There is little doubt, he was his own worst enemy with his arrogance. However I have NO doubt at all he would treat Joe Louis with the utmost respect, and consequently go out to destroy him before he could get settled. In other words he'd do his homework on Louis, and decide he was not going to allow it to become a boxing match.
Louis is a different era and would have little chance against Lewis. If Lewis is well prepared or not, he will easily destroy any fighter from 70+ years past. The differential in skill is just way too huge.
Proberbly 25lb of natural size and the rest of it was artificial weight that slowed Lewis down. Modern training allowed Holyfeild to grow from lightheavyweight into a solid heavyweight. The same training no doubt made the already big guys bigger.
I love the impression Louis left on heavyweight boxing but half the men he defended his title against wouldn't get a sniff of the title these days. it wasn't bomber joes fault that they weren't good enough to fight him and he had to carry some of them but that was the era he was in. abe simon and primo carnera might have been similar in size to lewis but they have nothing else in common. lennox lewis would land his jab and his booming right on Louis enough times for the fight to get stopped
-And both did frequently paw with the jab. And both also had a huge uppercut they would employ on the inside against smaller men. -Again, the argument wasn't that Carnera was as great as Lewis. Look, analogies are never going to be perfect. You take what you can get. Carnera being a similar size and style of Lewis and doing some things simliar, is not an alien comparision. Certainly more spot on than bringing up Conn and Schemling. Carnera/Louis for Lennox/Louis is actually much better than most people come up with for analyzing fantasy fights. -Not preposterous at all. -This is just the size argument. Yeah, HWs were lighter on average then, but Louis man handling guys the size of Lewis or bigger should erase some doubt if that is a major hang up. They weren't as great as Lewis but they weren't bums either, Simon, Buddy, and Carnera were good fighters. Carnera was at least half the fighter Lewis was, and perhaps a top 20-50 HW all time.