"Joe Louis Not Great"

Give me a break

 

If you are going to measure Joe Louis by his performance against clever boxers, then you must have a consistent set of criteria for which fighters make up the group, and which do not.

If you are not going to make any allowance for Louis being outside his prime, then the same has to go for his opponents.

Perhaps it would be more logical to pick fights where both were at least relatively close to their primes?

If you are going to set a quality bar below which you can omit a fighter from the analysis, then what exactly is it?

Champion, contender, strong contender?

You could probably set a level that would include Schmeling and Walcott but omit Pastor, but you would not be able to set a level that included Conn but omitted Pastor.

Give me your criteria, and I will give you a fair list of names!

 

Sigh, many errors as usual.

1 ) Lewis and Klitschko were mobile big men with faster feet than Louis. Both were 5x better than any big lump Louis beat. Think before you type please.

2 ) If you want to use a rounds one to rounds lost ration on the best 4-5 fighters they fought, they shine over Joe Louis rather easily. Lennox never lost a decision. Vitali never lost more than 3 rounds on ANY score card. See where this is going, Dino?

3 ) Wlad was 39 years old vs Fury. I don't count last performances at that age. In Louis case, I did not count Marciano either, so there is consistency for you.

4 ) Wlad beat Jennings by 5-7 rounds on the judges cards. A wide decision and Wlad was 39 years old for this fight, clearly slowing down.

Now please tell me you learned something.

 

To point out the obvious, Holmes was old and inactive vs. Tyson, and in his 40's for Holyfield. Hardly worth mentioning. He was still good over 40, beating Mercer, and losing a close one to McCall.

Holmes won the re-match over Spinks, the establishment stuck it to him. He wasn't Joe Louis lucky on the cards for sure.

I did not mention Marciano, but Louis was on a nice winning streak when he meets Charles who severely beat him. The only time Holmes lost rounds pre-age 36 is the Spinks fight and that one was close.

Nothing you can write can change history or the facts that the best boxers Louis meet in fact outboxed him until his power finally caught up to them late.

Bottom line, Louis was pretty easy to hit, and was slow footed. With a size advantage those problems were less pronounced, but what happens if there was a bigger man than say the sub 200 pound Schmeling who could also box? IMO, Joe's in trouble, and he didn't have Holmes chin for sure.

 

This is off topic, but i always argue with my younger cousins, nephews and coworkers about this subject. The epic lebron james vs michael jorda debate for instance. They want to give Lebron so much credit for his "stats" in nba finals games where he LOST or was playing against a mediocre team that would be garbage in another era. Its very silly and a weird way to measure greatness.

 

Far past it vs Walcott? Not really. Walcott was the same age, wasn't he?

And speaking of Farr, Tommy gave Louis a hard fight. Likely taking 5-6 rounds with maybe one even. The fight is out there on film. Score it. No re-match was given here.

 

Correct. I posted information that says 169, but either way below 170.

 

Your "source" is arrant hearsay which would never be allowed into a court of law.

There was a weigh in, and there were weights given. That is evidence. It takes more than Bert Sugar blabbing about an event he was not present at for me to even consider it evidence, especially since the weights for Conn in Conn's fights surrounding this one were always higher than 174, let alone down in the 160's.

"If you look around, you will probably see more in the 160's for Conn."

Thanks for the snarky remark, but I have already looked around and the last time Conn weighed less than 170 was for Fred Apostoli in February of 1939, about 2 1/2 years earlier when Conn had just turned 21. He was over 170 for all the 14 fights up to Louis, and even over 180 a few times.

Conn never fought at a listed weight of less than 170 at any time after the Apostoli fight, which makes sense as he was still filling out. For me, 174 seems surprisingly light.

 

What sticks out to me in this rather weird bunch of stats.

Louis won 4 fights and lost 2. Holmes won 2 fights and lost 4.

Louis was 22 and Max Schmeling 3 months short of 31 for Schmeling 1. At 22 Holmes was an amateur getting knocked out by Nick Wells. Schmeling was probably, other than possibly Louis, the best heavyweight in the world.

Louis was 36 for his next loss to Charles, who was 29. Charles was the best heavy in the world at the time.

Holmes was 28 when he beat Norton by the closest possible score--one point. Norton was a couple of months short of 35 and going back.

Witherspoon had only 15 fights up to the time he fought Holmes. He could be viewed as green. This was another split decision, with box rec claiming a poll of the ringside press favored Witherspoon.

Spinks, Tyson, and Holyfield were undefeated when they fought Holmes. And also after they fought Holmes as he lost to all of them. He was aging, but if you dwell on Charles, sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Conn, Walcott, Schmeling---Louis did knock these men out, so there is no question he beat them decisively, something Holmes didn't do to any of his six.

Bottom line here is that Louis was world class at an age at which Holmes was being KO'd in the amateurs, so how much should we hold Schmeling 1 against him. By the time he lost again, at 36, I think he was a few months older than Holmes was when Holmes lost to Spinks. I see little difference in the old age stuff.

As for Schmeling II, I guess you could call Schmeling, a few months short of 33 aging, but he was younger than Norton. And Louis simply destroyed Max rather than barely edging out the slimmest of slim margins of one point on two of the three cards.

 

I agree that Louis got the better results in these fights and that he certainly hit his prime at a much younger age than Holmes did. And I certainly didn't mean to overstate the importance of these stats. But they're not "a weird bunch of stats " by any means and they show why SuzieQ's argument wasn't really an apples-to-apples comparison, imo.

 

"weird bunch of stats"

Okay, a poor choice of words.

What I should have written the age stuff is sort of weird, because both lost all their fights after 35, and Louis is penalized in the first Schmeling fight for being 22 to Max's actual age of 30. But I would question whether that is an advantage. In the in-between years, Louis just did better in the examples used. Holmes struggled more with Norton & Witherspoon than Louis did with Schmeling 2, Conn, or even Walcott.

 

That round percentage stuff relies heavily on not counting the last round in a KO fight, but I assume the guy scoring a KO would have won that round if the loser somehow got saved by the bell.

For example, in the first Conn fight, after 12 rounds (36 rounds on the scorecards), Conn was ahead 20-15-1. But adding in the 13th, it becomes 20-18-1. If it were a 14 round fight, Louis could have edged out a win on rounds by winning the 14th.

In the second Walcott fight, this is even more obvious. Walcott was ahead 13-12-5 after 10. Adding in the 11th puts Louis up 15-13-5 and actually ahead on the fight.

Frankly, I don't see where this 40% comes from other than the Charles fight. Louis won most of the rounds against Walcott and Pastor, and was close to Conn in the first fight, and ahead if we consider the second. Louis was, after all, not ever outpointed by anyone, other than Charles when he was 36 and had laid off for two years.

 

Put it this way.

I don't think that he retired because he thought that Walcott had been a bad stylistic match up for him!

Yes he was well past it.

The pre fight medical report even suggests that he had brain damage at this stage!

 

Walcott had been more active than Louis he had 3 fights that year before challenging Louis and 7 the year previously fighters age at different rates Louis lost 4 years and he was never the same after the War.
Walcott peaked later than Louis.
Louis injured his hand against Farr it was 6 months before he fought again.
After the Louis fight Farr had a further 4 fights in the US all at MSG.
Five months after the Louis fight he lost to Jim Braddock.
Two months after that he lost to Max Baer.
Nine months after that he lost to Lou Nova.
One month later he lost to Red Burman.
Given those results ,how could he reasonably be given a rematch with Louis ?

 

Holmes had a torn biceps muscle against Norton.