Joe Louis vs these world class southpaws. Tarver was huge, he was basically a small cruiser so he'd be a heavyweight in Louis's era and Byrd is one of the most skilled southpaws we've ever had at heavyweight. How do Louis fair ?
Everyone will say Louis easily but as I keep saying Louis is an unknown quantity vs Southpaws. I hate to keep repeating it but Louis did apparently get schooled in sparring by a Southpaw Light Heavyweight and then vowed to never fight a Southpaw. So these fights may not appear as simple as some might think.
Joe's pre-fight preperations and great corner see's him with his arm raised. Might take awhile & may not be pretty all rounds. But cannot picture either making it 45 minutes in the ring w/o getting clipped by one of his non telegraphed punches. I like those guys much better against the telegraphers and plodders.
Byrd can give him a good fight like Conn did but I think Louis KOs him in the end. He also blasts out Tarver in 6 rounds.
And he's also durable aswell yes I know Byrd got stopped by Ibeabuchi but he was 230+ pound monster. As I said Louis is an unknown quantity vs Southpaws and he didn't seem to fare well sparring vs one. So Byrd could give Louis alot of problems.
Byrd wouldn’t be able to anything with Louis. Tarver would have the power to hurt or KO Louis and Louis fought methodically, which could let Tarver get into a tit for tat rhythm and cause a lot of problems.
Louis was bigger, stronger, faster and it much harder than Tarver ... Byrd would be tricky for anyone but I like Joe ..