A new champion. June 22, 1937
Joe Louis knocks out heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, known as “The Cinderella Man,” in the eighth round of the heavyweight championship at Comiskey Park. Braddock knocked Louis down in the first round of the fight, but the 23-year-old Louis battled back. “It seems like a dream and I pinch myself to realize that I’m now heavyweight champion of the world,” Louis wrote in the Daily Times the next morning. Louis held the heavyweight championship until he retired for the first time in 1949.