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Ring of Hate: Joe Louis Vs. Max Schmeling: The Fight of the Century ReviewAuthor, Patrick Myler, a great boxing historian, found himself a great subject: the second Joe Louis - Max Schmeling fight in 1938. Has there ever been a sporting event filled with such natural potential for drama? Max Scheming, the glowering "Black Ulan from the Rhine" promoted by non other that Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels as the shinning example of racially pure German manhood, vs. Joe Louis, the poor black, sharecroppers son from Alabama. Add to this mix the fact the Schmeling had completely dominated Louis in a previous meeting, handing the Brown Bomber his only defeat on his seemingly unstoppable march to the heavyweight championship.And what a fight it was. There has probably never been such fine destruction machine as was Joe Louis that night. Not even Iron Mike at his best could rival the ruthless savaging that Louis turned loose on the German. Watching a film of it this many years later, it still captures the viewer in a kind of primal terror. It looks for all the world like someone literally being beaten to death. The lack of sound only increases the horror, watching Schmeling screaming silently as Louis delivers body blows. By the end of the fight, Louis had literally broken his back as well as his spirit: Schmeling suffered three fractured vertebra.
The problem I have with the book is that Myler doesn't harness the natural drama of the event. The focus and pace of the book is all wrong, with the fight itself occupying a single chapter in the middle, with the bulk of the book describing the contrasting careers of the two fighters. The author, in fact, seems determined to tell his story without flare. In quoting the great sports writers of the day, like Grantland Rice and Henry Mclemore, Myler hopes to give us an example of the overheated prose of the day. "What such sensitive souls seemed to forget, or chose to ignore, was that Louis was simply doing a job, and doing it to the best of his ability," sniffs the author.
Louis just "doing a job"? Nonsense. Louis often said himself that by the time he climbed into the ring, he hated the German. Further, Louis admitted that Schmeling was the only man he had consciously wished to hurt during a fight. Louis was doing something much more than simply delivering a professional job of boxing. Watch the film of the fight if you ever get the chance. Joe wasn't simply trying to win a boxing contest. He was trying to punish the German as brutally as possible.
What Myler has forgotten in this book is something men like Grantland Rice lived by: readers love drama. Ironically enough, the passages from the old sports writing greats, while included dismissively, are the most passionate and exciting in the book.
So why give it four stars? Because Myler is an extremely worthwhile boxing historian, and he manages to give a very interesting portrait of the two combatants. By books end, Max Schmeling emerges as a man of great integrity and class. He risked much in Nazi Germany, using his status as national sports hero to save many Jewish friends from the death camps, even hiding two Jewish friends in his house during Kristallnacht. When pressed by Goebbels to fire his Jewish manager, Joe Jacobs, he flatly refused.
I learned much about Joe Louis as well. Myler describes all of Louis' well-known flaws: the womanizing, the utter failings as husband and father, the drug addiction, all told without flinching. Yet Myler manages to convey the thing about Joe Louis that was touching as well. He was always flatly honest, whether giving an opponent in the ring credit or admitting his own failings as a father, husband, and ultimately a man.
By the end of their lives, the two former foes were close friends. Schmeling always sent Louis money over the years, through all of Joe's business and tax troubles, and in fact seemed to genuinely love the man who had once broken his back in the ring. Myler missed the mark on the drama of the fight, but the lives of the two fighters he does up very nicely. -Mykal BantaRing of Hate: Joe Louis Vs. Max Schmeling: The Fight of the Century Overview
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