The Cinderella Man

The Cinderella Man

Jimmy had been a contender. Now he was a club fighter, slugging it out for a few bucks and beers. When he broke his right hand, he was forced to quit the ring. After he lost his job as a day laborer, he had to take handouts to feed his family. The former heavyweight contender was now a welfare recipient.

Yet through a series of events that could only have been dreamed up by a Hollywood scriptwriter, Jimmy found himself in a Long Island stadium fighting Max Baer, the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. Baer took sadistic delight in knocking his opponents senseless. Two fights earlier, he had beaten a challenger to death in the ring. In his last fight, he had battered another into permanent brain damage. Baer’s managers had booked the fight with Jimmy thinking that the washed-up bum from Hoboken would be an easy walkover.

Jimmy desperately needed the money. He went into that fight as a staggering twenty-to-one underdog. Yet on June 13, 1935, Jim Braddock scored the greatest upset in sports history by beating Max Baer. He has been dubbed the Cinderella Man for his magical feat. When asked how he overcame such overwhelming odds, Braddock replied, “No matter how many times I’m knocked down, I always get up and fight one more round.”

His upset victory gave hope to a nation mired in the Great Depression. In 1935, one out of every three men in America was standing in a soup line. Less than 25 percent of those who did have a job were earning an adequate wage. The suicide rate was at an all-time high. But when Jimmy Braddock got up off the canvas to fight one more round all the way to the world championship, he gave down-and-outers everywhere a shot in the arm.

If you are down on the canvas today, it might help you to discover the story behind Jimmy’s miracle win. Most folks forget that early on Braddock was a perennial contender. But he always lost to the best boxers. He had a powerful right hand, but his left was weak. Top fighters exploited that weakness to beat him. When he broke his right hand, his career was as good as over. He gamely took on lesser fighters, but he repeatedly broke his right hand because it was his only weapon. Finally, severe arthritis set in to that hand, forcing him to use his left when he went to work as a longshoreman. Day by day, that left hand became increasingly stronger.

Max Baer came into that fight without fear of Braddock’s left hand. It turned out to be the cocky champ’s fatal mistake on that magical June night in 1935. Sometimes God takes away good things to give us better things. You may be trying to slug it out with your version of a weak left hand. Like Jimmy you’ve even given up hope that you can ever be a contender again. Don’t give up dreams that once gave you hope. Make Jimmy Braddock’s credo your own:

No matter how many times you’re knocked down, always get up off the canvas and fight one more round.

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness.

2 Timothy 4:7-8, NIV