Joe Rogan - Teddy Atlas on Joe Louis and the Importance of Boxing

And there's a history to boxing though that unfortunately, you know, because I care about the sport, it's been my whole life. Then it's kind of corrupt. Yeah. It's got a reputation as being corrupt. Yeah, and unfortunately, fortunately and unfortunately, like, there's a part, a good part where the history goes back longer farther than any other sport. Any other sport. I mean, it was the first sport in the Olympics. It goes back further. And it was the biggest sport in this country, bigger than baseball at one time. It was that big. I mean, you know, so and now it's, it's not. And it's too bad because, and it's too bad that the kids, that the younger people, they don't have the ability to learn about those fighters, those special fighters that were special. They really were. And they were special for different reasons. Like, like Jackie Robinson was special. We know we don't have to go into why he was special, but nobody knows that Joe Louis, he was quiet and everything. But when he was in the army and there was, you know, segregation and all that crap going on, he, he quietly used his position as heavyweight champ of the world to make sure that when he went to movies and they put him in the front row and he saw that blacks weren't allowed to come in, he said, I'm not going in there unless blacks can come in there. When he went to other sort of events where the same kind of junk was going on, he very quietly but powerfully integrated things and said, no, I'm going to make a change here. You're not going to have me and not have people that look like me, you know, kept out. So he, and there were people I've read about it because I like reading about those things, about history, to see how we could be better and where we've come from. And there were history of black families, you know, poor black families that would, would get hope from just saying, hey, Louis did it. They would tell their kids, hey, Joe, listen, I don't want to hear this. I don't want to hear that you can't do this. Joe Louis did it. And so he was that important. That's the only point I'm making here. He was that freaking important that that history and the history of other fighters like him doesn't have to be black fighters, but that what they fought, what they did, what they overcame, where they came from, who, Benny Leonard, one of the greatest Jewish fighters of all time. It was a time when, and it's still around, unfortunately, there's a lot of antisemitism, but there was a time where, you know, it was tough being a Jew and you're growing up and you get caught a kike. I don't know if I'm pronouncing right. I think it was right. And you get caught all those kinds of, I don't even know what the hell it means. I just know it's a bad name to call a Jew. And you had all that stuff going on. And Jews woman thought of being, they were thought of moving towards banking and they're moving towards things, we're making money. And they were, later on, they started doing that, but they were in the ghettos and they were trying to pull themselves out. And so at that era, during that time, the twenties to thirties, the Jews were some of the best fighters because that was their way of getting out. But there was, there was another significance to being a Jewish fighter that a lot of the kids they weren't thought of as being tough. Because they got picked on and thought of that they're going to go more towards academic and other stuff. So there was a weakness perceived. Not true. None of this stuff is usually- Just perceived because they were smart. Yeah. Yeah. So now all of a sudden, Benny Leonard comes along when the sport's the biggest sport in the country and he's the best freaking fighter in the game. And he combed his hair before he got in the ring and he would come out without it being a nest. And this guy was, I mean, he was Michael Jordan. I mean, before that stuff, before Michael Jordan, before Ed Jordan, before any of the, I mean, this guy was not only tough, he was not only a champion, which obviously connected to being tough by itself, but he was smart. He was cool. He had pizzazz. He was a man. And there were Jewish families. You don't hear about these stories, but there were Jewish families I've read and I've heard from people where say, hey, don't let nobody pick on you. Benny Leonard is the best fighter in the world. Jews are tough. We're not just smart. We're tough. Benny Leonard shows that. So that kind of history, that kind of pulling of people up in many different ways, not just economically out of poverty, but emotionally, mentally, because you can be in poverty mentally. You can be in a low place mentally. It doesn't have to be financially all the time, where you have holes in your shoes and you're wearing shirts that don't fit. No, it can be the way you feel about yourself that is without prosperity, without value. You have no value for yourself as a person. That's the worst poverty in the freaking world. There's nothing lower than that. And Joe Louis and Benny Leonard, they were fighters. They were on baseball players. They pulled people out of those places. They let people know they had value, that their race had value, that people had value. They had value. And that should be known. And you can go anywhere. And I'm glad you can, because I love all sports. You can go anywhere and you can read about the greatness of the baseball players and the greatness of, of course, NFL hasn't been around that long, but the greatness of those players and the greatness of the NBA players. But where did the kids ever get to read and to hear and to see about the greatness of these people, these fighters, nowhere? Very little, very little. It's not there. Why? Because again, I'm not going to get into craziness, but the powers that be the, listen, it's not marketed properly. I get it. It doesn't have a commission. So it doesn't take care of itself the way the UFC, the greatness about why the UFC grew so much as they marketed themselves in a tremendous way. So there's nobody, boxing is just there. It takes care of itself. It exists because it's man against man. So it's always going to be there, but nobody's building it. Nobody's marketing it. No one's feeding the monster to make it bigger. It's a plant that's in the corner of your office that doesn't get sun, doesn't get watered, but it's still there. It's still there. What