Joe Louis h2h against other all time greats.....

B,thanks for those clips of Joe Louis, and thanks for your response to the guy that called anyone older than him 'old farts'. Well this "old fart" will not back down to neophytes like him who try to demean a fighter like Dempsey,and particularly Joe louis,as shown on your film,ala Baer and Carnera. This prime louis was no slow plodding relic of the past.His footwork was excellent for a hitter,SECOND to NONE. Todays modern
dreadnaughts would be cannon fodder for Joe Louis, who at 200 pounds was very powerful,and lithe at the same time.Yes he could be tagged
occasionally,but he always regained his composure,and did what had to be done to win. His punching power was electrifying, and as one Doctor wrote at that time,"the human body was not built to withstand the punches of Joe Louis ", and I agree. Louis for the ages, I say. Cheers B...

 

Many think of the 21 year old and 198 pound Joe Louis when he fought Max Baer but he weighed a solid 207½ pounds against 6'4, 255 lb Abe Simon in an equally devastating performance at 27 years of age. We may have missed out on some of Louis's prime years as he enlisted to the army for the next 4 years.

 

I don't really see how someone like Bonavena is much better than Galento to be honest, though I see your point with Braddock. Galento's functional strength, hitting power, good chin and crouch were very effective. And he has a better resume than Ringo in my opinion- wins over Ettore, Nova, etc. If you think about it Bonavena kinda got his **** rocked by anyone with real chops. Galento has at least a couple good names under that belt.

Yeah well looks are just that, looks. You have a point with the early start though, combined with his stellar jab it would be a hell of a night for Joe win or lose. I think he could solve that puzzle eventually though, getting dumped on his ass in the process.

While i think that the Louis of the Baer/Carnera times maybe looks a little more impressive, faster, whatever, I agree to an extent. I think the older version was more mature. Better at setting up deadly counters. He just made it look very very easy to do what he did at that time. I would have certainly liked to have seen him and Bivins duke it out at the time, who i don;t think would have much chance.

 

For example, i could never see Galento giving Ali any trouble (let alone making it to 15 rounds even post exile) beating Chuvalo or giving Frazier hell twice. Bonavena was vastly underrated IMO while Galento looked like a taxi driver. Yes he could hit but then what? Lets be honest, the man a journeyman and is only known in history for flooring Louis who was expected to make easy work of him. I think we can all agree that Bonavena brings more skill to the table than Galento and the win over Chuvalo out shines any win that Galento has.

 

Gallento was not a journeyman.

He actualy has a prety good resume with some good names on it. Far better than George Chuvalo's for a start, and possibly better than Bonavena.

Have you even looked at his resume?

 

I could, considering that plenty of crude types like cooper and well, Ringo himself did. It wasn't just hitting- Galento was pretty good as far as a dirty brawl and mauler. He also packed on a lot of mass(yes, i'm aware a lot of it was not functional). You're talking about Chuvalo like he's some massively impressive strap- who did he ever beat? Just like Bonavena he lost to every really good HW contender minus who, Doug Jones? And Yvonne Durelle? Chuvalo was no hot **** either. He was renowned for a legendary chin, and not really much else. With what you're saying about Galento's resume I'm not actually sure you know what you're on about either. I seriously just don't think you've even taken a look at it in depth. How many journeymen make it to the #2 HW rankings?

If there is great skill in Bonavena or Chuvalo, I haven't seen it.

 

He most certainly does not have a better resume than Chuvalo or Oscar, unless you are including fights that he actually lost and that's even highly debatable.

 

So you consider being a dirty brawler/crude fighter as skill? :huh

And where did i say this at? I said that Galento didn't have a better resume than Chuvalo or Bonevena, and he doesn't. Chuvalo may have lost to the best fighters he faced but hes still better than Joffre or Nova ( who Galento cheated his way into a victory in). Why do you think he was including in the "bum of the month club". Lets face it, he just wasn't that good.

Not very hard to do when you there's not much comp at the time and you beat a lot of sub par opposition.

