Quote Originally Posted by Beanflicker View Post
Quote Originally Posted by powerpuncher View Post
louis' competition is underrated. everybody brings up the bum of the month but nobody understands they called it that because he was black and it made his accomplishments seem less than what they were. you can imagine if it were a white man doing it, they definitely wouldnt be calling his fights the bum of the month.

with that said, louis fought some solid competition and fought bigger fighters too. max baer and schmelling were both very good fighters. baer was known as extremely dangerous and louis destroyed him. louis did lose to schmelling very early in his career but came back to easily win. billy conn was a great fighter although smaller but still very good. he fought both charles and walcott at the end of his career. charles is widely known as the best LHW ever and walcott was a solid HW who he KO'd in their second fight. there are a few other alright names on his resume. and again, you can say some of these fighters were small compared to todays HWs but he fought max baer, buddy baer, primo carnera, and abe simon who were all around the same size as todays HWs. and he KO'd them all.
Well in terms of the black angle, they never called Jack Johnson's opponents Bum of the Month, or SRR's, so why was Joe so special?

In the end, the guy had a 25-fight title run and you could only bring up 4 names.

No doubt Louis fought some real good fighters too, but I'd be interested in knowing what made guys like Schmelling, Baer and Conn that much better HWs than guys like Povetkin, Wach, Thompson, Chambers, Peters, ect. Why are guys like Buddy Baer, Primo Carnera and Abe Simon any more dangerous than guys like David Haye or Samuel Peter?
louis was targeted because being the HW champion was something special that a black man shouldnt have the opportunity to have. jack johnson did have a bum of the month because he didnt defend his title as much and as long as louis did.

i mainly named fighters like carnera and simon to prove a point that some people have (not saying you) that all HW fighters used to be small (like around 200 lbs). louis beat fighters who were well over 6 feet and weighed well into the 200's. i understand that carnera isnt really that good and was kind of a joke.

but to answer your question, its an eye test. i have seen quite a bit of film of baer and schmelling. enough footage to rate them fairly accurately. ive probably seen more footage of them than ive seen of certain wlad opponents like wach or povetkin. i feel like when i watch many of wlads opponents, they remind me of carnera. big but slow. they probably have a decent punch because of their size but lack many basic fundamentals. haye is one opponent who was better but used his athleticism more than his fundamentals. if he fought a smarter fight, he probably could have won that fight.