As to the original thread topic: I find it interesting that all of the candidates for "Best Louis Opponent" had their best days before or after his dominant title reign. All of them won the lineal champ achievement trinket. Even allowing that there was a long gap because of WW2, it seems odd that we would assume that all the guys who did their best work in the late 30s or the 40s happened to all suck. One or more of the guys Louis vaporized during his reign might have won the championship if he hadn't been there. Just saying.
Joe Louis... Primo Carnera: KO06. Max Baer: KO04. Max Schmeling: KB12. Max Schmeling KO01. Jack Sharkey: KO03. Bob Pastor: WU10. Bob Pastor: KO11. James J. Braddock: KO08. Tommy Farr: WU15. Nathan Mann: KO03. John Henry Lewis: KO01. Tony Galento: KO04. Arturo Godoy: WS15. Arturo Godoy: KO08. Abe Simon: KO13. Buddy Baer: WDQ07. Billy Conn: KO13. Billy Conn: KO08. Lou Nova: KO06. Tami Mauriello: KO01. Jersey Joe Walcott: WS15. Jersey Joe Walcott: KO11. Ezzard Charles: LU15. Cesar Brion: WU10. Cesar Brion WU10. Omelio Agramonte: WU10. Omelio Agramonte: WU10. Lee Savold: KO06. Jimmy Bivins: WU10. Rocky Marciano: KB08. Today, some think very little of these fights, but they were all considered high quality fights at the time, and I still consider them as such today. What a RESUME that man had! Edit: Hit <ENTER> by accident before the post was finished.
Not sure where to go with this discussion. But---didn't most boxing historians / experts rate Louis # 1 or 2 in the 1960's? I thought someone posted this awhile back. Thanks
The overall quality of Louis' opposition was far greater than virtually any heavyweights ever, bar Ali and possibly Holyfield. In sixty nine pro fights; thirty eight of them were against ranked opposition. He lost three. That is absolutely absurd, no matter your thoughts on the era. As far as quality of opposition goes, you won't find any other heavyweight with a record like that; hell, I've never come across another FIGHTER with a better score. That said, raw numbers do not tell the entire story, and I understand that. In a straight comparison between Louis and the ten you named, it should plainly obvious Louis' résumé ranks above Marciano, Liston, Bowe and Tyson. I will elaborate if you want me to, but I shouldn't really need to. Both Foreman and Frazier have better lone wins, in Ali I & Frazier I; but you'd have to decide whether or not you like one solitary, all-time great win then a handful of decent ones, or whether you like 25 decent ones with five or six good-to-great ones mixed in. For me it's the latter, every day of the week. I am okay with somebody ranking Lewis and Holyfield's résumés above Louis' on the basis of either being more familiar with their opposition and/or preferring the less common but higher level wins. I personally, wouldn't rate Lewis' wins higher as the only win of Lewis' which stands out as being better than any of Louis' is Vitali. I'd probably agree Holyfield's best wins are better than Louis', though. In a similar vein, I could forgive somebody for thinking Holmes' has a better résumé, but he doesn't. Norton, Witherspoon, Weaver, Mercer Williams, Cooney, Berbick and Smith only really rank super highly if you're massively influenced by size. However, as a collective, they were not better than Nova, Simon, Pastor, Carnera, Braddock, Godoy, Galento, Lewis, Conn, Schmeling, Max and Buddy. And even if you were to argue they were, Louis still has over a dozen other world level wins. Holmes doesn't. Ali has the best resume in his heavyweight history, with nobody particularly close after. So no argument from me, there. Even allowing for every single, possible inch of leeway, there still isn't ten heavyweights with a better resume than Louis. There just isn't.
Or a CUDGEL! When Figg fought and inevitably defeated someone with Cudgels there weren't any rematches that I know of. If he'd been around in Louis' time, challenging with Swords and Cudgels, I would have urged Louis to draw the "Instruments of total destruction line" with Figg.
Agreed !!! Figg was not only the first heavyweight champion he was also a true gladiator. I’d rather be thrown in the ring with an angry Mike Tyson than a man who fought with NO rules and used weapons
If you factor in his own condition, then his best win is the second Walcott fight. He was a shadow of the fighter that had beaten Baer. Schmeling and Conn, and he beat the heir to his throne. I don't personally think that Walcott was better than Schmeling, but if you do, then you have to give him massive kudos for the context. For his next best two wins, I would probably go with Schmeling II, and Max Baer. The Carnera win probably deserves a mention, because he had only turned professional nine months previously.
The man beat 31 opponents who were ranked in the top ten at the time of the fight. That is twice as many as any heavyweight champion outside of Ali and Holmes. The current incumbent Tyson Fury has beaten 3 opponents who were ranked in the top ten You would describe that as a pretty thin resume?
Best 3 wins (arguably because he has a lot of W's to his name and his reign at the top was so long) Braddock - winning the title Schmeling - avenging the big loss Walcott II - One last great KO against a future heavyweight champion who many thought beat him the first time around
That's a shame you aren't replying, McGrain. I challenged you to back up your statement that it was 'astonishingly bad' and offered reasons why I felt the post you thought so poor, in fact, was a valid argument. You made a strong statement and the only rebuttal to what @Omega74 said with any meat on the bones has come from @George Crowcroft who gave a list of contenders that Louis fought that should put us naysayers back in our boxes. What Omega said was the right side of outlandish to create debate, as it has, without being either ridiculous or without comment to provide context. Being honest, I don't see any year in Louis' reign where he walked a gauntlet of fire that several other champions would not have negotiated without too much trouble. As I say, it's not a reflection on Joe's abilities just that the challengers he faced during his reign were never going to really test him. The board would be boring if we all just stated the obvious ad nauseum that Joe Louis was the best, SRR was the best lb for lb, Monzon was great, Mayweather is an arse and Fury is fat etc. I like threads that challenge long held preconceptions and get us to examine them as long as it's civil and not based on prejudiced suppositions like modern trumps old or vice versa 'just because'. As a moderator, you should encourage that rather than refer anyone with a different opinion to your own to Boxrec or Check Hook. If you want to call something an 'astonishingly bad post' have look at a thread that someone started who seems to be arguing - though it's so poorly written that it's really hard to be sure - that modern training means modern heavies beat old welters and bases his evidence for that on the tales of partying and sex in Mike Tyson's autobiography. Truly, sir, the post is utter toilet. Anyway, please take this not as an attack as I'm not angry with you. Just disappointed.
It was a joke based on what my dad used to say 'not angry just disappointed'. I thought it was more widely known, Never mind. No offence was intended and, clearly, from your response, none taken.