Something else that i didn't say. I simply said Bonavena was more skilled than "swing for the fences" Galento. His technique was much better and his fundamentals makes Galentio's look amateurish to honest. He wasn't a technical genius but at least he had the basics down, unlike Galento who looked like a bar room brawler (literally).

 

Lets have a look:

He started a fairly respectable winning streak in 1937 which continued to the beginning of 1940 when he got beaten up by Max Baer. His notable wins in this period include:

Al Ettore
Ettore was a tough contender who had recently split a close series with John Henry Lewis. His only previous stoppage losses were at the hands of the bomber himself, and the hard punching Charlie Retzlaff. Galento knocked him clean out of the ring twice en route to a TKO win.

Leroy Haynes
Haynes had been highly hyped following his two destructions of the ageing Primo Carnera. He was being set up as a possible title challenger for Joe Louis, and might have been manoeuvred into a title shot had he not taken a fateful fight against a certain New Jersey landlord.

Nathan Mann
Mann had been the #3 ranked contender when Joe Louis handed him his first knockout loss in 3 rounds. Tony Galento accomplished the same feat three months later in two rounds. This set Galento on a collision course with the champion.

Lou Nova
This guy was hyped to the hilt. He had beaten the snot out of Max Baer, and had beaten Tommy Farr more convincingly than either Louis or Baer. Some people were actually picking him to beat Louis. Then he took a routine stay busy fight against Galento.

Other fights worth mentioning:

Don Red Barry
Galento knocked him out in the first round. He would never be stopped again until he suffered a TKO loss to the bomber himself in the third round! A year later Barry would hold John Henry Lewis to a draw and beat Tiger Jack Fox.

Harry Thomas
Not an elite fighter but he was stopped 3 times in his career.

Max Schmeling TKO8

Joe Louis KO5

Tony Galento TKO3

Now I would suggest that this resume is clearly better than Chuvalo's and arguably better than Bonavena's.

 

To be honest, i could make the same format for Bonevena's record and come out with the same result. Fact or the matter is, you seem like you are trying to make his record look good by making wins over fighters who "punched hard" fighters that "wasn't stopped that many times" or fighters who were "hyped up" look better they actually are. To me that doesn't enhance their resume. What about their actual quality wins.

Also, i read that Galento's win over Nova was extremely fishy. Its said that he fouled his way to a win and should have lost by DQ with all that mauling and fouling.

 

He hadn't stopped anyone in four years... His KO percentage was 30% By most people's standards, this would not make him a hard hitter.

Analyzing a fighter's lackluster performances is just as important when drawing conlcusions in fantasy match ups as studying their very best.

His record by all standards was very good.. A unified crown, a 37-0 record, wins over quality big men, and recapturing two belts after sitting in prison for four years, not to mention the claim ( in some people's eyes) as being the youngest heavyweight champion that ever lived.

No, and in fact rate him lower than a lot of champions partially based upon it. You on the otherhand, seem to sum up his entire career in one single fight, whereas as I am looking at MANY of both Tyson's and Louis's performances. You use one loss against a rangy boxer who was totally dissimilar to Louis as a template for why Tyson would lose.

Sure.. But would you be willing to make the same concession for Tyson?

I never said that Douglas was better than EVERYONE Louis ever fought, and you seem to jump on the defensive whenever someone mentions size as though its the ONLY component that they are referring to. Do you think that men Douglas, Tucker, Ruddock, Spinks and several others were just lumbering oafs who couldn't fight?

Well he was a ranked contender for the better part of 4 years, had already challenged for the title once, had victories over two former titlists, one future titlist, a handful of contenders. I can t.hink of men who did a lot worse.

No, I don't rate size over quality. Douglas was a good boxer, with decent size, athleticism, power, reach, experience and fighting under far more favorable circumstances than Schmeling was.

That's not what I'm saying, but if you choose to hang your hat on it, then go right ahead.

I have no problem with that. Tyson's inability to beat those men have nothing to do with my reasons for picking him to beat Louis in a head to head match up, and nor do I think that they help Louis for stylistic reasons.

