The best fighter Joe Louis beat

Max was 33, knocked out Heuser with one punch a year later at 34. He didn't retire because of age, it was due to ww2. He definitely was shot in his comeback in 1947, but not in 1938.
Lewis defended his LHW belt right up until the fight with Louis, and he did it against top LHW contenders. He also defeated heavyweights in the year leading up to the Louis fight.

 

Lewis was 24. He was not old but the most prodigious of prodigys. The question is his eyesight that forced him to retire.

 

Past it, not shot. Those are two different things IMO.

 

Number 2 what? Boxing sheriffs of Camden?

 

Max!

 

Joe Walcott. He was a solid number one contender who gave him two good fights and THEN went on to being a world champion himself. He was neither green nor past it when Louis fought him.

 

Don't think he beat the best competition compared to other heavyweights that's all Jersey Joe was legit a good win though so I'll give him that

 

He wasn't past it as a boxer but Louis's power was gone after the Mauriello fight and really never came back. Louis was strictly a point fighter from that point on a very good point fighter but thats not what prime Joe Louis was at all.

 

Walcott, Conn, Lewis, Schmeling, Braddock...

I rank him very high, as high as number 2.

 

He had the Baer brothers, Tony Galento, Max Schmeling and Billy Conn and Abe Simon. Also Arturo Godoy

 

How Lewis was shot? Explain please. He was 24 y.o. and was #1 LHW, held LHW world title and beat bigger guys like Elmer Ray (7 months prior to facing Louis) and Jimmy Adamick (4 month prior to facing Louis) at HW division

 

No love for Lou Nova?

What is happening to the world?

 

He was literally blind in one eye, had more than a hundred fights under his belt, was annihilated inside of a round (mercifully) & never fought again on medical grounds.

 

Loll I was talking about Louis.
My mistake.
I've got Walcott at around 20

 

There would need to be actual signs for him being past it though and I don't think you'd reliably find any. He was two years removed from his best performance and during the fight he exploited what openings he could find and drove two hard rights straight to Louis' face, that's more hard blows than he managed in the first round of their 1936 encounter. No version of Schmeling or any other fighter would last after having their backs broken.

Not the only fighter to compete with compromised vision. Frazier was half blind yet he beat Ali.
Lewis said he had eye problems for a while before the Louis fight yet he has a solid record of defenses up to his retirement.
Being knocked out in one round by Louis hardly means a fighter is shot.
Sharkey lasted three rounds against an equally bloodlusted Louis, does that make him more prime than Levinsky, 1938 Schmeling, Tami Maurielo and 1942 Buddy Baer?