Joe Louis vs Lennox Lewis

Not sure about that.

Holyfield and Louis have both only been stopped twice in their career. Neither has ever been KOed early and took tremendous punishment before being stopped. Evander was stopped by Bowe and Toney while past his best. Louis by Schemling and Marciano while past his best.

Holyfield has been knocked down by Cooper, Bowe, Ruiz, and Toney.

Louis has been knocked down by Schemling, Braddock, Galento, Baer, Walcott, and Marciano. I think any of these fighters are capable of dropping Evander in similar circumstances and vise versa. Louis was also a more aggressive pressuring fighter that had to take more punishment, while Evander boxed on his toes more in his youth and spoiled in old age.

 

Evander's chin is more proven against harder punchers, and wasn't decked as many times as Louis or at least not when being anywhere near prime.

 

lennox lewis by ko

 

This has to be a joke.. I mean this is the reason I feel Louis is overrated h2h by many on here. I mean look at this... Lewis ONLY has a punchers chance LMAO. Jesus H. Christ. This is Lewis fight to lose, not he other way around. If Lewis fights smart... Joe sustains a brutal beating and UD lose or gets KO'd. IF Joe fights smart.......... then what..... that really doesn't mean much... What is he going to stalk and plod less? Okay um what will that do exactly? Lewis doesn't need to engage to win.. He can fight behind his jab and right cross all night long and keep out of Louis range. Louis on the other hand doesn't have an option like that.. there is NO easy way for him to win this fight against a good or great Lewis. A punchers chance only LOL...

 

I have to disagree. Schemling, Galento, Baer Brothers, Abe Simon, Braddock, Lou Nova, Joe Walcott, Carnera, Marciano..these guys can hit as hard as anybody with their best punches.

We can conclude that Louis was more prone to knockdowns as a more aggressive offensive minded fighter. But ultimately like Holyfield, he proved it took a tremendous amount of punishment to force the stoppage. I see no reason to doubt Louis can tough out the same shots Evander did to close the distance, which was often just jabs in many instances. And if Lewis opens up too much on Louis, he's going to be putting himself at risk for some lethal counters.

 

This argument is going to make for opening a huge can of worms, which I don't want to do. But frankly, I think the punchers or even boxer-punchers of the 80's-90's-2000's whom Holy faced had more power even if some of them had lesser reputations for being such. They were bigger men fighting against other bigger men. The men in Louis's time were fighting guys of smaller size, with limited amateur or no amateur backgrounds, primitive training methods, smaller glove size and yet a lot of them had lower KO percentages at the end of the day. I respect Joe Walcott and Max Schmeling, but can't see them as being labled as big punchers in the 90's.. But if we put guys like Bowe, Lewis, Moorer, Foreman, or even Cooper and Dokes back in those days their power would be far more respected. Just speculation but its my gut feeling.

I don't know that I would label him as being more agressive or offensive minded.. Well maybe he was.. But Evander's reputation was built on his willingness to mix it up in a war with anyone even when it didn't behoove him to do so.. That by definition is placing someone at the very heart of danger and thus to being knocked down or knocked out.

The reason I have reservations about the highlighted sentence, is that we never saw him do it. In the combined 30+ rounds that Holyfield fought with Riddick Bowe, he took probably thousands of huge shots ( collectively ) and only got stopped when he was probably at the worst junction in his career with health issues and a layoff. The Micheal Dokes fight of 1989 was an incredible war of attrition and when Evander was only in his 2nd or 3rd fight at heavyweight. Even some of the cruisers he fought would have been considered heavy's in Louis's time.. I just think Evander's chin is more tested against a stronger ( but not necessarily better ) breed of heavyweight, yet was decked less times.

Well yes, but the same can be said of basically any heavyweight who faces Joe Louis. Lennox Lewis's skills were far more polished while working with Steward and his boxing and punching ability along with the huge size advantage he'd have over Joe would be factors in my book. Remember he surivived some pretty good shots from Vitali, Mason, tua, Golata, Briggs, Holyfield and yes even The great Lord Bruno ( the most deciding factor of all. )

 

Prime for prime, Joe Louis wins this. He was just too good, very skllful boxer, great jab, great hand-speed and power.

Lennox has size advantage, but Louis wasn't much lighter than Holyfield. Almost as big as Mercer, just not fat around the middle.

 

Looking at how Lewis struggled with guys like Mercer, Zejko, Holyfield (and these fights were in LL prime) I'd have to go with Loius. I think Louis wins 3 out of 4.

