As Joe Louis was one of the best textbook boxers ever, why are there no boxers now using his method?

I'd say AJ, with the exception of his last fight, is pretty similar. He doesn't have Louis head off-centre stance, though.

 

He should be, though. He has very good fundamentala for such a big man.

 

Most coaches today discourage total commitment of body weight to a punch at the expense of balance. Boxers are taught to maintain their centre of gravity and move through it. To be fair, Louis was an exceptional talent and a totally dedicated student to his legendary trainer Jack Blackburn. Many modern fighters utilize elements of Louis's style but tailor it to the increased speed and mobility in modern Boxing.

 

The idea that committing weight to a punch is bad for balance is fundamentally flawed and a good place to start. Count how many fighters you see throwing a left hook and keeping the weight on the left foot then talk about balance.
You have to know something about boxing fundamentals...they reset with Mike Tyson and those videos with him and Cus. Boxing fundamentals should have an asterisk and a footnote;"according to Cus." Gyms are full of guys that 'earned ' their credentials by watching those videos or being taught by guys that did.
So being square up has become a typical stance; this was not the case in 1977. Sadly, most people that know better lack the attention to detail to correct these mistakes. Cus developed a system that made sense to him and it is swallowed whole but he was full of it on many levels.
But that is the phase we have been in for 35years now.
If someone trained a guy in the fundamentals as they were pre Tyson, had great success and it was marketed well, it would shift again.

 

Ernie Terrell said the peek a boo was a faulty style because it obscured your vision. I was taught to have your leading leg forwards with your weight on the back foot which would be almost at a right angle to it. Being," square on ,"was always a no no,because of the balance issue, should you be caught in that position there is a good chance you might go down from a shot that you would remain upright from in the traditional stance,that's oversimplifying it a little but the general gist.

 

Joseph Parker?

 

I agree, a left hook with the weight on the left foot is just a bent armed jab. We haven't seen many fighters try to use the D'Amato style of boxing in this area, but I suspect it would be easier for our fighters if they did. D'Amato's style worked with a talented athlete while he was young and dedicated, the squared up, pendulum movement won't work for most. We see a lot of the FMJ style, but not many people can use it effectively, most just lose their left hand and leave themselves open for straight rights and left hooks. Young boxers should learn the fundamentals and develop their body mechanics before trying to copy Ali, Tyson, FMJ, or anybody else. Correct foot movement, knees bent, elbows in, chin down, shoulder toward the opponent works for most good fighters and they don't need gimmicks.

 

Judging by what I've read from the more learned on these forums over the years, and from other texts, as well as my own observations from film, I've come to think of Joe Louis, in terms of boxing style, as a complex gestalt entity.

To partially echo a previous point made by another poster on the thread, Joe Louis developed a distinctly unique style (as many great boxers do). It seems to be formed of a combination of approaches and techniques; each used to suit a situation that arose and each of which Louis executed exceedingly well.

It takes a certain innate intelligence to blend all the methods together; to work in harmony with one's overall physicality; knowing when to invoke one method and not another. Hence why the imitation of uniqueness will always appear to be less than the genuine, unique article.

 

Ha! You make a good point and I am showing my age because the shift away from Tyson to a new style is well under way: The Mayweather era..
Trying to fight like Floyd without understanding what you are trying to do will get as many people concussed as trying to fight like Ali did years ago. And you are exactly right, they give up their left hand...I tell people that want to fight like Floyd to watch George Benton.
A friend of mine, his old trainer explained that style to me in detail years ago. He fought Zora Folley, sparred Ali and Frazier in the 60s, been around Futch and a lot of great boxing guys that nobody ever heard about. He was just out of prison and needed money so I paid him to teach me.

When you start trying to convey the intricacies of the style to somebody, they lose interest. It isn't nearly as easy as it looks, especially when you start out.

 

Yeah, seems a pretty good call as well.

Ortiz is also a fundamentally sound patiently coming forward fighter.

 

Light years? No. AJ puts together combinations very well. There's a far bigger difference between him and Wilder, for example, than between him and Louis.

But AJ is a much bigger man than Louis and as such will in most cases have worse coordination. As Louis will have compared to a world class technician that's five inches shorter and 40 lbs lighter than him.

And Louis actually brought his right hand forward too much when he jabbed. You expose yourself to a left hook when you do that.

It's true that Louis's head was more off centre, as was the style in the day, but I don't consider that a plus. It makes you vulnerable to the right. Some can find an advantage there by rolling the right and counter it, but not everyone is James Toney.

 

Good points!

 

Dropped his jab a bunch too. Definitely not "textbook" technique, and he paid the price for it against Schmeling.

 

I assume the poster was referring to the way certain power-punchers (Baer, Marciano, Galento, etc.) often overcommitted to their punches, momentarily losing control of their bodily momentum and punching themselves off balance. But those guys were known for being crude and technically flawed even in their own days.