Who could have beaten Joe Louıs ın hıs prıme?

[uwey]

Joe Louis was simply to small to deal with the top heavyweights of the last 40 years. Nobody who barely reached 200 pounds could beat the Klitschko brothers. Ali to big, Foreman, Lewis. Mike Sphinx would have been good fight. Evander was a monster for his size. Louis was great for his time but leave it there. James Toney 2nd fight vs. Sam Peters is a prime example of what size does to crafty fighters.

[Mark TKO]

agreed , I don't think eras should ever be compared but at same time like doing it as does the world !

I honestly think our very own big Frank Bruno would have taken Louis - and that just shows you how the modern athlete must have changed over the 40 year gap !!

[Jimanuel Boogustus]

agreed , I don't think eras should ever be compared but at same time like doing it as does the world !

I honestly think our very own big Frank Bruno would have taken Louis - and that just shows you how the modern athlete must have changed over the 40 year gap !!

Your not wrong mate.

I've gone off comparing fighters from eras that are light years apart.

I could compare him with Ali Fraizer Foreman and Norton at a push but that's about it.

Joe was a magnificent puncher though. His punch placement was second to none...

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

OH for fucksake joe was put down close to 15 times in his career by numerous sub 200lb fighters!

190 lb Schmeling and 184 lb Marciano Destroyed him!. He got knocked down and badly hurt by bums, tomato cans, midgets, middleweights, super middleweights, light heavyweights, etc. He was knocked down, badly hurt and almost KO'd by fat midget tony Galento. He got schooled by 174 lb Conn, if it was a 12 round fight, Louis would've lost a wide UD to a 174 lb.

Louis got knocked down 3 times by former Super Middleweight Walcott! SMW Ezzard Charles destroyed Lewis with superior boxing..........Walker, Sharkey are both blown up middleweights and would get KTFO by Wlad. Louis, jack johnson etc etc are intellectually inferior boxers because 50 years is a long time and boxing has evolved as well as the human body and training and nutrition.

And before u all start citing Corrie Sanders, 230lb 6'4" sanders is the biggest punching left handed HW fighter in history! Wlad lost to Brewster because of Fatigue and not a weak chin AND WAS VERY INEXPERIENCED vs purity. Louis has may beat a young wlad, with defense and training issues but i doubt it.

This nostalgia crap has no real basis, the Ali that was fighting 177 and 180 pounders or the Louis that was struggling with 170 pounders will be dog meat against a 247 pound, athletic, 6'6" ring tactician like Wlad. We are not talking about Primo Carnera (who actually became champ even with his limited skills) or Valuev here, Wlad is a whole different fighter.

Let me point out that NOBODY here claims that very tall+heavy boxers are unbeatable.

·Nikolay Valuev ·Wladimir Klitschko all have losses on their records against smaller opponents. Nobody claims that big boxers will always win.

However, let's check concrete examples of these "ancient behemoths".

The following giants (usually mentioned in this order) are used to prove that tall boxers are "beatable although being giants":

·Primo Carnera, 6'5.5", median fighting weight 266 lbs (Joe Louis' biggest weight difference, and the prime example for beatable giants)

·Abe Simon, 6'4", median 253 lbs

·Buddy Baer, 6'6.5", median 240 lbs

·Jess Willard, 6'6.5", median 225 lbs
Sometimes also the following beatable giants are mentioned:

·Tony Drake, 257 lbs (Dempsey's biggest weight difference)
·Humphrey Jackson, 254 lbs (Marciano's biggest weight difference)

Now after we exclude those boxers who are not real giants (e.g. 6'4") or who are bums (like Humphrey Jackson with a record of 4-3 and Tony Drake with a record of 0-1) only the following remain:

Primo Carnera
Abe Simon
Buddy Baer
These 3 were all beaten by Joe Louis, which shows what an exceptional fighter Joe Louis was.

Analyzing these three giants further it turns out, that

Buddy Baer has won only against 3 non-bummy opponents 200×2 (Abe Simon, Tony Galento, Eddie Hogan)
Abe Simon is a featherfist and has 10 losses on his record (36-10), and has won only against 2 non-bummy opponents 200×2 (Toles, Thompson)

Primo Carnera has 14 losses on his record, is smaller than Vitali Klitschko and was obviously suffering from acromegalic pituitary gigantism (= is not naturally tall like Vitali Klitschko, but a freak of nature like Nikolay Valuev)

I don't want to take ANYTHING away from Joe Louis' wins, but my statement is:

These giants were far from comparable to modern ultraheavyweight champs (let alone that Baer and Simon never were champs).

