His toughest fights would be with Schmeling and Baerand possibly an on form Sharkey. He easily outboxes Carnera and stops him,He stops Stribling in about 8/9rds. Potentially he could win all of these,but he could lose 3 also.
Im thinking the same thing. How would you generally rate Schmeling? I don't know if he merits ATG status?
I rate Schmeling very high, in the top 20 heavyweights of all time but just short of ATG status. He defeated several very good fighters decisively - during their prime or close to it- consider he stopped Johnny Risko (ring fight of the year) nobody stopped Risko in his prime. He stopped Stribling. (Only man to stop Stribling in his career over 200 fights) Slaughtered Mickey Walker - who was holding his own at Heavy until Max. And of course Stopped Louis only Marciano did it and that was the ghost of Louis. The loss to Baer hurts Max. And the robbery to Sharkey. He ended up with only 1 successful title defense in the big picture and Louis crushed him in the rematch leaving some with the impression he caught an unready Louis the first time. Outside of the Louis fight, his resume is solid nothing more. But that win is a truly great win.
