Louis`s jab was brilliant and amazingly accurate setting up stinging fast combo`s, did he have the best lead hand in heavyweight history? https://www.google.com/search?q=Joe...69i57j69i60.1782j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Its right up there along with Holmes, Ali and Liston Louis was a genius. No one threw combinations like that.
Certainly the best left hand in boxing history. Jack Blackburn was a teacher. There was nobody better than Blackburn. Of course Louis loved what he was doing and was a sponge. As Jack said Joe was "nuts about fightin"
His jab is not mentioned enough. A very underrated piece to his arsenal. Triphammer quick and powerful at the same time.
His jab was great against slow fighters. But as Schmeling proved and this video demonstrated, a fighter with a quick right counter would be a problem for him.
He blitzkrieged Schmeling. That worked in his favor in that situation. But that doesn't discount he pawed with his jab at certain times in his fights, its like he would get lazy with his jab and use bad form. A fighter with a quick counter straight right hand would catch him more times than not. Especially a fighter that was quick enough to lead with his right in a orthodox stance. But only one heavy was quick enough to do that consistently.
He also transferred his weight too far forward while jabbing more than once. See the early part of the Galento fight for example. This was due to not angling the torso enough. Robinson frequently made this mistake as well, especially when fighting significantly shorter or crouching fighters (see the Lamotta and Basilio fights).
He had a clever jab and held his lead hand out near his opponents head so it didn`t have far to travel.
nope, that's a myth, I'm sure you know he struggled with defense, he also struggled with what I said above
Bill Corum called his jab "the best and surest the ring has ever seen". Baer and Brio are the displays for the Louis jab, IMO.