Riddick Bowe vs. Joe Louis

Great post. You make a good point about what Moore's tactics would be against Holy.

 

of course it did take two fights to beat Max Schmeling, but man alive, Schmeling was a pretty dominant heavyweight for many years. He arguably never lost to Sharkey and his game plan to beat Louis has went down in history as pretty much perfect. So much so that it is used as an example of how an inferior fighter winning with the right tactics. Louis had already beaten Baer who beat Schmeling. That’s how good Schmelings tactics were.

 

Now Michael Moorer at HW (40 pounds on Conns 174), a fellow who had to kill himself to make 175, is in the same boat than a boxer who hoppled around the ring at 156 at that age
Never gets tired with janitor.

 

Since 70% - 30% on the poll is ridiculous, I´ll help in that example.

Bowe arguably beat Holyfield three times. I´ll give him a pretty save 50% on that six fighters with an additional chance to beat Tyson or Foreman.
I´ll give Louis 50% on that six fighters too, but on three meetings with Dempsey, Rocky and Frazier his chin might fold once and he is not beating Tyson or Foreman (Tyson admitted that in an interview).

H2H Result

Bowe: 50% +
Louis: 50% -

 

Walcott. And Louis wasn’t even at his best then. Put Walcott in with Holyfield and it’s a 50-50 fight.

Schmeling and Walcott are probably a match for wins with Bowe and Moorer. And Louis didn’t need steroids to beat either of them.

Let’s look at each of these Holyfield men. Moorer was not as good as Schmeling. Was Tyson as good as Walcott by the time Holyfield beat him? Mercer was no better than Lou Nova and that’s a fact. And all those shop worn has beens, guys like Dokes, Tillis, Thomas would do very well to get past Arturo Godoy and Tommy Farr. Galento was better than Cooper. It all leaves Riddick Bowe as a bit of an unknown example. And his worth is based on beating Holyfield like Moorer did who was no better than Schmeling. Admittedly if Bowe had better opponents in his resume it is a more difficult case. But he’s probably 50-50 with Max Baer anyway.

I don’t think he was. Moorer had a light heavyweight chin because he was a lightheavy who built himself up. Good fighter. But he’s no taller than Holyfield and we know Holyfield and Charles were the same sized guys. Louis and Schmeling were both bigger men than Charles.
Nobody can argue that Ali was noticeably bigger than Joe Louis or Larry Holmes from photos. And we all saw how much smaller Holyfield was than Larry. It’s the same differential as Charles was to Louis.

Steroids.

Louis had problems with a lot less than Bowe and Holy? This is based on Bowe and Holy being able to beat each other for their best wins. Nothing else on either mans record is actually better than anything Louis did.

 

If you take a LHW, and bulk him up to 200lbs, you do not get a heavyweight.

You just get a bulked up light heavyweight!

 

Exactly. Ezzard Charles looked like a child beside Joe Louis who was then about 213lb.

you could build up ezzard Charles to 220 and he’d only look like Michael Moorer or Evander Holyfield beside Larry Holmes.

just bulked up lightheavyweights.

 

And if you take a Welterweight who matured into a LHW, you get a LHW fighting a HW.

 

There is so much for me to address in this then I would care too- but I’m assuming from your past posts my words will be fruitless I just can’t be bothered running laps. So as Jan would say I respectfully disagree.

 

Good point- the natural size argument is silly either you do or don’t perform at a weight Conn was tiny and made Louis struggle that happened just because he won does not mean he didn’t struggle with a former WW- Could Conn do the same to Bowe? Could Two Ton Toney? Could Buddy Baer?

What’s consistent is he struggled with much, much lesser opponents then Bowe and it is sweeped under the rug.

 

@Kamikaze You´re right. You found your favorite Tag Team, trollnitor & dumblab.
One is going to write a revision about the skills of Primo Carnera, causing another 100 quality pages, while the other is a verified Play-a-Fool, "denying" the progression of average human height since 1880 and trying to solve the "secret" of missing SHWs in the era of Rocky.
A brilliance of a union.

 

Jan is classy and knowledgeable I cannot take that away from him but as polite as he is I almost always disagree with him and Choklab... well I feel like he is an Alt of that Mark Ant fella.

 

That's fine, but I am not trying to claim that Conn was something more than a LHW.

 

You´re trying to claim these guys were the same weight when both of them fought Louis and Holyfield. Its as usual, nonsense.
Moorer wasn´t a LHW anymore right after his 23th birthday.

This content is protected

 

He clearly had a career at LHW at world level, and that makes him a former light heavyweight.

Personally, I do not value size nearly as much as you do.

I give somebody a lot more credit for beating a small fighter who was good, than a big one who was mediocre.

However if you want to level the charge against Louis that he struggled against smaller fighters, then Holyfield is very vulnerable to the same charge.