Joe Louis' scorecards vs the best boxers he fought.

Lets put this in perspective. When Louis fought Schmeling the first time he was arrogant and ****y, he had destroyed Baer who had kod Schmeling
.Louis saw no danger in the German and trained accordingly ,spending more time on the golf course and horizontally than in the gym.
It still took Schmeling 12 rds of continuous bombardment to stop him and the German ended up with one eye closed from Louis' jab.

When Louis defended against Walcott he had been out of the ring for 15 months having previously had just 10 rds of ring combat in the prior 4 years!

Consequently his timing and stamina were far from what they should have been,Louis took the fight intending it to be his swansong, he didn't think much of Walcott and had added about 10 pounds to his frame.
Walcott was in tremendous shape,having had 3 fights already that year[1947] and 7 fights in 1946.

After the close fight Louis gave Walcott a rematch.

When he fought Charles, Louis had been out of the ring in retirement for 2 years and 3 months.he was 36 years old and scaled his heaviest ever 218lbs.


Louis was finished when he fought Marciano ,all he had left was the remnants of his left jab.
Agenda driven theads like this one can be manufactured to fit any champion.
In summary Louis was a victim of his own longevity.

 

I wouldn't make an excuses for the loss to Schmeling but there's the obvious flaw in taking the two Schmeling fights as an aggregate and expecting the score cards might tells us how good a boxer Louis was.

Mendoza thinks he's "being generous to Louis" to give him "5 rounds of 13".
I suppose if you think a brutal 2 minute KO win where one boxer thoroughly destroys his opponent equates to "a full round on the scorecards", yeah that's real generous.

 

Why were Bob Pastor, John Henry Lewis, and Jimmy Bivins left off the list? Afraid those cards might have skewed your thesis in Lewis' favor? Heaven forbid.

 

I think it fair to discuss how Louis did against various opponents.

This discussion is far less unfair than dragging in WWII era contenders and arguing that Louis "ducked" them when he was in fact serving in the military and they were not top contenders while he was active (Turkey Thompson for example)

On the other hand, what impresses me about the original post is that Louis was fighting the best heavyweights in the world over a long time, from his early 20's to his late 30's.

 

Why limit it to four? One of which came pre prime and three post prime.

 

Score cards really mean next to nothing when a fight ends in a KO.

There seems to be a misconception that the quality of a boxer's boxing is measured only in the scoring of the rounds.
It's simply not true.

The scoring of the rounds is something imperfect to fall back in the event that the fight does not end in a KO.

 

When exactly should Louis have fought ray? I find that an odd comment considering you dont concede that Lewis was one of the better boxers he faced and yet Lewis stopped Ray just 7 months before Joe Louis knocked Lewis out.

Also, while a majority thought Louis lost to Walcott it certainly wasnt overwhelming. The radio broadcast paints a much more even picture of a fight that was closer than you pretend, with Walcott running in the later rounds to preserve his lead which prompts Bill Corum to say he is reenacting the retreat from Moscow.

 

Lewis had defended his lhvy title just 3 months before he challenged Louis.He had an eye problem sure, but was it any worse than Marvin Hart having a glass eye, Langford being nearly blind, or Greb being blind in one eye for several years?
How about Pat Valentino also blind in one eye?

Lewis had very limited vision in his left eye it was a condition he had suffered from for several years ,certainly from before he won his world title. I'm not endorsing a boxer fighting with impaired vision ,but to describe him." as a very sick man", gives enterely the wrong impression,imo.

"Lewis was scheduled to defend the light heavyweight title against Dave Clark in Detroit, Michigan on March 31, 1939, but the fight was canceled on March 17 after two physicians from the Michigan boxing commission examined Lewis's vision and determined that the sight in his left eye was "almost nil" from "probable traumatic cataract." Lewis was banned from boxing in Michigan after he refused to submit to an eye examination by a specialist.
Lewis went to England in May 1939 to defend the title against Len Harvey, but the British Boxing Board of Control refused to sanction the bout after examining Lewis's eyes. He returned home without signing for any other fights in Europe.
"It is true that I had slight trouble with one eye," Lewis admitted. He said the eye was injured in a 1935 fight against Abe Feldman. "That dates four years back," he said, "but it didn't prevent me from winning the title from Bob Olin and I don't know how many other fights."
On June 19, 1939, the National Boxing Association stripped Lewis of their title. Lewis, at age 25, announced his retirement from boxing and took a job as a liquor salesman"

 

Just pure garbage. You cannot look at fights where Louis was past prime and then point to these bouts as negatives. You can form this faulty logic with Any fighter. Let's take Ali. Frazier 1, Norton 1 and Holmes. Ali was not that great because of these three bouts? Just childish logic. Picking and choosing a scenario to try to justify a predetermined agenda.