It's unimaginable what modern champs would do to Joe Louis, if already Buddy Baer managed to catapult Joe Louis out of the ring in round #1.

[El Kabong]

Joe Louis vs Sonny Liston would have also been a hell of a macthup prime v prime...I still favor Louis as he was the better boxer.

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

Tunney v louis = dream fight.

[Jimanuel Boogustus]

Great post X.

[rjj tszyu]

OH for fucksake joe was put down close to 15 times in his career by numerous sub 200lb fighters!

190 lb Schmeling and 184 lb Marciano Destroyed him!. He got knocked down and badly hurt by bums, tomato cans, midgets, middleweights, super middleweights, light heavyweights, etc. He was knocked down, badly hurt and almost KO'd by fat midget tony Galento. He got schooled by 174 lb Conn, if it was a 12 round fight, Louis would've lost a wide UD to a 174 lb.

Louis got knocked down 3 times by former Super Middleweight Walcott! SMW Ezzard Charles destroyed Lewis with superior boxing..........Walker, Sharkey are both blown up middleweights and would get KTFO by Wlad. Louis, jack johnson etc etc are intellectually inferior boxers because 50 years is a long time and boxing has evolved as well as the human body and training and nutrition.

And before u all start citing Corrie Sanders, 230lb 6'4" sanders is the biggest punching left handed HW fighter in history! Wlad lost to Brewster because of Fatigue and not a weak chin AND WAS VERY INEXPERIENCED vs purity. Louis has may beat a young wlad, with defense and training issues but i doubt it.

This nostalgia crap has no real basis, the Ali that was fighting 177 and 180 pounders or the Louis that was struggling with 170 pounders will be dog meat against a 247 pound, athletic, 6'6" ring tactician like Wlad. We are not talking about Primo Carnera (who actually became champ even with his limited skills) or Valuev here, Wlad is a whole different fighter.

Let me point out that NOBODY here claims that very tall+heavy boxers are unbeatable.

·Nikolay Valuev ·Wladimir Klitschko all have losses on their records against smaller opponents. Nobody claims that big boxers will always win.

However, let's check concrete examples of these "ancient behemoths".

The following giants (usually mentioned in this order) are used to prove that tall boxers are "beatable although being giants":

·Primo Carnera, 6'5.5", median fighting weight 266 lbs (Joe Louis' biggest weight difference, and the prime example for beatable giants)

·Abe Simon, 6'4", median 253 lbs

·Buddy Baer, 6'6.5", median 240 lbs

·Jess Willard, 6'6.5", median 225 lbs
Sometimes also the following beatable giants are mentioned:

·Tony Drake, 257 lbs (Dempsey's biggest weight difference)
·Humphrey Jackson, 254 lbs (Marciano's biggest weight difference)

Now after we exclude those boxers who are not real giants (e.g. 6'4") or who are bums (like Humphrey Jackson with a record of 4-3 and Tony Drake with a record of 0-1) only the following remain:

Primo Carnera
Abe Simon
Buddy Baer
These 3 were all beaten by Joe Louis, which shows what an exceptional fighter Joe Louis was.

Analyzing these three giants further it turns out, that

Buddy Baer has won only against 3 non-bummy opponents 200×2 (Abe Simon, Tony Galento, Eddie Hogan)
Abe Simon is a featherfist and has 10 losses on his record (36-10), and has won only against 2 non-bummy opponents 200×2 (Toles, Thompson)

Primo Carnera has 14 losses on his record, is smaller than Vitali Klitschko and was obviously suffering from acromegalic pituitary gigantism (= is not naturally tall like Vitali Klitschko, but a freak of nature like Nikolay Valuev)

I don't want to take ANYTHING away from Joe Louis' wins, but my statement is:

These giants were far from comparable to modern ultraheavyweight champs (let alone that Baer and Simon never were champs).