 

The same thing works in reverse. Look at how a past prime former lightheavy Jim Braddock who had been retired for two years gave Louis a good fight and even decked him.. How about Tony Galento who was in horrible shape, smoked cigars and drank alchohol in the days leading up to his fights, yet decked Louis? Or Billy Conn who started his career at middleweight and had Louis outboxed for most of their fight, or even Schmeling who was off for a year had only won 4 of his last 8 outings, spent most of his career at light heavy, and was fighting on American soil during a time when it didn't behoove a citizen of Nazi Germany to do so, yet creamed the crap out of Louis. These fights happened when Joe was either prime or near prime too.

 

Not smaller but lighter, 30s Heavies were a tall and broad stock on average. And not smaller relative to themselves, many of these men regularly KOed heavier, taller, or comparative sized fighters.

A bulked up Cooper weighed 215 against Evander but noway he's really bigger than a lean 6'2 202 speciman like Nova. If Nova was eating and training like a 90s heavy, he would probably fill out to 220 or more comfortably. He was a Morrison sized fighter.

[url]http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4025/4471388921_6f352dace0_o.jpg[/url]

Arguable, many of these fighters strike me as being better conditioned and fundamentally sound than their contemporaries.

Far busier and more active pro careers against a higher level of competition, which also explains lower KO %


If Cooper and Moorer are punchres in any era, so are Walcott and Schmeling. Prior to bulking up, Cooper even weighed about the same as Walcott and Schemling in that 190-200 range.

Holyfield still boxed far more, Louis almost always stalked his opponents.

Surviving good shots is one thing, the follow up is the key.

 

I disagree with the notion that they were of comparable or greater size in Louis's day and feel that the men Evander fought larger on a whole.. Yes there were contenders in the 30's-40's who beat bigger men, but not as regularly as they would decades later. Sir Bert Cooper was actually in good shape and muscular when he fought Holy around 215 lbs or so. Tony Galento was 230 against Louis, but would have had to drop down to about 185 to actually be in good condition. This is just one genaric comparison. There were a lot of light heavys former middles and men who had taken so many beatings prior to fighting Louis that they were basically at the end of their rope when he met them.. Even the guys who KO'd him, ie. Marciano and Schmeling would be cruisers today ( or better suited as such ). Holy's chin remains the more tested to me, but again this is speculation and we're never going to prove it to be certain.

 

Braddock was really Holyfield sized. He was malnourished and living in the Great Depression. He was over 6'2" and filled out at 185-195 in days without high protein diets and heavy weight training. He was very crafty and had a great right hand. Outside of the knockdown, Louis dominated the fight and dished out his only real KO loss.

-Galento was a showman. He went 14 brutal rounds with Nova so had to be in better shape than he let on. He was fat but a powerful man with massive Tua like legs.

[url]http://www.sportslegendsphotosinc.com/prodimages/Tony_Galento_BW.jpg[/url]

-Conn is one of the all time great boxers, I have little doubt he would trouble quite a few HWs.

-Schemlling saw something.

 

I actually watched that fight recently, and it was a good effort by Braddock.. No easy night's pay for Louis. And again Jimmy was at the end of his rope and more or less retired.

I'll give him that he could punch. But him going 14 rounds is misleading. The activity level in those fights and the amount of holding is what kept him on his feet for that duration. In a high paced high intensity contest, he'd be gasping for air long before that.

[url]http://www.sportslegendsphotosinc.com/prodimages/Tony_Galento_BW.jpg[/url]

He was skilled. But no one gave him a chance against Louis and for most of that bout, made him look silly.

Yeah I saw that documentary too. Max watched films of Louis and apparently noticed that every time Joe threw a left jab, he dropped his right, leaving him open for a counter shot. Good observation and strategy making on Schmeling's part. But given the circumstances, Louis should never have gotten hammered that badly by a man of that description. 1991 Riddick Bowe would have killed that Schmeling as would Holyfield .

 

-I don't see that. Especially with the CW division creating a stronger grouping.

-Galento was in good condition at 225 vs. Nova. See picture above. He would have to cut off one of those massive legs to get to 185.

-Sharkey and Uzcudun maybe. Neither were LHWs.

-No, we can't prove it.

 

Interesting. Lewis will be nervous, will he come out with guns blazing
looking or the knockout or fight a cautious fight behind the jab?
If Lewis comes out boxing, he will win the first few rounds dropping
Louis a few times. However Louis was a more technical boxer and would
make adjustments and feint, set traps etc. Louis will do anything to make
Lennox divert from plan A, then Louis will score the knockout with a counter
right. Lennox has the power and size to steamroll Louis early.
Louis's ring iq and technique are greater. Tough one Louis KO 8.