I'm saying is that, sorry, I didn't want to yell because now people are probably happy, but it should be fed a little bit. It should be watered a little bit. Well you know what I just described, guys like you, guys like you, guys who have a deep appreciation for the history of the sport, guys who have a deep appreciation of what it meant when Joe Louis beat Max Schmeling. Guys who understand what it meant when Sugar Ray Robinson was the best fighter in the world, and everybody knew it and he'd pull up in a fucking pink Cadillac with a beautiful suit on. And he made... He elevated. He elevated people in Harlem, everywhere around the world, but Harlem, he owned here for Harlem. He owned restaurants and stores and barbershops and everything, and you wanted to be there because that's where Sugar Ray Robinson came from. It was great. Yeah. I mean it's a rich part of history that really does get ignored. Let me tell you something about Schmeling. You brought up, you know a lot about obviously this stuff, and that's what... It's nice to talk about, Schmeling was a hell of a fighter. Joe Louis was the brown bomb, he was coming up, he was undefeated, and Schmeling had the great quote before the fight. You know, it's kind of like the Babe Wu thing that really happened where he pointed out and then he hit the... Right. Those are great stories, but what's the real truth behind them? We don't care. We don't care at a certain point. You know why? Because they let us feel good. They let us dream about possibilities, and we should all have possibilities to dream about. And they make somebody feel good because the Babe Wu one was connected to a sick kid, so it's a nice thing. It's where sports can be better than just sports, than just somebody participating in it. It can go beyond that. It can be stronger than that. And that's some of the good stuff about it. And so Schmeling, the great story, he didn't point to the fence, but he said before the fight, I see something. That's my trying to be an accent for the German, you know? But I sound more like Schultz from Hogan's Heroes. I don't know why. Every time you try to do something with certain ethnic pronunciations, you sound like you go to one of those sitcoms. You go to one of those places, you know? And when I say somebody, I think my kid, I think my son said, you know, he had watched one of them, and I think he said, you sound like Sergeant Schultz, like from Hogan's Heroes. And he said, I see something. And what he saw was that Lewis would jab and he would leave. You should never leave your head on the right side because if you leave your head, you know, you move your head to the right side, you're in the path to the right hand. You should actually finish on the left side because then you're outside the right hand. You follow? There's the right hand. Over here, it can hit you. Over here, you're outside it. So he had a habit of, and he had a great trainer, he had a habit though, at that point, of leaving his head over on the right. So Smelling saw something, as he said, that he could hit him with the right hand. He could time it over the jab. Now Smelling was of the ilk, of the level, of the caliber. It wasn't just about talent. He could punch. He was a good fighter, but he was a pro. What do I mean by that? A lot of guys would hesitate a little bit. Same opening. They might see it, but it was the brown bomber who was knocking everyone out. So they hesitated. They were afraid. Normal. A lot of people were afraid of that word. I mean, it's there. I mean, without it, we're not alive. So they might see the same thing, but they want one at a pro level. Pro level is a guy that can do what he has to do, and no emotions interfere with doing it. I mean, that's my simplest way. Webster's might not say that, but that's what I would say. So they might have seen the opening, but they would hesitate just enough, and it'd be gone. The door closed. Because it's like life. It's moments. Capture a moment, lose a moment. But this guy was a pro. He didn't let that come in there and make him hesitate that fear. He controlled it. And if the opening was there, bang! He was going to throw the punch. So he did, and he dropped Lewis a few times, and he won that fight. And what around you stopped him in the first fight? I can't remember. Maybe the ninth, but it was late in the fight. But he had hurt him, and Lewis was taking a beating. So Lewis went on. He won the world title, and he beat Braddock for the title. Cinderella Man. Great movie. Was made about. He came from welfare to being a world champion. That's the Braddock story without getting into it too much. So Lewis beats Braddock, and had to give a percentage. Don King and Aaron might not have been around then, but the people that taught him what to do were around. Taught him how to take advantage of fighters. Taught him what options were before options were ever known. You know, Braddock, I think I forget his name, but Braddock's manager basically made Lewis and his people agree to give him a percentage of his person for the rest of his career to get the fight. What? Really? Yeah. So, I mean, you could obviously research it and look into it. How much would a percentage? Well, I don't know. Listen, I could say 10 percent, but I don't want to say definitively because I'm not positive. But there was an understanding that, you know, you're not getting a fight otherwise. Like, you want to get the fight now? And listen, like I said, you know, not great guys, but King and Aaron, they had other guys before them that taught them some of these moves, you know, that weren't so nice. But there's always a history of good and bad. Sure. Always. Who's good? Well, there's... Well, we'll get to that. I want to know if there's like a shining star promoter out there. I'll try to think about it. But so we... So they go and he wins the title. And of course the biggest sport in the country. So all the press is there and there. Joe is champion. Not yet. Not yet. What do you mean, not yet? Just won the title. Not yet. Not till I beat that man. He didn't even have to say his name. Not till I beat that man. That's how much pride he had. And listen, he's the real deal because in his mind, how can I be champion if a guy knocked me out? So when that fight took place, I mean, you talk about a setting, a stage. Nowadays people say, oh, I'm on the stage. There's a lot of pressure. Hey, I'm not saying it's