Should Louis have fought more than two black men in his 26 title defenses?

"he slowed down progress in boxing"

Gad. What a bizarre point of view.

Louis more than anyone else brought down the color line in American sports.

 

Possibly,

But I would argue Roscoe Toles. Toles defeated 3 of Louis title challengers from 1937-1939 Arturo Godoy, Gus Dorazio, and Harry Thomas. He also defeated Gunnar Barland(Who knocked out Buddy Baer, and beat Alberto Lovell).


Toles was rated in the top 10 by Ring Magazine all 3 years 1937-1939 while Lovell only cracked the top 10 for one year (1937).

 

Big Bill Broonzy
Big Joe Turner
Champion Jack Dupree
T-Bone Walker

 

[url]http://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Champion_Jack_Dupree[/url]

 

joe Louis was only one third black , he was one third white and one third cherokee

 

Fair enough.

The "he beat this guy or that guy" argument cuts both ways, as Lovell beat Rosenbloom who beat Toles,

between 1937 and 1939 Lovell beat Andre Lenglet, Maxie Rosenbloom, Hank Hankinson, Red Burman, Eddie Blunt, and Arturo Godoy--losing only to Barlund and Godoy

and was rated higher in 1937 than Toles reached in that period,

but Toles defeated Lovell twice in the early forties.

I think Toles certainly can be rated over Lovell in the late thirties, and also over Franklin in the early forties.

He was simply very consistent over a long period of time which reached all the way to the 1950's.

I think you underrated Toles in your list of top black fighters of the 1930 to 1948 era. He should have been in the top ten.

 

Because he only had three grandparents.
That's technically possible, but worrying.

 

How many Jews did he defend against ?

Abe Simon x2
Buddy Baer I think was a pretend Jew, or was that just his brother ?

Not good enough. :-(

 

T-Bone Walker certainly should have been on Joe Louis's menu.!

 

Along with Barbecue Bob

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbecue_Bob[/url]

 

Joe Louis fought as many black challengers as every heavyweight champion before him combined.

 

I relish that.atsch

 

It should have? Based on what, exactly?

The National Boxing Association's first quarterly ratings that year barely mention Bivins. The president of the NBA said Louis should fight Conn, Mauriello and Lee Oma or Walcott. And he fought Conn, Mauriello and Walcott ... in that order.

[url]http://postimg.org/image/6frxzksvl/full/[/url]

Ring Magazine dubbed Bivins the "Duration" Heavyweight Champ ... but Ring had no authority in boxing. It was a magazine. They could have called Bivins "The ***iest Man Alive" too. It didn't make it so.

The NBA was the authority. Louis fought the top contenders according to the NBA.

 

The argument that Louis "should" have fought Bivins earlier is paper thin at best. The timing was never right for that fight. It had nothing to do with Louis ducking Bivins. Ive always said and will continue to say that when Louis and Bivins finally did meet Louis was a shell of his former self and Bivins had a lot more left in the tank. Despite this Bivins ran and spoiled all night long. I cant imagine he would have done any better against a faster Louis who brought more than his jab. The fact is that there was no time in Bivins career that he could have beaten Joe Louis.