Joe Louis v Tony Bellew

Maybe I'm biting, but here goes anyway...I admire Bellew as a tough and gutsy fighter but I think Louis would crush him.

What do you think, Unforgiven?

 

Louis would destroy him.

 

Joe destroy s him in 8.Nothing from modern day can change the effects of a belting Punch on to a chin.

 

I would be genuinely shocked to see it go 8 rounds. Unless Louis wants to carry the limited Bellew for some reason, he would knock out Tony in 3-4 rounds max.

 

That's it, then. Louis is toast.

 

With Joe's power anything s possible.

 

I'm not sure ,Unforgiven,I don't see Louis being that far behind in terms of techniques. He struggled with movers that's true. But I reckon Joe would connect enough time's to do the job.

 

Well it swings to the extreme both ways. I've had someone tell me that Valuev would be "too modern" for Joe Louis. On the other hand, you have old timers who think Anthony Joshua would have no chance against Bob Fitzsimmons or Jim Corbett. There is a middle ground.

BTW, Louis batters Bellew.

 

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a5460/evander-holyfield-quotes-0109/
Evander Holyfield, "Jesse Owens couldn't even make the Olympic team today. It's the same with boxing. I always just look at Joe Louis, I say, You know what, he kind of slow. I'd tear him up."

I've never seen Bellew fight so I can't comment on him. But I've seen Holyfield and Louis and I agree with Holyfield. Resumes don't win fights.

 

There have been advances in sports science over the years, but not a whole lot in terms of plain skill. I mean, if you compare AJ to the average heavyweight in the 1930s, AJ would be both bigger AND better. But if you compare the average heavyweight in 2018 with the average 1930s heavyweight, there really isn't anything significant.

Plus if modern=better, we should see this across the board in all weight classes. It should be a foregone conclusion that Floyd Mayweather, Jr and Erol Spence would be like gods to the welterweights (and probably middle weights, too) of the 1940's era.

Even Floyd Mayweather, Sr is more modern than say Sugar Ray Robinson or Kid Gavilan. Therefore, Mayweather Sr beats both Robinson and Gavilan. But is that likely to be a true or false statement?

 

That's a good one. However, a few qualifiers --

Holyfield's expert opinion on Louis's boxing skills is legitimate. Though even there, I'm not surprised Holyfield believes he'd beat Louis. Most great fighters believe they'd beat any man in front of them, as Wlad noted in an interview that asked about Louis. It would be helpful if Holyfield had provided more detail behind his opinion than what he said.

Holyfield's commentary on Jesse Owens is misleading. There's a lecture online that discusses the difference between Owens and the modern guys on a modern track, comparing stride lengths, etc. It's not a big enough difference to show a huge gap in boxing, IMO.

I can pull the sources if you're interested, later, but I don't have time to look them up this second.

I expect others will pull out that footage of Ali calling Tunney and Dempsey scientific boxers, others will pull Ali's earlier mockery of Dempsey against Willard, etc.

 

Can we first compare shadow boxing videos? Thanks.

 

Pardon me, but WTF does how fast a man can run have anything to do with the speed
and strength of a punch? Prove to me there is a relationship. You are saying muscles on human arms
have evolved since 1930? Yes, it's true that the average US male is larger now than in 1865 (average Union soldier was 5'6" and 160 pounds), but that's due to eating fast food and sitting on a couch watching TV.
Yes, people are much larger now than in the Middle Ages due to better and more consistent food.
But there were huge men then as now. The little armor piece you see in museums are for show only; try
picking up one of those swords, or pulling back the string on a 6' English bow.

It's obvious even to the most casual of observers that modern medicine and PEDS has made boxers
bigger on average. How has training differed? Running is still the same. The pads, heavy bags, are still they
same are they not? I doubt any trainers now think sex drains power from the legs, but otherwise what's the difference?

I'm asking seriously, no kidding around. I don't think the old guys were monsters that would KO modern
fighters in 1 one round, but to say a Bellew ( who is crap, BTW, ask Adonis) could beat a HW champ like Louis JUST BECAUSE HE IS A 21st century boxer is bunk, IMO.

 

I'd like to see a history of boxing written on the assumption that the sprint record is perfectly correlated with the quality of the heavyweight division.

That professional runner guy from the 1840s would skew the chart way out of whack, for starters.