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It was the summer of 1935 and the stage was set for boxing’s next million-dollar gate. Joe Louis, the promising young knockout puncher from Detroit, had made a name for himself with 23 straight victories and 18 knockouts in just a year‘s campaigning in the ring since winning the Golden Gloves championship. Max Baer, the impressively proportioned heavyweight titleholder from California, had made his 18th win in a row his most convincing, an 11th-round demolition of Italian behemoth Primo Carnera in June of 1934 to lay claim to sport’s richest crown. [details]