integrate boxing, and ended up with Louis becoming heavyweight champion, a title he held longer than any man. A couple of years later, in 1937, Braddock let Joe Louis fight him for the title – the first champion to defend his perch against a black man in 29 years. It’s like “Seabiscuit” on two legs.īut in real life, the tale didn’t end there. The film also dwells on the way Braddock, played by Russell Crowe, gave hope to the downtrodden during the Depression, by working his way back out of the bread lines. It focuses on the title bout with defending champ Max Baer – a fight in which Braddock faced 10-1 odds, the biggest underdog in heavyweight championship history, according to “Cinderella Man,” a biography by ESPN correspondent Jeremy Schaap. The Ron Howard movie, opening this Friday, charts the rise and fall and rise again of James Braddock, a Depression-era boxer who fought his way out of poverty to claim the heavyweight championship of the world.
#Max baer and james braddock full
Rich in anecdote and color, steeped in history, and full of human interest, Cinderellla Man is a classic David and Goliath tale that transcends the sport.PERHAPS the most interesting story about “Cinderella Man” is the one the filmmakers left out. Schaap paints a vivid picture of the fight world in its golden age, populated by men of every class and ethnic background and covered voluminously by writers who elevated sports writing to art.
And when boxing was the biggest sport in the world, when the heavyweight champion was the biggest star in the world, his unlikely upset made Braddock the most popular champion boxing had ever seen.Īgainst the gritty backdrop of the Depression, Cinderella Man brings this dramatic all-American story to life, evoking a time when the sport of boxing resonated with a country trying desperately to get back on its feet. A ten-to-one underdog, Braddock carried the hopes and dreams of the working class on his shoulders. A charismatic, natural talent and in every way Braddock's foil, Baer was a towering opponent, a Jew from the West Coast who was famously brash and made great copy both in and out of the ring. In twelve months Braddock went from the relief rolls to face heavyweight champion Max Baer, the Livermore Butcher Boy, renowned for having allegedly killed two men in the ring. The diminutive, loquacious Jew and the burly, quiet Irishman made one of boxing's oddest couples, but together they staged the greatest comeback in fighting history. Only his manager, Joe Gould, still believed in him, finding fights for Braddock to help feed his wife and children. With one good hand, Braddock was forced to labor on the docks of Hoboken. Braddock, dubbed "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon, was a once promising light heavyweight for whom a string of losses in the ring and a broken right hand happened to coincide with the Great Crash of 1929. Lost in the annals of boxing is the sport's true Cinderella story.
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