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

Lucky for them!
Neither Tunney or Loughran even fought a black man.

The only time Sailor Tom Sharkey did he was ko'd .Sullivan,Corbett and Fitz all by-passed Jackson when they were champs.
I won't mention Jeffries.
Louis defended against his number one contenders and some lesser lights in between on a monthly basis, yet he gets stick?:huh

 

:rofl




I have no actual 100% foolproof evidence, but c'mon people, Golota's eyes were on steroids. :deal

 

Tyson did in fact meet Golota, not for the title though, and we're talking about a very similar situation to Louis-Bivins.

 

It has been a tactic for champs since the Jack Johnson era.

Johnson
Dempsey
Louis
Comebacking Foreman
even arguably, Mayweather

Makes financial sense first of all.

A lot of the anti-Mayweather fans for instance want to see him lose so badly, and to a non-black fighter, that if he were to lose to Broner or Errol Spence, there would be a riot, and both fighters might die.

 

I thought Damiani's eyes were bigger than that, I'll take a look at Optic Rec.:think

 

Absolutely not.

A fighter should not get a title **** based on skin colour.

No one thinks Wills should have got a shot because he was black, they think he should have got a shot because he was the next best HW in the world.

Louis shouldn't have given fighters a title shot based on skin colour but he should give fighters a shot based on their standing at the time.

I would say Bivins deserved a shot, not based on his skin colour but based on his great resume during the 4 years of service. He did lose to Walcott though who ended up getting a shot instead. But Bivins would have been a good fighter who was also black.

Just a side note, every Joe Louis fight featured a black man.

 

I dont care what Louis was rated he had almost nothing left in the tank in 1951. Are you saying he did? Even so Bivins was scared ****less of him. You really think Bivins is miraculously going to get more brave against an infinitely better version of Louis ten years earlier? LOL.

There was no such thing as a "duration champion" that is a totally bogus, fake, made up, synthetic title created to sell magazines and tickets. It was totally forgotten for decades until interest in Bivins started picking up 15 years or so ago. It was a joke and means/meant nothing.

What you are failing to address here is that many contenders, like their championship counterparts, had their status frozen by the war and were allowed to re-enter the rankings afterwards based on the service to their country. In fact there was some controversy over the fact that Ernie Vigh had been a #2 contender at MW prior to entering the war and when he got out he was one of the relative few who didnt regain his standing. There was an outcry over this. Conn was one of those who did regain his standing and frankly everybody wanted to see Conn-Louis, nobody gave a **** about Bivins and Louis.

Bivins being ranked when he was ranked is pointless because at that point the title was frozen. There was maybe a month or two at best when he was a top contender and Louis was actually active and unless Im mistaken during that period Louis was either already obligated to matches benefitting the war effort or simply had not yet been taken out of activity after those charity matches. Like I said, the timing wasnt right. And again, after seeing Bivins' non performance against a shot Louis I wouldnt be surprised if he opted out of taking on Louis. Similar to Lem Franklin whose name keeps getting bandied about here. Lem Franklin may have had as good a claim to a shot as one or two of the guys Louis actually defended against but his manager didnt want that fight. That, combined with the timing of Franklins injuries and losses, make a Louis-Franklin fight, like a Louis-Bivins fight, a non starter.

The argument is so ridiculous. You are complaining that Louis only fought twice in 1946 and that one of those guys was beaten twice by Bivins. Louis started fighting in mid 1946 and had two fights, thats a fight every three months. One guy, Conn, was the guy everyone wanted him to fight. That fight was going to happen. Period. Mauriello lost two razor thin decisions to Bivins nearly four years earlier but he was on a winning streak when he fought Louis and had just beaten Bruce Wood**** before a huge audience in a highly publicized fight to gain national attention while Bivins was riding a two fight losing streak (soon to be three fight losing streak) and who was the next guy Louis defended against? The black guy who beat Bivins...

 

True, also Louis never gave a Martian a shot...
P.S. the thread is getting so silly I believe...Joe Louis FEARED no one in his title reign...Everyone FEARED HIM...But Louis was not in charge of his future fights...His schedule was controlled by John Roxborough and Julian Black ,along with his matchmaker Mike Jacobs...Growing up those long ago days, I recall Louis's future opponents felt they were going to the gallows when they were matched with Joe...For a good reason...He was that much feared...

 

Did Louis exceed his quota of White challengers?:huh

 

:shock: Not even in his comeback ?
Martians were everywhere in the late 40s/early 50s, as you must know. :good

 

Tony Galento told Joe Louis he wished to have s*xual relations with the champ's wife.

Considering American society's views - and laws ! - on such 'inter-racial' affairs at the time, that should at least qualify Galento as 'honorary black' ...

 

This is how I see it.

Louis almost seems to get stick for Dempsey not fighting Wills.

It causes people to view his low number of black challengers with suspicion.

He would certainly have deserved criticism if he had not fought Walcott, who pretty much cleaned out the division.