not. I'm not saying it, but a lot of pressure. A lot of people looking. A lot of people depending on... A lot of stuff going on. And maybe I got a headache. But Joe Louis had World War II on the horizon. The president of the United States called him up and he had Nazi Germany. He had a guy named Hitler that is saying that he's got the master race. It's going to take over the world just starting that stuff, not too far away from World War II. And you got all that stuff permeating in the air. And you got Louis fighting a guy who, of course, you know, propaganda was started by the Germans, if you want. To me, he almost invented that word because you had the propaganda minister and you had all these terrible people with Hitler that were putting out that they're the master race, they're this, they're that. You had the Jesse Owens situation, Olympics. And now you had the biggest sport in the biggest country and the champion of that sport, the heavyweight champ, Joe Louis. And he's fighting the German fighter Schmeling the second time, now for the title. And of course you had Hitler and all his psychofans, all these people that were... Their job was to promote it, so to speak. And they come and they're saying, we will show the world that we're superior and there's no better way to show it than in a ring. And so Louis has to... He's got to carry all this stuff. I mean, think about it. And he's a black guy in a country that he still can't go into certain places. Tea! And he's got to carry the whole... He's got to carry the whole country and not let them down and the president calls him. And again, we don't know if this is a legendary story, we don't know if it's completely true, but supposedly the president called him and said, Joe, you got to win this one for the good guys. That's one of the legends. I don't know if it's true, but I know that I'm sure he called him. I'm sure he called him. And Louis has to go into... He's got to go into Yankee Stadium, outdoors, and in Times Square in New York, they used to have it set up where they would... The radio, because all the fights were on radio back then, and some of them on fights on TV, on Gillette, Calvacado Sports and all that stuff, Friday Night Fights, but was coming along, just coming along. But radio was the thing. And so in Times Square, you had the radios, because outdoors, playing the fight, broadcasting the fight. So people out on the streets, they hear the radio, and they hear Joe Louis is walking into the ring, and you got Yankee Stadium, you got the place full, and you got the whole world of everything I just described. The good, the bad, the evil, the ugly, everything. It's not a movie. It's real life. And you got Joe Louis. And he gets in that ring, and he annihilates with all this pressure that he's got to save the United States and the world from looking like this ugly scourge and disease of the Nazi Party is going to take over the world. It's greater than us. And he single-handedly has to prove that. And he goes in there, and he annihilates the guy in one round, with all that stuff hanging over him. And I think that's the greatest single event in the history of the world. Pull that fight up. Pull that fight up and put it in the background. And I think that that, when you talk about all the things that we're here to talk about, about character, about talent, about perseverance, about resiliency, about caring about more than yourself, about selflessness, about strength. When you talk about all those things that we try to say that we care about and that we sometimes look to be, and very rarely can we be that, he was all that. He was all of that. And- There it is right there. I mean, how great is that? And he stalked the guy. He stalked the guy. And his punches were short and powerful. And he was the greatest finisher in the history of heavyweight boxing, because when he hurt you, you didn't survive. He got rid of you. He put punches together, and they were short. And he was always in position. Look at his legs. He's always in position. You move forward, he takes a little step forward, back to give himself room. The shortness of those punches is absolutely beautiful. If you wanted to teach a young fighter how to punch correctly, Joe Louis, there's no better guy to watch than Joe Louis. No. Did you see, Joe, what he did a minute ago? A little side step? No, a minute ago, Schmeling tried to catch him with that same right hand he had knocked him out two years earlier. Go back. There, he just missed it. But he changed. He stepped out. He changed his distance this time. Because Jackie Blackburn, who's a great fighter, a black fighter, he was a trainee. He was a great trainer. Nobody hears about Jackie Blackburn. What a great fighter he was, and what a great trainer he was, and how he wasn't allowed to fight white fighters. And he beat everybody. Look at that. He kind of left hook. Instead of laying his head on the right like he did the first fight, he changed his range, and he made that right hand miss. Look how calm he is. Look how calm he is. Look how focused he is. It's beautiful to watch. Really? The shortness of those punches is phenomenal. Look at that. And watch his legs, Joe. Watch how he's always in position. Look at that. Look at that right hand. But what did we miss? What didn't you see? The back. The sidestep. No. The blinding jab that sets it up where you don't see it. Watch. The jab is just a decoy. Just so he can hit it with the right so you don't see it. What a beautiful sidestep, too, right after he lands the right hand. Beautiful. Look at that. Well, that's why he's the greatest finisher of all time. Watch the way he finishes this guy. It's going to go to the body, and then the head. Right hand to the body, right hand to the head. Oh. That right hand is so short. And even when he's got the guy hurt. Look at the guy. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. And he did all of that with everything we just talked about for the last 20 minutes hanging over him. Yeah. It's a giant piece of history that people don't talk about. But doesn't that make you think a little bit? Doesn't that make you feel something about? Yes. Really? Yeah. Well, that's one of the reasons why I'm a giant fan of the sport. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, that alone is in terms of historical impact. I agree with you. The biggest moments in all of sports ever. In life. In life.