Could prime Joe Louis overcome 1974 George Foreman

His technique is underrated as you noted.
The other is the assumption that he'd just gas early because of the Ali fight in Zaire.
Both of those " issues" in general came from one fight. But they were caused by Ali getting into his head than the problems themselves.
Joe Louis though was hurt and dropped by much lesser men than George Foreman. There was a pattern there, unlike anything against Foreman.
Schmeling, Braddock, Galento , Baer, Walcott, Marciano all put Louis on his butt. He was dropped about 10 times during his career ( going off memory)
175 lbs Billy Conn had him reeling, out on his feet and would've beaten him if he stuck to his fight plan and not his ego in their 1st fight.
Louis had the greatest fire power in the history of heavyweight history. His power, speed, intuition, unpredictability, countering, and technique was the best or close to it in each area.
But that hid some weaknesses. Weaknesses that would've been a strength for Foreman.
His lack of defensive foot speed, his defensive laspes, his lack of a great chin , would all be exploited by Foreman.
I love Louis, and he indeed deserves to be in the top five heavyweights in history.
But if anything Foreman at his best would be all wrong for him.
Foreman could and proved even well past his best years he could take it. He walked through a few of Frazier's bombs without batting an eye.
I don't believe Louis could do that, or survive long enough to get Foreman to the later rounds.
Foreman by ko in 7-8 rds after knocking Louis down and hurting him multiple times during the fight.
This fight is a classic match of bad match up for Louis.
Louis would have a much better showing against Ali than Foreman ever would.
But Foreman would give Louis a nightmare.

 

Foremans loss to Ali had a element that Louis would not bring, the verbals prior to the bout, and during bout that Ali used to get Foreman to keep swinging on the ropes and tiring himself.

If Foreman connected with power, then Louis is at minimum is taking a trip to the canvas, and upon rising is not going to face a short tubby Galento, but a fighter taller, heavier, with longer reach and stronger than himself.

That said Louis was a ATG and to many was the ATG, so his tool kit was complete, and if Foreman got tired then those precision tools would have dismantled and chopped down Big George....TIMBER!!!!!!!!!!

 

The fight with Ali is the cherry on top that seals the deal. George has two KOs past round 6 in 47 fights (Comeback George is excluded as he was different fighter to prime George).
One against Gregorio Peralta in round 10.
One against 17-19 George Olson in round 7.
Carrying power into the late rounds is one of the best indications of a fighter's stamina.
Add the Zaire and San Juan bouts and you get a clear picture: If Louis goes past round 6 George's odds of winning take a drastic nosedive.

The pattern exist because Louis actually fought punchers multiple times. In his first career Foreman fought a staggering amount of 1 big puncher in Ron Lyle, a good puncher in Joe Frazier and a decent one when he fought a past prime Chuvalo.
We saw what a big puncher connecting flush could do to him, so it's fair to say M&B Baer could achieve it too. Everyone's using the same argument against Louis here so might as well extend the courtesy.
And unlike Louis against [Braddock, Galento, Walcott, Baer] Foreman did not get floored by flash knockdowns, he was genuinely hurt.

Louis did get dropped by lesser men than Foreman but Foreman got dropped by lesser men than Joe Louis.

Now you've open a can of worms and the wind is blowing the cologne back in your direction.
Billy didn't actually floor Louis. Young did floor Foreman.
Billy fought his heart out, was broken down and taken out.
Young outboxed and beat Foreman.

Billy by the way has knockouts over people who ranked as high as no.2 and no.3 at heavyweight, Bob Pastor and Gunnar Burland.

Louis being momentarily staggered by him after 12 rounds of intense fighting isn't the criticism you think it is.

Louis showed ability to move in and out of range, duck, weave, parry, slip and counter.
You can see him display all these techniques on film

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He lacked a truly great chin but he definitely had a very good one, one that would last 5 rounds against the very best, and that's as far as it would need to serve Joe in this one.

Another thing that most choose to omit, when Louis got dropped, how often did he get dropped again by the same punch, or in the same fight?
Foreman could very well floor Louis early, but those wide looping hooks won't find their mark, Louis made adjustments, and Foreman isn't a quick genius like Schmeling.

Foreman was an aggressive slugger.
Let's see how Louis did against that style:

M. Baer: ko in 4
B. Baer: Ko in 6, ko in 1

Louis was a counter puncher, sometimes more of a pressure fighter, others a more defensive counter puncher, depending on who he was fighting.
Against Foreman he wouldn't stand and trade, he would look to move in and out to keep himself safe, create openings with his jab, duck the hooks in close or push himself unto Foreman to stifle the punch momentum from George (ala Machen v Liston for example).

He is as stylistically favored as one can be against Foreman because George doesn't even have the option to cut the ring off a weak cutie and beat them up or fight a puncher who can't deny him the trades like Liston or Tyson because they lack the ability to back up.

Foreman in his later years was much wiser in how he paced himself and set up his punches. If a younger Foreman had these attributes he would have possibly saved himself the hick ups against Lyle, Young and even Ali.

 

I don't know who would win but to suggest a fighter who was only stopped once in eighty one fights and was fighting at an age when his opponent was greeting people at Caesars would get knocked out in the fourth round is fanciful.

 

He was almost knocked out in four rounds by Lyle. Probably would have been had the bell not been there. While that wasn’t a peak Foreman, he was closer to his best than Lyle was to Louis.

