Joe Louis vs Sonny Liston

Absolutely he couldn't with repeated right-hands being driven into his face by a top puncher.

The punches Louis held in that fight were ridiculous. And Schmeling had to be on him to get that job done.

The bottom line would be, prove the beating and you prove the victory. Trying to paint his chin as pliant based upon this fight is ridiculous.

 

Yeah, this is just ridiculous Mendoza. He had a good chin. He took helacious beatings and big punches both. If you're not seeing that it's because you're not looking or because you don't want to. Your determination to repeatedly try to force-feed these flash knockdowns as somehow indicative of a weak chin are nonsensical.

He is, literally, the greatest champion in history. And you write:

"He didn't have a good defence or a good chin."

It's just drunken posting.

 

Louis dominated it utterly. He brooked no resistance. This is real domination, not the pretend domination you insist upon for Vitali and Wlad; defeat of nearly every major contender in his era.

It's far easier to recognise greatness in such a dominant force than it is to add up all the rounds a fighter won while failing to meet the best of his era.

Was at least in some part in keeping with the times due to the size of the gloves and vulnerability to body punches. The "earmuffs" high-guard defence was in no shape or form the technically correct one; parrying and blocking and sliding was far, far more pertinent.

There is an interesting parallel here with Golovkin, who you so embarrassingly overrate as the #5 MW of all time (not even on a head to head list!). Golovkin would have had Louis's problems if he had fought in Louis's era and would have had to make the same choices. Anyway.

In truth, Louis's defence was layered and complex and acted as a springboard for his offence, even in his worst performances. Take Louis-Walcott I.

After being caught with two clipping Walcott jabs early, Louis slipped the third in this manner. What is crucial to note about the Louis defense is that it is built specifically to facilitate offense. After the punch is slipped, Louis tells us that we should find ourselves in position “for a blow to his unprotected left side.” This is the theory, in practice Louis comes out of the slip to throw a punch at Walcott’s right side before following it up with a short straight right. It is Louis’ early warning that the angles Walcott will be showing will not be of the type he has been shown in the gym.

His habit of keeping his gloves tightly knitted at his chest is not entirely a matter of preparing his offense; it also allows him to move the “unit” the two gloves create up or down to catch straight blows that do not leave the opponent available for a counter. Here, he doesn't stress counterpunching after blocking blows. On occasions where the guard is made mobile to block opposition punches, the priority seems to move over to defense, perhaps the reason Louis did not use this strategy often. He can be seen primarily as a slipper and ducker of punches rather than a parrying or blocking fighter due to the lack of natural countering opportunities these earlier methods provide when compared to the latter, although such opportunities can of course be engineered. Early in the ninth Louis did exactly that. As Walcott moved forward and fired two-handed, Louis showed good flexibility, lifting his forearms which worked as an additional guard as Louis performed the block just as he described it: As your opponent leads, turn your body…If your opponent leads with a blow to the chin, use your shoulder to block it.

Louis turns with this two-handed attack, tucking in his chin and lifting the relevant shoulder on each turn and when to his own surprise, Walcott “pops up” behind these shots right in Joe’s kill zone he improvises a beautiful pivoted hook which catches Jersey Joe on the mouth, helping him win the round.


Louis was a stalker. He stalked. He stalked, and he tried to bait opponents into punching him. He was so feared, tactically if not always literally (though sometimes literally) that this was the only for him to work, especially latterly. The amount he got hit was, in actual fact, very very low for such a dangerous style. He didn't get hit that much.

When? When was any of these flash knockdowns "an issue"? I can think of only one fight where he was flashed and it was relevant on the scorecards, and even then, those knockdowns were in rounds that he was already losing, hence, under the scoring system of the day, they cost him no points, no tactical or technical undermining and required no correction on his part.

The films tell the tale of the most dominant and deadly heavyweight champion in history. Your bizarre insistence on exaggerating every single possible percieved weakness is utterly bizarre.

No champion has ever achieved what he achieved - ever, in history. He is incomparable. It is literally impossible to compare him to these others because they didn't fight at championship level for this long.

He was grotesquely past prime against Marciano. This has no meaning for his legacy ffs. Schmeling was pre-prime for me, but yes, this is relevant.

However, this excellent puncher had to hit him with more hard punches than almost any HW champion can be seen taking form a big puncher on film. It speaks for

He beat all of them by knockout. Good point. Nobody KO'd boxers like Louis. A point echoed by Billy Conn manager Johnny Ray. You have done well here to point out how amazing Louis was at KOing boxers.

You quite often make these statements; like when you do something the board "takes notice" and "raises eyebrows".

If i'm breaking this news to you i'm sorry that it's me that has to do so: but that does not happen Mendoza.

Nonsense. Had Conn somehow survived against Louis in the 13th (Which was almost impossible), Louis would have won the fight by taking the 14th and 15th.

Conn had an incredible chin, but he wasn't able to absorb the type of beating Louis did at the hands of Schmeling.

Louis is a stalker-puncher. What he does is work on the opponent's movement and he tries to bait them into tactical errors while placing them under excruciating mental pressure. When this works, you have the audacity, the dishonesty or the stupidity to write off his world class opponents as being "silly".

Oh, and you've made yet another "factual" error. Had Walcott survived the 11th somehow, the fight would have been tied on the judges scorecards, 6-2, 5-5, 4-6. So Walcott didn't "have the fight won" at all, that's more bias BS/ill-informed BS. Hard to be sure which.

it's unfair to list Charles who got him while just past-prime but OK to mention Marciano who got him while washed up?

Yeah...sounds like Mendoza logic.