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60 free Joe Louis trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Joe Louis trivia quiz covers the heavyweight champion who held the title longer than anyone in boxing history and became the first Black American to be embraced as a national hero. The easy questions are ones any fight fan can attempt: his nickname, his home city, the German he knocked out in 124 seconds in 1938, the man he beat for the title and the man who ended his career. From there it moves through his record: 25 defences, the Bum of the Month Club, the two Conn fights, the Walcott scares, the Farr decision that the crowd booed and the He can run but he can't hide line. The harder end is for boxing historians: his real name and Alabama birthplace, the violin case that hid his gloves, the $59 debut purse, the Seven Commandments his managers wrote, the Carnera fight and Ethiopia, the golf that cost him the first Schmeling bout, FDR's remark about muscles, the wartime charity fights that the IRS taxed, Jackie Robinson's officer application, the pro wrestling, the PGA breakthrough and the friend who paid for his funeral at Arlington. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on Louis and his opponents before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our boxing, heavyweight champions and 1930s sport quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Joe Louis's famous nickname?
The Brown Bomber
White sportswriters tried out several racist coinages before that one stuck.
Q 02What was the champion's full birth name?
Joseph Louis Barrow
Legend says he wrote his first two names so large on an amateur entry form that there was no room for the last.
Q 03In which state was Louis born in 1914?
Alabama
He was the seventh of eight children of sharecroppers in Chambers County, and both his parents were children of former slaves.
Q 04To which city did Louis's family move in 1926, where he grew up and learned to box?
Detroit
They fled the South after being shaken by a gang of Ku Klux Klan men, part of the Great Migration.
Q 05Louis is rumoured to have hidden his boxing gloves from his mother inside what?
A violin case
His mother had wanted him to learn the violin.
Q 06Which car company employed Louis for a time at its River Rouge plant?
Ford
His brother also worked there, and the family lived in the Black Bottom neighbourhood.
Q 07What was Louis's final amateur record?
50-4 with 43 knockouts
He lost his 1932 debut to future Olympian Johnny Miler.
Q 08How much did Louis earn for his professional debut, a first-round knockout of Jack Kracken on 4 July 1934?
$59
He won all 12 of his fights that year, 10 by knockout.
Q 09Who was Louis's trainer, nicknamed Chappie?
Jack Blackburn
He was hired by promoter Julian Black after Louis signed with bookmaker John Roxborough.
Q 10Louis's managers drafted Seven Commandments for his conduct. Which of these was one of them?
Never have his picture taken with a white woman
Others were never to gloat over a fallen opponent, never to engage in fixed fights, and to live and fight clean.
Q 11Whose flamboyant lifestyle as the first Black heavyweight champion cast a shadow that Louis's handlers worked to counter?
Jack Johnson
Biographer Gerald Astor wrote that Louis's early career was stalked by the specter of that champion.
Q 12Which giant Italian former champion, seen as a symbol of Mussolini's regime, did Louis knock out in six rounds in June 1935?
Primo Carnera
African Americans sympathetic to Ethiopia, then facing Italian invasion, saw it as a political victory.
Q 13What did Louis do earlier on the evening he knocked out Max Baer in September 1935?
Married Marva Trotter
Q 21What did President Roosevelt tell Louis at the White House before the Schmeling rematch?
We need muscles like yours to beat Germany
Louis later said the whole damned country was depending on him.
Q 22How long did the Louis-Schmeling rematch of 22 June 1938 last?
Two minutes and four seconds
Schmeling was knocked down three times and threw only two punches before his corner threw in the towel.
Q 23How many punches did Schmeling manage to throw in the entire rematch?
Two
He afterwards claimed the paralysing body blow he took was an illegal kidney punch.
He was reportedly eager to end the fight quickly, and did so in the fourth round.
Q 14Which promoter signed Louis to an exclusive three-year deal in 1935 and later ran his finances into ruin?
Mike Jacobs
Louis's tax returns were always handled by Jacobs's personal accountant.
Q 15In which round did Schmeling knock Louis out at Yankee Stadium on 19 June 1936, Louis's first professional defeat?
The 12th
He had spotted Louis's habit of dropping his left hand after a jab.
Q 16What new hobby distracted Louis from training before the first Schmeling fight?
Golf
Ed Sullivan had sparked his interest by giving an instructional book to Louis's wife.
Q 17Whom did Louis knock out in the eighth round on 22 June 1937 to win the world heavyweight title?
James J. Braddock
The champion, who had floored Louis in round one, was knocked out cold for the only time in his career.
Q 18In which city was the Braddock title fight held, to avoid interference from Madison Square Garden?
Chicago
Braddock's manager extracted 10 percent of promoter Jacobs's profits for ten years to make the fight.
Q 19Which Harlem Renaissance writer recalled marching, cheering, yelling and crying at Louis's victories?
Langston Hughes
He wrote that no one else in the United States had ever had such an effect on Negro emotions.
Q 20Louis's first title defence, against Welsh boxer Tommy Farr, ended how?
A booed 15-round decision
The referee appeared to shake Farr's hand and the crowd thought Farr had won.
Q 24What proportion of radio-equipped US households tuned in to the Louis-Schmeling rematch?
58%
Announcers called it in English, German, Spanish and Portuguese to a crowd of 70,043 at Yankee Stadium.
Q 25What collective nickname was given to the opponents Louis beat in thirteen defences between January 1939 and May 1941?
The Bum of the Month Club
Despite the label, five of the twelve were rated top-ten heavyweights by The Ring in the year they fought him.
Q 26Which two-ton challenger knocked Louis down with a left hook in June 1939 before being stopped in the fourth?
Tony Galento
He was ranked the number two heavyweight in the world that year.
Q 27Which light heavyweight champion was ahead on two scorecards before Louis knocked him out with two seconds left in round 13 in June 1941?
Billy Conn
Louis had deliberately weighed in under 200 pounds so the papers would not say he beat up a little guy.
Q 28Why was the planned 1942 rematch with the light heavyweight champion cancelled?
The challenger broke his hand in a family brawl
The father-in-law was Major League ballplayer Jimmy Greenfield Smith; by the time Conn healed, Pearl Harbor had happened.
Q 29Which famous line did Louis deliver when asked whether he would chase Conn if he ran backwards in their 1946 rematch?
He can run, but he can't hide
Conn was knocked out in the eighth round of a fight that drew a disappointing 40,000.
Q 30What did Louis reply when an Army clerk asked his occupation at his 1942 induction?
Fighting and let us at them Japs
The scene was staged for newsreel cameras the day after a charity bout for the Navy Relief Society.