 

Louis KO in 8 or so … Joe will know he’s been in a fight and might have to get off the canvas to win.

 

I don't get these comments knocking on Joe's defense, when he fought bigger opponents like Max Baer and Carnera he was very agile and defensively conscious, imo most of the knockdowns happen when Joe is slacking\snoozing off. He won't be in this match.

 

As always Mike you are way too kind, a gentleman among fiends!!!!

 

*Johnson

Awfully hard to KO people past the 6th round when barely anyone could get there.....in fact only 4 people besides the two you named ever got there!!!

The first, Robert Davila, had 35 fights worth of experience (winning record of 21-14) and Foreman only 7. On top of this the fight was and 8 rounder and Davila won just two rounds out of the 21 total on the judges cards.

The second was Levi Forte when Foreman had just 11 bouts under his belt. Foreman was still 4 years off his stunning KO of Frazier to put things into perspective. Foreman dropped him in the second and all three cards were 10-0.

Next up was Peralta and Foreman still only had 15 bouts under his belt to Peralta's 90. On top of this Peralta was a top 10 contender and lost to the young Foreman by the scores of 9-1, 5-4 and 7-3. That's a pretty good coming out party against a tough experienced rated fighter who had been stopped twice in his life, one via a cut. The next year Foreman stopped him in 10. He'd taken Bonavena the distance twice including a draw right before the first Foreman match.

After Johnson he had a streak of 12 fights where no-one could get past the 4th including Frazier and Norton.

After that we only have Ali, The Goat, and Jimmy Young who could last.

So the whole past 6 round thing is a bit of a misnomer given the only guys that could even take him there after he hit his prime were Ali and Young.

Mike Tyson cops similar judgement but anyone can see the likes of Tucker and Bonecrusher were heavily tilted to survival and hugged the poor guy to death. He still had plenty of sting left if needed at the end of both bouts.

 

You give Galento too much credit IMO. Louis got dropped by people of all shapes, sizes and styles. A very common factor was simply Louis getting himself into poor positions.......in a nutshell he sometimes put his opponent into good positions to drop Joe himself. It was the nature of the beast that was Joe Louis - he backed himself and invested heavily at times.

Godoy gave Joe trouble by heaping the pressure on and taking it to him. His attack featured plenty of wide swing blows too. On paper Joe should have carved him up like a thanksgiving turkey.

What i was conveying is that the way you describe this match is as if Joe only has to turn up to win. Wins vs ATG's (one that has been stopped once in a million fights mind you and has immense power while being a great finisher) seldom go as one sided as that.

 

That he did, it's in the nature of any offensive machine. That said, I don't think it was just Louis being careless here, pretty much every Louis opponent had some sort of game plan against him, and the results varied depending on how good both the plan and the fighter carrying it out were. I think Galento is being a bit too stigmatised here, due to his image as a fat slob. Sure, he was far from a Ken Norton or Razor Ruddock as far as quality contenders go, but he was not the bum some have portrayed him as. He had over 100 fights by the time he faced Louis and had beaten his fair share of contenders like Al Ettore, Nathan Mann and Natie Brown, as well as Lou Nova after the Louis fight.

He clearly had some semblance of skill and craftiness in the Ring, and both the KD and the hook that he landed on Louis in the 1st were both clearly deliberate on his behalf. You can see him stepping into position to hit Louis prior to the KD while having his right arm extended to block Louis's left, and he can be seen crouching while moving his feet and head outside of Louis' lead arm prior to the hook upstairs. Saying that it was just Louis putting himself in a bad position feels like turning a blind eye to what actually happened.

It's not quite as rare as one would think. Look at Foreman vs Frazier, Ali vs Liston, both Louis vs Schmeling fights and most of Ali vs Foreman. If the styles and the gap in ability are there, it can happen, it's the Heavyweights. The styles favour Louis here, and he is just plain better.

 

Louis did carve Godoy up (& I mean disfigured him), albeit at the second time of asking.

 

That's all fair enough. Not many late round KOs because no one was surviving.
Nevertheless, Joe did pace himself better than any puncher we've seen, Foreman's stamina still doesn't inspire confidence as when someone good did take him deep into the fight he got less effective.
An early KO for Foreman is the best outcome for him here and I believe it's common sense.

 

Remember the 1974 version of George Foreman was pre Zaire, depending on which month he battles Joe Louis in this fantasy match. The pre Zaire version smothers his opponents with pure offense, throwing and landing bombs, smothering his opponents as he did to Joe Frazier in Jan 1973 and to Ken Norton in March 1974, both opponents were devastated. Foreman had all of his confidence and killer instinct prior to Oct 1974. We all knew that the great Joe Louis has visited the canvas in title defenses, especially his knockout loss to Max Schmeling in 1936 as Max would say: Louis was vulnerable to the right hand. Foreman would prove to be a much larger opponent than Louis was accustomed to fighting and who had numbing power in each thudding blow. If Joe can survive Foreman's power early and force him to use up all of his power until round the 5th round then Louis has a big chance to persevere as George usually disposes of his opponents early. But if Louis gets tagged early with a big right hand from Foreman, and then catches many more, it could soon be over for Joe Louis as he would be on the defensive, which Louis is not accustomed to fighting. Foreman early, Louis KO 6.

 

Louis corrected the right hand vulnerability after the loss to Schmeling, which was a pre-title fight. Other than that I’d agree with what you said.