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.