How do some people rank Louis over Ali?

57-1 before retiring with his only defeat avenged in absolutely emphatic fashion.

Faced 4 lineal champs in his first 2 years of his career.

Billy Conn is rated higher all time than Frazier, Foreman & Liston, so yes he does have a win over an opponent better than them, although he was a light heavyweight.

 

Agreed.
Sometimes when I watch the fight back I forget Schmeling actually lost it and get surprised still hahah.

How do you explain that?

 

Baer actually used an accurate jab to time Schmeling as he was coming in, overly aggressively.
Then he was ripping 8 punch combinations with hooks and uppercuts, most landing on Schmeling's guard but they were wearing him down. Given Baer's impressive stamina (best condition he'd ever been in) his punches never lost their weight, and he was consistently throwing them throughout the fight.
Lastly, it was an underperforming version of Schmeling, the same one who would lose to Steve Hamas just after.
It was a competitive fight but Schmeling fought Baer's fight by coming to him so much and getting tagged with the jabs, he also didn't back away effectively which allowed Baer to throw his combinations, a mistake he wouldn't make against Louis.
1936 Schmeling probably outclasses Baer, but it's still a good win for Baer regardless.

 

1 thing you also have to wonder is would this even be a debate if Ali didn’t receive every favourable decision in a close fight?

Young, Norton II, Norton III, Shavers, Doug Jones. Even 1 of these decisions going against him emphasises even more how consistent and utterly dominant Louis was compared to every other heavyweight champion in history… as if that wasn’t incredibly obvious already.

Louis has Walcott, but he knocked him out in an immediate rematch and would have only been the second blemish in his record at that point

 

Interesting point. The dodgy calls started coming for Ali after Zaire, so on one hand you could excuse what were realistically losses as being a result of age, but on the other, yes it would dent his standing to be dethroned when, on paper, he wasn’t until Spinks.

Real-world, Ali reigns from 1974-76, where Norton plainly beat him. An excusable loss? Very much so, given Ali’s age & leg damage, but it cuts his second reign in half, & deflates his overall record by rights.

 

This post has made me think surely less people would feel comfortable calling Ali the GOAT at heavyweight if he was 1-2 vs Norton.

Also it slipped my mind that all Norton 3, Young and Shavers were all after Manila, he seemed to be given rounds on the basis of absorbing punishment well as opposed to actually scoring points. Although you are right, after Manila you can hardly blame Ali for anything that happened in the ring to him Manila

 

Louis should've retired after knocking out Walcott.

The arguments for Louis are he beat more ranked fighters, had a very consistent long title reign.

But I don't think that can overcome the sheer quality of opponents Ali beat it's just a ridiculous resume honestly that no Heavyweight can compete with.

 

I think that's the key. Jones and Norton 2 were competitive and close, but not really controversial. The controversial decisions came when Ali only was a shadow of his former self, so for most they don't seem to matter much.

 

Baer didn't demonstrate his power on durable opposition. Schaaf is really his only somewhat impressive knockout. His other foes were kayoed quicker by non-punchers. George Foreman would be Baer's kryptonite as well

 

Yes, Baer did. You wouldn’t call Carnera durable!? Have you watched this fight?

& Norton wasn’t durable anyway. 188lb moderate punching JL Garcia stopped him cold.

 

Carnera was taken out more quickly by Leroy Haynes of all people

who did Nova stop outside of Baer again?

 

The first part of this comment is crucial. If you can't write the numbers down in order, you're almost handicapping your ability to rank Louis above Ali. Maybe even completely.

 

Foreman's first attempt saw him placing 5 at 1 and not remembering the number 7. His second saw only bullet points written laterally over one giant underscore. Shame. That one was written after Schulz.

 

Meanwhile, Louis is my No.1.

Ali was undoubtedly the better showman and also fought in a more modern and nowadays more popular era... He had the greater opponents as well, which give him a good bonus and I'd favor him in a matchup against Louis...

But I think Louis still edges it and here are the reasons:


1. Overall, Louis stood out more in his time. It was just the Louis era... People may think of Schmeling too, but more for political reasons.
Louis was the big and undisputed star for black and white Americans.

When you think of Ali... you think of more personalities that formed the 60s/70s era, like Foreman, Frazier, Liston and Norton and so on...

I think Ali had the better opponents...but he also fought in a more advanced era. No disrespect intended toward the older fighters, but I think the generation after WW2 became bigger on average (also because of nutrition), fought under better and more stable circumstances with better amateur backgrounds (Patterson, Ali, Frazier and Foreman were all Olympic Champions...). Over the decades the fighters became successively technically sounder and less rough... For example, compare the number of good jabbers in the '30s to the number of good jabbers in the '80s.

I believe Louis was throughout his whole career betting favorite (even against Marciano). Ali was underdog against Liston and Foreman (but great that he won)...

Ali had more losses (Frazier, Norton, Spinks vs. Schmeling), opponents at eye level (Frazier, Norton vs. ?) and more disputed or close wins (Norton, Young, Shavers vs. Walcott I) during his time as world champion...



2. Louis was the king of rematches (Schmeling, Godoy, Conn, Buddy Baer, Walcott...) and crushed many careers. I don't see big improvements in Ali's rematches (also opponents faded, like Frazier)



3. Louis vs. Schmeling on the brink of World War II was perhaps the most historically important sporting duel of all time with meaning beyond pure sport



4. I think Louis had the better pre-championship career, because he dominated a bunch of former ex-champions, even though he lost to Schmeling. Pre-championship Ali was unbeaten but against weaker opponents and struggled against Henry Cooper and had his hands full with Doug Jones.

+ old Louis still had a series of good wins and was a decent contender.


But anyway, Ali had the greater ring battles, upset wins and 60s Ali was just outstanding... It's pretty close and both are interchangeable.

 

I have Louis 2nd and Ali 3rd and heres some things to think about.

When saying Louis didn't fight the same quality of opponent as Ali something we've got to remember is that Louis's top contenders didn't stick around to build a career after losing to him. With Ali your Foremans, Fraziers, Nortons, Jimmy Youngs, Lyles, Shavers, Ellis, Bugners and Quarrys all stuck around to fight each other. With Louis this didn't happen. Carnera, Braddock, Schmeling, John Henry Lewis, Buddy Baer, Simon and Conn were gone right after their fights with Louis. Besides Braddock and Schmeling the whole group were in their 20s. Tommy Farr hung around a few fights and retired at 27. For the guys who did hang around these guys absence meant there was no one impressive to fight and build a resume off of.

Louis was hurt more by his break than Ali both in the ring and resume wise and could have done more with those years. Ali really got to all the top HWs in the 60s and 70s and the ones he didn't get to weren't options in that timeframe. Who could Ali have gotten to during his exile he didn't? Leotis Martin and Thad Spencer are the only WBA tournament participants Ali didn't fight. Any activity during this stretch likely is balanced with being less active later on. Louis could have fought 30 times during WWII. With Louis you had Lee Murray, Elmer Ray, Joe Baksi, Curtis Sheppard, Buddy Walker, Maxim, Lem Franklin, Lee Oma and Turkey Thompson. And this is just Americans this is not to mention all the European fighters who would have been fighting in the US if not for the war.

Ali went 7-2 against Foreman, Nortonx3, Frazierx3 Jimmy Young and Lyle. He could have very easily went sub .500 if he fought Foreman another night etc. Theres nowhere you can do this with prewar Louis. Louis didn't need trilogies because whenever a fighter did well enough to justify a rematch he stopped them usually easily.

Louis is 5-0 against superheavyweights with 5 KOs and 16 knockdowns. This is going by the strict 250 pound definition.