Joe Louis
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"This is the last guy on earth I want to fight." It was feared, particularly among those who had witnessed Marciano's punching power first hand, that Louis's unwillingness to quit would result in serious injury. Fighting back tears, Ferdie Pacheco said in the SportsCentury documentary about his bout with Marciano, "He [Louis] wasn't just going to lose. He was going to take a vicious, savage beating. Before the eyes of the nation, Joe Louis, an American hero if ever there was one, was going to get beaten up." Louis was dropped in the eighth round by a Marciano left, and knocked out of the ring less than thirty seconds later.
For income, Louis even became a professional wrestler in the 1950s and 60s, and again as late as 1972.
Personal -- Louis had two children by wife Marva Trotter (daughter Jacqueline in 1943 and son Joseph Louis Barrow, Jr. in 1947) and adopted three others. They divorced in March 1945 only to remarry a year later, but were again divorced in February 1949. Marva moved on to acting and modeling career. On Christmas Day 1955, Louis married Rose Morgan, a successful Harlem businesswoman; their marriage was annulled in 1958. Louis's final marriage – to Martha Jefferson, a lawyer from Los Angeles, on St. Patrick's Day 1959 – lasted until his death. They had a child and also named him Joe, Jr. The younger Joe Louis Barrow, Jr. lives in New York city and is involved in boxing.
Unfortunately, drugs took a toll on the once indomitable (not able to be beaten) champion in his final years. In 1969, he was hospitalized after collapsing on a New York City street. While the incident was at first credited to "physical breakdown," Louis later admitted to cocaine use and fears of a plot against his life. The following year, Louis spent five months in the hospital suffering from paranoid delusions (irrational anxiety and fear toward others). Strokes and heart ailments caused his condition to worsen. He had surgery to correct an aortic aneurysm (abnormal widening of a blood vessel) in 1977 and was thereafter confined to a wheelchair.
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Despite failing health, Louis still found time to attend major boxing events. On April 12, 1981, he sat ringside at the Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick heavyweight championship bout at Caesar's Palace. Hours after the fight, Louis went into cardiac arrest and died at the age of sixty-six.