No i don't.. But I don't see a 22 year old Tyson losing to Schmeling either. Nor do I seem him kissing the canvas against the other previously mentioned challengers.

Fair?

Before we can make that assumption, we'd have to first put Louis in Tyson's shoes. Louis was riding a very active winning streak prior to the Marciano meeting.. Tyson was off for 16 months prior to facing Danny Williams, and then after taking a pounding, took an additional full year off before fighting McBride.

Agreed.

Agreed. But I don't think that Tyson just fought bigger men.. he fought bigger me regularly and ones that brought more to the table than just mere size.

By your logic we could argue that Floyd Mayweather would beat Vitali Klitschko because apparently size is totally imaterial.

Tucker and Smith were so outmatched they were forced to resort to mere survival tacts such as holding and clinching, but still lost about a combined 20 of the 24 rounds that they fought against Tyson. I'll also ad that Tony Tucker in particular was a man with better defensive skills and this little thing called a "jab", which Baer had never heard of..He also did not see his first stoppage loss until he reached 37 years of age - a point by which Carnera and Baer were long gone..

Common. Buddy Baer had 45 professional fights and a ridiculous size advantage when he was TKO'd by the light hitting Barland. Are we really going to use the "green" excuse?

Based on what I've seen of him on film and some of the defeats he had, I'd say that he was at least inferior. How much exactly, is hard to say.

Don't see the relevance here.. Spinks had been fighting at or above 200 lbs for 3 years prior to facing Tyson.. It wasn't as though he had just made the jump.

Depends on what he did with that 200 lbs.. Spinks at least proved that he could win a title at that weight and hold onto it for a brief period.. And i think he was a bit better off than had he showed up weighing in at Conn's 174 for the Louis fight.

This is all speculative and frankly I don't thin Schmeling is anyway shape or form in Holyfield's category... In either case, Tyson demolished Spinks who had never lost, whereas Louis got destroyed by a man who had been exposed numerous times and was fighting under far less favorable circumstances... Anyway, my initial point was that Louis regularly fought light heavyweights and either lost or struggled with them, whereas Tyson fought but one, who was an all time great and beat him in one round...

Nope.. Not ignoring Tyson's loss, and I have scrutinized both Louis's defeats as well as lackluster performances.... something you have to do when drawing conclusions in head to head matchups. Legacy alone does not tell the whole story.

see the above..

Agreed,

but head to head predictions should not just be based on legacy alone... Otherwise by this logic, Thomas Hearns never should have lost to iran barkley.

I have great respect for Louis's record and acheivements. But the simple fact of the matter is that for stylistic reasons and weaknesses shown against certain kinds of opponents, I do not like him against Tyson, even though I rate Louis higher. For years you and I have debated this and for some reason you never seem to see where I'm coming from.

Post spinks? probably not.. But for the brief period where he burned quite bright, he'd be given a fair chance against just about anybody.

 

I say emphatically yes.

You cannot so easily write off a man who defended the crown 25 consecutive times, over 12 years, against all comers, among which were men of dimensions and skill-sets similar to the Klitschkos'.

With Louis, as with fine painting, fine wine, fine music, there is more than meets the eye (taste bud or ear).

Why don't you lay out the 10 fighters you would place over Louis head-to head?

Joe Louis is in my personal top-five head-to head greatest heavyweight champions of all time.

 

He was obviously a very good puncher, but just a crude, wild swinger brawler who wasn't that good IMO. And about 99.9% of fighters that people talk about on any forum have beaten ranked opponents so that's hardly impressive.

Jones and Quarry are obviously his best wins. They look a lot more impressive than anyone on Galentio's win record. Yes Quarry was unlucky because of the incident, but the knockdown was legit and the fact that he didn't get up in time was his fault.

They were good/solid, though not great wins. I don't see how they automatically make his win record better than Chuvalo's though. I'm not calling him an all time great, but he consistently did better against the "names" of the division than Galento did. Other than knocking down Louis, he was literally handled by every top (the Louis, Baer's ect) guy in the division. At least Chuvalo has a name win and gave tough fights to most of them.