Sunday Punch

If it was really Joe Louis' last fight, it was fought like a summary of his ring career. He knocked out Lou Nova with a murderous right, in the sixth round, before 60,000 chilly and disappointed people in New York City's Polo Grounds. They had come, if not to see Joe licked, at least to see a fight between equals. But like 46 men before him, Nova was just a tackling dummy at the finish.

Billy Conn had outboxed the champ for 12 rounds last spring. Nova spent three years in college (at California College of Agriculture) and was serious-minded in a way that reminded some people of Arch-Boxer Gene Tunney. This slender analogy had forced the odds on Louis down to 13 to 5 last week. Nova's studies in yoga also made him something of an unknown quantity, since fight fans do not know how seriously to take yoga, or how seriously Lou took it himself.

The big question was not whether yoga had improved Nova's stance, balance and clumsy footwork. It was whether age (27) and constant fighting (six times this year) had slowed up the magnificent fighting machine that was Louis.

There was no telling until the end. For four rounds, challenger and champion alike exhibited nothing more than what Radio Announcer Don Dunphy kept calling "a healthy respect for each other." Joe crept forward, his snake's tongue left flickering its cruel, aimless explorations; Lou marched backward, bobbing extravagantly 'and waving his arms. More from boredom than conviction, the press crew gave Nova the second and third rounds. In the fourth Louis found an opening, hit Nova all over with ten lefts and rights. The crowd's screams were cut short by the bell. Two rounds later, they were stamping and clapping from boredom again.

Then it happened. During an exchange of wild rights, Joe took aim with his Sunday punch. Said Lou later, "I forgot to duck." He staggered up at the count of nine, was belted mercilessly along the ropes for a few seconds until Referee Arthur Donovan stopped the fight, one second before the bell.

Then everybody remembered that Joe Louis never had been much of a boxer. His way was always just to shuffle forward, with a snake's tongue in one hand and a locomotive in the other, until the track was clear. Said Nova, "I was never hit that hard before." It is probably the greatest right hand in ring history.

The fight earned Louis and his owners 42 1/2% of the gate, or about $240,000, bringing his total ring earnings to date to nearly $2,500,000. He expects to be drafted later this month. Nova's take was 17 1/2%, about $100,000. He is married to the daughter of a professor of botany, likes to mix his own health drink of carrot and beef juices, hopes some day to own a health resort.

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