It's unimaginable what modern champs would do to Joe Louis, if already Buddy Baer managed to catapult Joe Louis out of the ring in round #1.

This post is full of holes. For a start to say he lost to Marciano and Schmeling is just juvenile. He was a young lad against Max and more than made up for it in the rematch and well I don't think I even need to mention the Marciano fight do I?

You say he was schooled by Conn and had it been a 12 rounder Conn would have won. Can you say that for certain? 1 judge had it level after 12 but at the end of the day it was a 15 rounder. I'm pretty sure the urgency would have kicked in earlier had it been a shorter fight. He took him out much quicker in the rematch but I see you happened to leave that out.

No one is allowed to mention Corrie Sanders because you have measured his punch and he is the hardest punching southpaw ever. Funny though how he couldn't even KO a blown up Cruiserweight in Johnny Nelson.

You say Ali would have no chance with Wlad. It always makes me laugh when people rubbsih Ali, the man that tamed the hardest punching HW ever in Foreman, FACT. The same puncher who came back as an old man, gave a prime Evander (who then way past his best schooled Tyson and gave Lewis 2 hard fights in his prime) all he could handle and then wiped out the man who won the titles from Evander second time around.

And then you dig up old records and comment on how many times they lost etc etc. Well a little lesson in boxing here. In the olden days fighters were not protected as they are today as the 0 was not the be all and end all of a career. Have you looked at how many times a year these guys actually fought? it certainly wasn't once or at best twice. They fought far more. You mention that Carnera lost a whopping 14 bouts. Well Evander is upto 10. Better tell him to stop now otherwise he was shit too I guess and Ray Robinson losing 19 well he is just total shit based on that alone, he must be!

At the end of the day Louis was the same size as Holyfield and Haye. Haye may not have looked good against Wlad but he fought the way he did to avoid being KO'd. Had Wlad fought a prime Evander he would have been taken to school in the same way Bowe was second time around, as Evander could take a shot and he'd be sticking the head in every time Wlad held. And before you get on to the first Bowe fight I've lost a brother and I know there is no way I would be fighting the week after as my mind wouldn't be where it should have been.

[X]

I don't think you can do this question like a'time machine', ie zapping Louis into 2012 and putting him in the ring with Vitali, or expecting someone like Wlad to have been around in the 1930's.


The truth is that nutrition, conditioning, training, the time between fights, the amount of punishment a fighter took before being stopped, the weigh in times - they are all different. Its also a fact that (at heavyweight) people are bigger now than they were in the 1930's.


A better way of imaging this is:


a) what if Joe Louis had been born in, say, 1985? He would have likely been a bigger guy, benefitting from all the advances I've mentioned above. I see a 6'5" 240 pounder. He would not have been the undisputed world champion for more than a decade though, as the alphabet boys politics would have got in the way. He may even have decided to go into NFL or NBA, as those are sports wiith a better chance of making a good living, which were not available to Louis in the 30's. I still think that this 'new' Joe Louis would have been a devastating fighter, crushing puncher, technically very sound and with great economy of motion (but with poor balance, so he was susceptible to flash knockdowns). I am a big fan of Joe, and I think he would have been very very competitive today ..... if he was born in the 1980's.


I think a few fighters COULD have beaten Louis if he was born in their era .... he had poor balance and he could be outboxed by a smart mover - plus he could get hit and hurt in there, so I think Cassius Clay (but not Muhammad Ali who was too immobile later and relied on his chin), George Foreman, Jack Johnson, Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes, Vitali Kitschko (but not Wlad) COULD have beaten Joe in their own era - but not that all of them WOULD


b) What if the great boxers of history had been active in the 1930's? They would have been smaller, less athletically fit, but tougher. They would not have had nutritional science and would have been fighting once a month to make a living. Assuming they fouight their way over years to get a title shot (only ONE champ, remember), and that they did not get seriously injured beforehand, they would be facing a sleek, tuned machine of a world champ in prime Louis. That Joe understood the referees of the time, he would be the crowd favourite, he absolutely terrified his opponents and had dynamite in either hand. He mowed people down every month. He did what the Klits are doing now and he cleaned out the heavyweight division TWICE. I don't think anybody gets born in the 1910's and beats the Brown Bomber in the 1930's.

