1947    Fight Record

Opponent Venue Result
17/03/1947 Stephane Olek King's Hall, Belle Vue, Manchester, UK - EBU European Heavy Won - Pts after 15 rounds
15/04/1947 Joe Baksi Harringay Arena, Harringay, London, UK Lost - TKO - Round 7

1947    A Disastrous Year

The pace of 1946 couldn’t continue, and it didn’t. For the last four years of his career, Bruce only fought eight fights, two a year.

The reason?   Joe Baksi

The punishing fight against Baksi, the fight that could have led to a challenge for the World Title against Joe Louis, left Bruce with his left eye so badly damaged that he was in danger of losing his sight and was severely compromised for future fights.

But of those eight final fights, he lost just the last two.


And because from here on, the story gets extremely complex as well as extremely engrossing, we've broken these last four years into a number of different chapter sections to allow you to see the key events and navigate round to the bits you want to read.