ChokLab Says This Clip Proves Louis Was The Same Size As Foreman and Norton

Joe fought at 207lb in 1942 aged 27 years. George Foreman was 217lb aged 24. That's not a lot of difference between heavyweights is it?

Then years later stood together they look comparable.

Where do you get this business that Louis was no bigger than 200lb? He was 218lb for one title fight. He was never fat.

 

comedy gold. Mcvey in the bathroom with a tape measure!

 

Joe Louis fought twenty or so exhitions the year he met Charles. He was coming off an "extensive exhibition tour" rather than a Retirement. Joe was knocking out guys like Pat Valentino and Nino Valdes that year. He was not fooling around. He tangled with rated guys like Rex Layne too.

 

Well we need to scrap the weight divisions how they are and follow dog and **** fighting rules, we need equal weights to make everything fair.

 

Well giving away 20lb is a disadvantage no matter which way you look at it if we are being honest.

 

Not much difference. Louis was old then too so probably looked smaller than he did when in his prime.

 

Reading through this, I think there is a major difference between Foreman and Norton. Foreman was considerably bigger. He was 215-220 as a young man. I couldn't find weights for quite a few of Norton's early fights, but for Bill MacMurray in 1969, the year Norton turned 26, Norton weighed 202. Louis weighed 203 for Al Ettore in 1936 at 22. Norton was 205 for Ali at age 30 in 1973. I would say there is no particular difference between Norton and Louis in weight for the most part, at least until Norton moved into his late thirties and carried more weight.

Height? This always seems to cause more problems than any other measurement. This thread inspired me to do a bit of research and I came upon an article by a guy who measured himself several times each day. He was 5' 6" when he got up in the morning, and 5' 5" by evening. A physician explained that the spine expands during the night when off your feet and contracts when standing and active. It follows that taller men like these three might vary by more than just an inch every day, so a man listed as 6' 2 1/2" could conceivably be shorter than a man listed as 6' 1 3/4" (Louis' listed height in my high school's old Encyclopedia). I am not saying I can know this for a fact, only that it seems possible.

Also--again doing research, it is possible for a male to still grow some into his late twenties, although unusual. So we would have to know when Louis was measured. Most of Louis' fights came when he was 25 or younger. Almost all of Norton's fights came when he was 25 or older.

Bottom line--Louis was around 6' 2" and could carry 213 lbs. and be in top condition to defeat a fighter as good as Walcott. Norton might have been slightly taller, but probably by less than an inch and was not really a bigger man. If the two fought at the same age into their thirties, Louis might have outweighed him most of the time.

Foreman I see as significantly bigger than either, although less in height than physique and weight.

 

In 1950 Valdes had been a pro for 9 years. His record up to 1950 is quite sketchy but he was a boxer since 1941.

"Nino was a hungry teenager with big dreams when he turned pro in Havana at the tail end of 1941, knocking out Basilio Ayestaran in three rounds. Cuba was a boxing hotbed, but only for featherweights, lightweights and welters. Heavyweights were few and even fewer ones wanted to fight the young black slugger with solid power in either hand.


So Nino Valdez worked as a longshoreman and construction laborer while fighting only a dozen fights in four years, winning ten, all by knockout. In 1945 Valdez was matched with the only other Cuban heavyweight everyone avoided, a muscular fighter named Federico Malibran.


The two men went at each other with gusto. Malibran was a quality fighter, a main event performer who used a bag of tricks on his opponent, stopping the still inexperienced Valdez in the fourth round, chopping him down with combinations. Instead of moping around, Valdez asked for a rematch and stopped Malibran in eight.


"The fights with Malibran were wars," he told me, years later. "He was strong, young and fast and so was I. The first fight I was nervous and he was a seasoned fighter and I lost. I wore him down in the second fight, pounding him and he took a good shot.Those fights made me feel good. People knew who I was and I became aware that I could go far in boxing, trade with the best."


Five more years went by and not much happened. Valdez fought a few fights in Cuba and some in the United States. He fought only nine times in those five years, losing only to Archie McBride, a likeable, talented fighter managed by best selling author Budd Schulberg.


One of the big thrills of Nino's life was having boxed three exhibitions with Joe Louis in 1949 and 1950. Valdez always spoke about the Brown Bomber with reverence.


"It was solemn," he said,"like being with royalty."


In spite of the three glorious exhibitions with Louis and a string of wins over club fighters, Valdez grew discouraged. He was by then a fully matured fighter in his late twenties with an 18-4-1 record with 15 knockouts and empty pockets."

 

Fair enough.

Just too many variables for me for me to really take pictures like that as empirical proof of height difference between the two at their best, not the least of which is the fact that Louis was pictured in his advanced years and Foreman was in/near the prime of his youth. The difference seems a little more dramatic there than it had if we had side by side comparisons of the two of them in their respective youths.

I always thought Louis was at least a couple of inches shorter than Foreman, though. I don't think he would have ever been drawfed by George in a hypothetical match-up, by any means. But George still was a bit taller and looks a little bit larger in general. Same ball-park, but size edge probably would go to George.

I still think Louis dismantles George in a hypothetical match-up...But that isn't the topic of this thread.

 

Good sensible post.

Regarding Louis. He was listed as 6'2" for Walcott and Marciano fights, I know that for certain. I don't think there is a big difference in height. All three men are likely a smudge shorter than their listings. Posters like McVey will fight tooth and nail to compare assumed real life listings of one fighter to the official listings of another, exaggerating size differences even if it's by no less than an inch. Absurd waste of time.

Foreman certainly carried more weight at various points in his career than either man, it just depends on when you decide to match them. And people desperate for whatever reason to make Foreman bigger, will pick his heaviest weight and match it to Louis' or Norton's smallest weights.

If you matched 216 pound Foreman from Peralta II against the 220 pound Norton who fought Holmes & 218 Louis who fought Charles, Foreman would be smaller though not by much and likely still physically the strongest.