Which 1930s heavyweight is second to Joe Louis?

here is an EBU 1939 World's Ratings.

it is the end of the Decade, but most of the Fighters Rated have been around at least a few years prior.

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Schmeling/ Baer?

 

Braddock or John Henry Lewis. I would put Tommy Farr 4th.

 

I know what you mean.
I can't really place anyone above those two guy's (apart from Louis obviously) in that era .
I find it hard to separate them tbh.

 

Schmeling by a whisker over Baer. The likes of Lewis and Braddock aren't remotely in the running.

 

My take, only for fights in the decade;
1 Louis
2 Schmeling
3 Sharkey
4 Carnera
5 M.Baer
6 Loughran
7 Schaaf
8 Stribling
9 Hamas
10 Braddock
11 Pastor
12 Uzcudun
13 K.Levinsky
14 M.Walker
15 Mann
16 Ramage
17 Godoy
18 Nova
19 Farr
20 Lovell
21 Rosenbloom
22 Lewis
23 Lasky
24 Fox
25 Retzlaff
26 Neusel
27 Poreda
28 B.Baer
29 Burman
30 Risko
31 Galento
32 Toles
33 Griffith
34 Gains
35 Trammel
36 Blunt
37 O.Walker
38 Barlund
39 Adamick
40 Ettore
41 Reddish
42 Haynes
43 Massera
44 Knox
45 Paycheck
46 Winstone
47 Dudas
48 Strickland
49 Godfrey
50 Hankinson

 

Schmeling

 

Braddock was fighting underweight most of his career and was terribly mismanaged. Braddock finished his career 7-1 with the Louis loss and wins over 3 of my top 5. If Braddock was fighting at 195 pounds he could have been the guy between Tunney and Louis. Braddocks career is kind of WLW. He had two great runs with a bad run in between. Its very easy to compartmentalize his career into 3 chapters.

While John Henry Lewis was the LHW champ hes probably got the 2nd deepest HW resume of the era and was kinda a psuedo champion during the Braddock years with many of his HW fights designated 15 rounders.

Tommy Farr is more of a potential pick but I still think he showed enough to edge out Max Baer for 5th. I would pick him over a Baer or Schmeling. He was arguably the best British HW of the century before Lennox.

Schmelings resume if you take away the Louis win has a lot of problems that normally get called out. But the Louis win makes it all go away.

 

now that's commitment, I can't comment beyond the list above for 39, though I loosely thought 'possible' Farr and I always wondered about Toles, Burman and Nova.