📅 On This Day 9th January 1942 Joe Louis, stopped Buddy Baer, 250-pound Californian, in the first round in Madison Square Garden for the benefit of the New York Auxiliary of the Navy Relief Society. In the dressing room before the fight, Louis' trainer, Jack Blackburn, who was suffering from arthritis and a weak heart, told Louis that he didn't think he was strong enough to make it up and down the steps to the ring for fifteen rounds. Louis replied, "If you get up those stairs with me, I'll hav