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

Are you convicting Louis based on hindsight, taking into account information that was not available at the time, or are you saying that he was remiss in his duties as champion based on what was known at the time?

That does not amount to him being remiss in his duties as champion, given the information that was available at the time.

 

And of course it may be that he shouldn't have fought Lewis. And a minor detail, while he made 25 defenses, three were against black fighters.

 

Sure.

The case for fighting Lewis, wasn't overwhelming.

 

No it wasn't, but in his last fight, 3 months earlier Lewis had beaten Al Gainer who had beaten Tiger Jack Fox,and 8 months previous to challenging Louis ,Lewis had ko'd Elmer Ray.Plus he was the reigning light heavyweight champ.So not an outrageous choice for a defence.

 

"I never specifically mentioned their names"

You said the top echelon ducked Liston.

The cliché about Liston is that he cleaned out the division,

what I would ask is how anyone could clean out a division if the top men won't fight him?

 

I'll try the first 70 years of so of the 20th century on Franklin's qualifications. Now what makes a qualified contender for me--wins over top heavyweights

Finnegan--yes (but I don't if he was a real challenger)
Corbett--no (even laid off, he was an ex-champion and folks wanted to see this fight)
Ruhlin--no (had fought a draw with the champ)
Fitz--no
Corbett--yes (he had laid off too long by this time)
Munroe--yes
Burns--one could probably shovel almost everyone Burns fought in the yes camp
Johnson--no
McLaglan, Ross--yes (but were these real defenses?)
O'Brien--no (but was this a real defense?)
Al Kaufman--no
Jeffries--no
Flynn--no
Battling Johnson--yes
Moran--even
Willard--even
Moran--no (off his performance against Johnson & interim wins)
Dempsey--no
Miske--no (Miske was clearly better than Franklin--the wild card is health)
Brennan--yes
Carpentier--yes (but mainly because he was small)
Gibbons--no
Firpo--no (he had stopped the previous champion. Floyd Johnson was more at the Franklin level)
Tunney--no
Dempsey--no
Heeney--even
Schmeling--no
Sharkey--no
Stribling--no
Carnera--no
Uzcudun--no (with the caveat that he was very well qualified but on the downslope of his career)
Loughran--no
Baer--no
Braddock--no (tough one but he beat the other top contender in the elimination)
Louis--no
I have covered Louis' defenses.
Charles--no
Lesnevich--no
Valentino--no (not an outstanding contender but he had beaten Thompson to earn this shot, but this is a close one)
Beshore--yes
Louis--no
Barone--yes
Oma--yes
Walcott--even (he was coming off a loss to Layne)
Maxim--no
Walcott--yes (coming off two losses, but he won the title)
Charles--no
Marciano--no
Walcott--no
LaStarza--no (won the elimination fight to get shot)
Charles--no
Charles--even (but he had done so well in the first fight they wanted this one)
C-ckell--even (he was decently qualified and on a winning streak, and was the British Empire champion)
Moore--no
Jackson--no
Rademacher--yes
Harris--even (was actually undefeated and had beaten several name opponents)
London--yes
Johansson--no
Patterson--no
Johansson--no
McNeeley--yes
Liston--no
Patterson--no
Ali--no
Liston--no
Patterson--no
Chuvalo--yes
Cooper--even
London--yes
Mildenberger--no
Williams--no (one could argue about him in 1966, but I think it would be a bit unfair)
Terrell--no
Ramos--no
Bonavena--no
Zyglewicz--yes
Quarry--no
Ellis--no
Foster--yes (mainly because of being light-heavyweight)
Ali--no
Daniels--yes
Stander--yes
Foreman--no
Roman--yes
Norton--no
Ali--no
Wepner--yes
Lyle--no
Bugner--even
Frazier--no
Coopman--yes
Young--even (actually not overly qualified at this point)
Dunn--yes
Norton--no
Spinks--yes
Ali--no

*so in my judgment, adding in the Louis fights, and considering all of Burns' defenses as yes votes, Franklin comes in at top edge of the bottom third.

**Magoo--thanks for suggesting this. It was a lot of fun to actually go through all these contenders and think about how qualified they were.

***from Holmes on, I will let one of you guys do it if you want, as many of you know more than I do.

****just an overview--the number of unqualified contenders is not as high as I would have guessed, at least back then.

 

"No need to go off topic about it."

My point is why should men like Bettina or Shucco who could be viewed as much more qualified than many of the men who have been brought up on this thread be off the table?

Note the title of the thread?

This thread isn't exactly about the most qualified men Louis didn't fight,

but only a certain class of opponents in order to build some sort of case against Louis.

And, in fairness, you didn't start the thread nor focus it as it is.

*And Louis did indeed defend three times against men who fit into the class laid out.

 

Fair enough.

Not really. Its isn't hindsight to point out Conn's layoff because it came BEFORE the Louis fight. Justifying Louis's not fighting Franklin based on his eventual loss to Pastor IS using hindsight. But I've already granted you that Louis rematching Conn was was fair. So we can move on.

 

I think Louis's legacy is fine. He fought more than his fair share of #1's, #2's, etc, etc. But Franklin shouldn't be compared to the rare exceptions of people who had to fight anyone and everyone to get a title shot.. Its more reasonable to compare him to the norm as I said before, and he's probably better than 50% or more of the contenders who ever actually DID get a title shot. That was where we got side tract on this subtopic. Louis not fighting him his fine.. doesn't hurt his place in heavyweight history from my standpoint.. Could it have made his record just a tad better? probably.. Was Franklin better than a fair number of men who actually DID fight Louis? You've already made a list and illustrated that he was..

 

I also noticed a kind of slippery numbers game here,

so

3 of Louis' 25 defenses were against black men,

2 of the 20 men Louis defended against were black.

3 of the 22 men Louis fought for the heavyweight title were black.

4 of the 27 fights Louis had for the heavyweight title were against black men.

 

All this contentious debating is not getting anywhere I think...Let us be clear. Joe Louis FEARED NO ONE. I recall those long ago days. THEY FEARED HIM.
But Joe Louis was in the clutch of his protective managers John Roxborough and Julian Black, along with the powerful promoter Mike Jacobs who chose Louis's next opponents based on who would bring in the most gate receipts with the LEAST RISK...With this in mind there can be no doubt that there were several black heavyweights at that time that were BETTER than many
opponents Louis fought and destroyed..Would they have been better gate attractions than some of Louis's "bum of the month" opponents ? No, but
if the Louis braintrust were of "progressive social mind", they could have given
some tough black heavyweights of those days a shot at Louis, and some real
MONEY. Were they of mind...Boxing was and is a money business, and I still
insist that by and large, we all are products of our times..
P.S. For what it's worth. Growing up my dad and I saw the feared black heavyweight Elmer Ray ko Lee Savold at Ebbet's Field in Bklyn Ny.
So yes were Louis inclined a younger Elmer Ray was more worthy to fight Louis than a few of Joe's opponents...But remember folks, the Joe Louis at his best was a "killer" and feared nobody...

 

I don't think anyone here was ever questioning Louis's heart. That's not really what the debate was about or at least not for most of us.