I think if you put Joe Louis in the place of Holmes, Louis would make it to 49-0

Bwahahahaha, cheers for the heads up!!!

 

Could happen, but as others have said, there were a few possible banana skins on the way, even before Spinks. Terrible Tim wouldn't be easy for a 33-year old Louis for one thing.

 

Fair point. I think I'm probably more sensitive to it with Schmeling because I think it has been the source of considerable revisionism involving his career and as a trump card ("If he beat Joe Louis, surely he would beat X").

I wonder if there are many other examples?

 

I know I'm an outlier in these parts but I just don't consider Max Schmeling to be a "great" fighter.

 

At this day and age most don't consider to him to be if truth be told. prior to perhaps 1970 he made a lot of expert's top 10. He was a crafty fighter from the old school. A boxer-puncher who fought against just about every type of style imaginable and engaged in a lot of wars. On the surface going into the first Louis vs Schmeling fight, it appeared as though Joe should have killed him with ease. But Scmeling studied and scrutinized Louis's style and found a weakness. Every time Joe went to throw a left jab he'd lower his right, leaving his face exposed. Schmeling and his handlers practiced and polished up a plan to expose that weakness and the result led to the bomber taking a hard sustained beating over 12 rounds. The problem was later corrected by team Louis and ultimately produced a much more seasoned and improved boxer.

 

From what I can tell, Schmeling didn't make many experts' top 10 lists until decades after he had retired, actually.

A lot of people who followed his career in real time seemed to regard him as a not-particularly-clever tough guy who packed a mean punch and also took one. Was also considered a mostly one-punch fighter early on, but he improved his left over the course of his career.

But it seems like later generations just focus on the Louis win and infer that he must have been some kind of brilliant, highly-skilled technician to pull it off, even though the tactics and strategy behind his upset were actually very basic.

 

not if he was Holmes age when they fought

 

By the 1960's and 70's Schmeling had been retired for a very long time Nat Fleischer the founder of Ring Magazine and a man who viewed a lot of early 20th century fighters in person had Schmeling as his #1 greatest heavyweight of all time at one point. Of course his list changed a few decades later, and frankly I was never a big fan of Fleischer's biased views on boxing. But it still illustrates the point that Max was highly regarded in some circles. I myself have grown to appreciate the type of fighter that Schmeling was. He was fiercely intelligent. He paid close attention to how his opponents fought before entering the ring with them. He was almost always in good shape. He could both punch and box as needed. But being a caucasian Euro fighter with a small body frame he wasn't much for taking a beating which is quite possibly what prevented him from furthering his achievements. He was actually the #1 mandatory contender for Jim Braddock's title, but Braddock's manager struck a deal with Joe Louis's people to give HIM the shot in exchange for 10% of Joe's future purses... Had Max rightfully gotten the shot he very likely would have been the first heavyweight to recapture the crown decades before Patterson actually did it...

 

Your post as a whole is fair, but I will clarify my reasoning here.

Tony Galento was not a great fighter, or even one of the best contenders of his own era, but he hit like a damn truck. You keep seeing cases where he was the first person to stop somebody, or the only other person to stop them was Louis or Baer. I can forgive Louis for getting dropped by Galento, if not necessarily for getting hit by him!

Now Jimmy Braddock is a rather odd case. He suffered from hand problems throughout his career, which blurs the picture a lot, but you occasionally hear anecdotal evidence that he hit hard. He was a feared puncher at light heavyweight, before his hands started breaking, but obviously that doesn't necessarily translate into being a puncher at heavyweight. Louis himself claimed that Braddock hit harder than Schmeling, but that his delivery was not nearly as good. We should at least put an asterisk next to this one.

Now on the Billy Conn issue, I am not a big fan of building a case against a fighters chin, based on them getting wobbled but staying on their feet. That happens all the time in fights, and sometimes a fighter is hurt, and you never find out, because they have a good poker face. This is a weak argument against Louis's durability. Also remember that Conn was the only person apart from Louis to stop the iron chinned Bob Pastor!

 

My thoughts exactly, good post!

 

To be honest, there was always a bit of a Max Schmeling fan club, but they were seen as being a bit like Calzaghe fans for much of his career.

After he beat Louis, their argument obviously gained credibility!

 

Probably, I put only Ali and Louis ahead of Larry as ATGs.

 

I cannot recall having seen Schmeling elevated beyond reason too often. That, which I have seen, tends to rest upon his long time spent in the heavyweight top-5 ('29 to '39), which does make him very worthy of study.

This time last year, there was a thread about Carnera vs Uzcudun, which led to a brief examination of the ratings of the time. I reviewed several of them; particularly those of the early 30s, during the course of the discussion. I do remember thinking, at some stage, that Schmeling seemed to be holding his ranking fairly steadfastly, despite his own results and the results occurring around him. He was certainly, for the most part, well-liked by the US press and a favorite of the NBA, I suspect. But I would have to look into this more closely to form a proper reasoning and draw any firm conclusions.

I hear you, in regard to those who would use one night of giant slaying to prop up all manner of fantastic victories for the slayer. It's kind of frustrating when people use such individual, historical upset victories in boxing, as sole basis to rest their case upon - which is, of course, as careless as it is ludicrous and deserves to be swept aside in any reasonable debate. The same goes for those, who use a single defeat as a leading factor in a boxer's overall body of work.

With the above in mind, I think it is reasonable to say both that Schmeling fought a great fight and that Louis wasn't the finished article. Only the benefit of hindsight, makes this summary statement somewhere sensible - because no one knew at the time that Louis was going to go undefeated for his next 30+ fights (with most of these being World Title defenses). Likewise, we know that Schmeling had a relatively successful career, in spite of his win against Louis.


As for examples - The common thread of ‘an upset’ is the underdog achieving unexpected success, of which there are many cases, leaving observers searching for reasons why, with a wide spectrum of ideas in supply. But, each of these occasions has its own set of unique circumstances, which shape the historical treatment of the boxers, who were involved in the ‘upset event’.

I suppose, the point is that these types of result have to be taken on balance, with the rest of the available evidence. For example and by way of analogy, should James Douglas receive a similar treatment in history as Max Schmeling, despite the scale of their respective victories being comparable?

 

I would say that Max Schmeling's record merits a closer look, even without the Louis win, but James Douglas's does not without the Tyson win.