The following is part of boxing legendry from the days when the top ten earning American athletes would all be ring men, not ballplayers.

One time heavyweight champion, with a record of 70-13 with 52 KOs, Baer was a character out of the ring and literally a killer in the ring. He’s the bad guy in Cinderella Man, a proud American Jew who was a smartass and wore a Star of David on his trunks, famously destroying German champ Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium before 60,000 fans in 1933. He was one of numerous successful Jewish boxers of his time, including his brother, Buddy. Max’s son played Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies sitcom in the 1960s.

On one occasion he was in a hotel room bed with two women when two different promoters came to knock on his door—at cross purposes with one another—and began arguing in the hall while knocking for him, interrupting the ambiance of his tryst. He answered the door naked and invited them in to make their deal without delay. The two schemers then began to argue. Impatient to get back to his two lovelies, Max grabbed his frustrated member and beat it on the table, making an audible sound reminiscent of a judge’s gavel, and demanded that order be observed in his court.

The two squabbling suits—who were, in fact, the two bitches in this story—were soon on their way, each with his portion of the made deal, and Max was able to return to the deal at hand.

On a less flattering postscript, Max was once being cornered by former Heavyweight King Jack Dempsey, against Joe Louis. Max was a tough dude. But as with many fighters that rely on a crushing punch, when they run into a bigger puncher, they lose heart. And so it was with Max as he crawled back to his corner after being floored again by Louis. Dempsey threatened to KO Max himself if he did not get up and go back out against the Brown Bomber, which he dutifully did, going down for the count in round 4.

Max would fight until 1941 and retired to become a boxing and wrestling referee.