James J. Braddock - Guestbook

Welcome to the official guestbook of the James J Braddock website. Due to spam, we have been forced stop guestbook entries.

My husband, father and I all watched the movie tonight and were so inspired! This has got to be one of the best movies I have ever seen! Jim was a hero to SO many and my dad remembers his big victory! God Bless!

Great and inspiring story, I really enjoyed the movie. We would definitely need more men like James today!

After watching this movie it makes me really appreciate what I have in my life. This is one of the best movies I've ever seen.

Amazing movie. As a kid I grew up watching the Rocky movies which inspired me to start boxing msyelf. I quitted this "noble art of fighting" when I had broken my right hand for the third time. If I had seen this movie then, instead of the "crappy" movies of Rocky, I might have persevered. Now, at age 37, the "only" thing left for me is to be a great father and a humble, caring person by using Mr. Braddock as my source of inspiration.

A fantastic website for a fantastic individual. The information posted here really adds to the depth of the movie. Job well done!

JIm Braddock was and is an inspiration to all who knew him or watched this terrific movie. This is when men were made of the right stuff. This movie should be shown in colleges across this country. We are a country of girlie men with no backbone.
President Bush displays the Jim Braddock kind of courage and determination. God Bless america!

hello,
i just watched the movie, it was great. i wish i could have known mr braddock. he is a great inspiration to all of us.
joan

Great Movie..... Hope the movie did the man justice.

What a great story about a man and his love for his family. Very inspiring!

My parents bought the DVD because they loved the movie so much. He was really an inspiration to everyone! A wonderful father and husband! I can only hope there are millions of other fathers out there like James J. Braddock.

I SAW THE MOVIE AND LOVED IT. HE WAS A GREAT MAN TRYING TO FEED HIS FAMILY AND SURVIVE IN THIS WORLD. WE NEED MORE MAN LIKE THESE IN TODAYS WORLD.

What a great legend this is the best movie that I have ever seen. We have some friends who dad was also a fighter (Red Berman) he said that he father often spoke of Jim Braddock. All men in the world could have taken lessons from him. What a great person.

I would love to see James go 1 round against Michael Jackson. We can use more MEN like James in today's world.

Five minute ago i saw a film cinderella Man. James was great man.

Great movie and a great man. I wish we had more like him today, not just for boxing, but for the world in general.

When I was a young boy(I am 60 now) in the early 50's my father (who was a big boxing fan) used to tell me the best of the heavy weights was James J Braddock and if he had been younger, and life a bit easier on him he would have knocked Joe's block off, (his words). He must have been an exceptional man and your mother/grandmother an exceptional lady to stay together through those times.

The movie was great, but a look at the real James Braddock's face from his early boxing career to the end tells a story movies can't match. Just a few rounds sparring in the ring will give one an idea of what he endured. Take a good shot to the ear & see what it feels like. To go from working the docks on a near starvation diet to the ring W/a #2 contender - without training - and WIN, is inconceivable. Mr. Braddock was a standup guy and a standup fighter. The the story of his fall to proverty from the edge of greatness and his return to the top are more than inspirational, it is an era metaphor for the lives of so many of our working class families during the depression. His dignity and heroism were matched by his wife Mae and children's. Very few of us "me generation" baby boomers have any concept of what most of our families endured during the depression period.