[THE PHILOSOPHER]

Sorry but sanders had one of the most devastating left hands in boxing! For those on here who like to completely dismiss Sanders punching power, just take a look at some of his fucking fights. Listen and look at the impact of his shots. Case closed.

Corrie Sanders vs Carlos De Leon (Full Fight) - YouTube!

During the Rahman-Tua broadcast, Larry Merchant said Rahman told him that he wasn't at all suprised when Corrie Sanders KO'd Vladimir Klitschko a few weeks back. Rahman said that when they fought in 2000, Sanders hit him harder than he's ever been hit in his ENTIRE LIFE. And Rahman has faced some heavy hitters, Lennox Lewis, David Tua, Evander Holyfield, Oleg Maskaev, to name a few...

Try matching louis up with an eastern euro that actually was his contemporary! i.e legendary Soviet Korolev Nikolai Federovich:

Born February 14th 1917 and died February 12th 1974. He was a 4 -time Absolute Soviet Champion (1936,1937,1944, 1945), a 9 time Champion of the USSR (1936-1939,1945-1949) and Champion of the 1937 Socialist Olympics in Antwerp (The Russian alternative to the boycotted 1936 games in Berlin hosted by Nazi Germany), but he never got to go pro to really prove his stuff settling for a 110-14-2 record as a Russian hero.





Just stop with this old timer nonsense, joe would look like a child vs either klitschko!

[Master]

Ali had the prefect style to beat Joe by out boxing him and staying away from the destructive punches from Loius.

[Master]

agreed , I don't think eras should ever be compared but at same time like doing it as does the world !

I honestly think our very own big Frank Bruno would have taken Louis - and that just shows you how the modern athlete must have changed over the 40 year gap !!

Please! Joe would take his time and wait for Bruno to get tired and take him out late in the fight.

[rjj tszyu]

agreed , I don't think eras should ever be compared but at same time like doing it as does the world !

I honestly think our very own big Frank Bruno would have taken Louis - and that just shows you how the modern athlete must have changed over the 40 year gap !!

Please! Joe would take his time and wait for Bruno to get tired and take him out late in the fight.

I'm not so sure it would be late. An out of shape Witherspoon left it late with Bruno so you have to think an in shape one would do even better and Louis would have killed Witherspoon. Louis is not this fighter that people need to protect so he isn't forgotten people. He was a serious power punching HW boxer. He was the same size as Haye and Holyfield but had the power of Haye combined with the skill and toughness of Evander. This was a fighting machine that should never ever be underestimated!

[IamInuit]

Joe Louis was simply to small to deal with the top heavyweights of the last 40 years. Nobody who barely reached 200 pounds could beat the Klitschko brothers. Ali to big, Foreman, Lewis. Mike Sphinx would have been good fight. Evander was a monster for his size. Louis was great for his time but leave it there. James Toney 2nd fight vs. Sam Peters is a prime example of what size does to crafty fighters.

Baer was 6 foot 5 and weighed close to 260 pounds

[IamInuit]

And please with the revisionist history. Its junk science. Who cares if Louis hit the deck a few times? He took about 60 power shots from Schmeling before he finally went down and took everything one of the biggest punchers in history had to offer in Baer. This notion that Louis could not take a punch by bigger men is perhaps one of the biggest urban legends in boxing history. And again about Marciano...talk about a reach. Thats like saying Jimmy Wilde was not that good cause he lost to Villa in his last fight.

Louis had the hand speed of Ali and punched about 5 times as hard. Louis had an actual triple left hook that he landed and each shot was as hard as the first. His right cross could stop a vehicle.

Of 25 successful defenses, 21 were won by knockout, 17 of those were ten counts and 5 in the first round. He also knocked out six men who held the heavyweight title.

Benton ranked him 1
Futch Ditto
Arcel Top 3
Tyson #1
Historians like
Fleischer #4 and #5 in many Ring publications
Callis #1
Sugar #2
Daniel #1
Carroll#1
Rose #4
Eskin#1
Loubet #1
Durant #1
Gallo #1
The Ring On many occasions # 2 behind Robinson as the greatest fighter of all time and #2 as an atg hev
Big Book of Boxing #1
Odd #2

I guess all these people and countless others have no clue what they are talking about.

And if not for the lost 4 years during the war who knows....