James J. Braddock

Pro team(s)

Professional Boxing

Hall of Fame

⭐ International Boxing Hall of Fame

James Walter Braddock was born on June 7, 1905, in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, the son of Irish immigrants, and grew up in North Bergen, New Jersey, where the family moved when he was a boy. He left school as a young teenager to work on the docks, and took up boxing at the local club, turning professional in 1926. He became a promising light heavyweight, but a broken right hand in 1929 — combined with the onset of the Great Depression — destroyed his career and his livelihood. By 1933, Braddock was supporting a wife and three children on public relief, doing dock work when he could find it, and boxing only occasionally for small purses. He had all but retired. Then, on June 13, 1935, at the Madison Square Garden Bowl in Long Island City, New York, in what the sportswriter Damon Runyon would call the greatest upset in boxing history, Braddock defeated the fearsome Max Baer — who had killed two men in the ring — by unanimous decision over 15 rounds to become the heavyweight champion of the world. Runyon coined the name that endures: "The Cinderella Man." After his reign, Braddock lost the title to Joe Louis in 1937, served as a U.S. Army Captain during World War II, and built a successful marine equipment business in New Jersey, where he remained until his death on November 29, 1974. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2001. The 2005 film "Cinderella Man," starring Russell Crowe, told his story. Grew up in North Bergen, New Jersey.