My dad and his family were sharecroppers and migrant workers during those depression years, traveling from southern labor camps and Hoovervilles much like the one depicted in the movie. They moved North to work in war boom factories & thought they had found paradise. One of my grandfather's greatest prides was that his family may have been hungry often, but did not starve during the depression. When I was 30, I looked at my dad's legs & realized he had rickets as a child. They did not feel sorry for themselves, my grandma says "everybody was poor, we just didn't think about it."
Mr. Braddock reminds me of my uncle, a WW II vet who fought in Europe with Patton & club boxed after the war to help pay his way through college. He also was a standup blue collar guy who devoted the rest of his life as an educator, to Catholic charities, and ministering to the sick and those in prison. Most real heroes like Mr. Braddock, my grandparents, and aunt & uncle are not loud, self promoting people, they manage to live their lives with quiet dignity and preseverence in impossible circumstances.
From Mr. Braddock's & my family's experience, I recommend everyone go to surviving family members who grew up in that generation ask their stories. You might be surprised at the quiet heroism and desperation so many endured during those years. You probably have stories close to home as inspiring as Mr. Braddock's.
Like his rise off the ropes - making him a symbol for other "losers" in the depression, Mr. Braddock's story can continue to inspire and inform today. It does not seem strange to me that movies like "Cinderella Man" and "Seabiscuit" find a popular culture audience in the U.S. today. Many working class and middleclass families are finding themselves in similar, if not quite so desperate circumstances during this period of corporate downsizing and the offshore flight of jobs. The disparity and gap between the haves and have nots are becoming as graphic as the movie scene where Mr. Braddock walks by a wealthy family walking out of a posh apartment building into a limosine - while he is on his way to begging the boxing establishment for $19 to provide heat so his family could survive the winter.
Ron Howard did an excellent job setting the scene and giving us a taste of the depression era, one cannot help wondering if he was trying to convey a deeper message while providing outstanding entertainment.
The surviving Braddock family member's can be grateful and proud of their family tradition, and I appreciate their efforts to continue the legacy of Jim Braddock with this site.

I watched the movie on Dec. 26th as I had received it as a Christmas gift. What an amazing story of honesty, love, sacrifice and family dedication.

The world would be a better place if there were more people like Jim Braddock.

Just saw the movie last night. A Christmas present for my husband who was a boxer in the Air Force. Truly inspirational!! I grew up in WNY, NJ (Hudson Cty) all my life and ran and played in Hudson County Park, better known as James J. Braddock Park. Now I know why the park was dedicated to him. He was a man for the people. My mother was born in 1929 right in the Great Depression era so her family knew hard times. I will always remember that one can always have hope and truly believe that anything is possible. Ron Howard did it again!! Many thanks for a wonderful, feel good movie.

Just saw the movie last night. A Christmas present for my husband who was a boxer in the Air Force. Truly inspirational!! I grew up in WNY, NJ (Hudson Cty) all my life and ran and played in Hudson County Park, better known as James J. Braddock Park. Now I know why the park was dedicated to him. He was a man for the people. My mother was born in 1929 right in the Great Depression era so her family knew hard times. I will always remember that one can always have hope and truly believe that anything is possible. Ron Howard did it again!! Many thanks for a wonderful, feel good movie.

What an exceptional movie! I purchased the DVD for my husband as a Christmas gift (and for myself as well, I think Russell Crowe is a superb actor and Ron Howard is an incredible director) and we watched it immediately. It is such an inspirational film. I'm not a big boxing fan but I was so caught up in Mr. Braddock's story that I found myself on the edge of my seat during the final boxing match. I was cheering him on and punching with him. He was fighting that match for all the people devastated by the Depression. My husband couldn't remember the outcome of the fight but he kept saying, "He doesn't win this fight. He loses the decision..." but I kept cheering and I could feel the power and the energy and the love Mr. Braddock was getting from the crowd's cheers. When the ring announcer said, "The new heavyweight champ..." I jumped up and cheered..."He won! He won!" It was so emotional and so inspirational. Mr. Braddock was fighting for his family, his dignity and for everyone devastated by the Depression. This film reminded me of another inspirational film I love, "Seabiscuit." It gives us all hope that we can overcome anything, even when everyone around us says we're crazy, if we have faith, hope and determination. Never give up...miracles really do happen. If Ron Howard and Russell Crowe aren't nominated for Oscars for this exceptional film....the academy of motion pictures is insane!

One of the bbest movies ever. I would of liked to met Jim Braddock and his wife. Thanks for letting us share in their life.

This movie was one of the best moives that I have ever seen. The pride and determination to raise his family with dignity and the love and devotion he displayed for his wife is something that is the way it should be in todays world. He truly apprecaited whatever he had and that is also something we have forgot how to do. Academy awards should be handed out without a doubt

WOW this movie packs a punch AWESOME ! the movie really showed me how good we have it and why my parents and grandparents where just like Mr. Braddock. tough all the way through

Meet Mr. Braddock in 1962 at St. Andrew's Parish School in Bayonne , N.J. during his support of young boxers from Mt. Laretto Orphanage in nearby Staten Island, N.Y. . I received his autograph upon my father's General Cable I.D. card. Jim was on the dais and came across as a polite gentleman Christian. I was impressed; unfortunately I have lost that autograph.