1991 Ruddock vs prime Joe Louis

Would Louis have a chance or would he be a victim of the Ruddock smash?

 

Louis would smash him.

 

Whilst we have to favour Joe Louis ( the guy who proved himself time after time),Ruddock is a danger .
I'm sure Joe comes through some torrid round s, to start nailing Razor with his precise, deadly shots.
Joe ko 8-10 rounds.

 

Ruddock ends up horizontal, quickly.

 

Ruddock scores a knockdown, Louis scores the KO

 

Conn, 59-9-1, with only 13 KOs, weighing between 169-174, had Louis' legs looking like a newborn giraffe's with a left hook in the 12th round. Galento legitimately staggered and dropped Louis. Farr may have even buzzed him late in that fight IIRC. Louis takes that smash on the chin from Ruddock, that dude's in an REM stage of sleep. Ruddock had plenty of flaws, but he's far more explosive than anything Louis ever experienced.

 

Conn actually knew how to fight; he was able to move and attack from angles that Ruddock could never emulate. Galento, if you watch the sequence where he drops Louis, actually utilizes a pretty sneaky little shift with his feet that changed the trajectory of the punch- you can see that Louis has his glove up to block it but the move by Galento enables him to get his punch inside the Louis guard. I would submit that Ruddock never once in his career exhibited any such craftiness.
Ruddock lumbered forward with his weight heavily on his front foot. He would be target practice for Louis and his precise combinations. I expect that Louis would take a position with his lead foot close to Ruddock's lead foot and then circle to his right. Even a slight circle in that direction would take 'the smash' out of the equation and would open up Ruddock to punches he couldn't avoid or counter; his being front foot heavy would work against him heavily.
Calling Ruddock explosive is being very kind. I guess he was 'explosive' if you stood in stupid places and gave him time to figure it out, set himself up, and then react to it. But Lennox Lewis, very green at the time, took the angle I described above and dispatched him without any issues. Tommy Morrison stopped him and he didn't hit Tommy with 'the smash' and Tommy liked to get hit with other people's best punches and was a remarkably unskilled guy.

 

Bottom line on Galento as far as I'm concerned, he had a boatload of losses in one of the most dog crap eras in the history of the sport. If he were fighting in the 90s, he probably has a string of early losses before we ever hear of him, then just vanishes like a fart in the wind. BTW, Ruddock had only one fight in three years before Morrison. Prime Ruddock probably hangs around at least as long as B. Baer or Abe Simon did in Louis' first fight with each guy, and would be FAR more dangerous while he's in there.

Take the 10 best fighters from the 30s...or 10 best on Louis' resume.. however you want to do it, and line them up side by side, tale of the tape and all, with the top 90s guys. It looks incredibly different. Are we CERTAIN Louis easily makes that jump and steam rolls guys like Ruddock? I have serious doubts about that, but it seems I'm in the minority, so maybe I have it wrong. We'll never know for sure..

 

Louis wins by stoppage. But Ruddock’s power and persistence makes this a dangerous fight

 

Louis knocks him out

 

2 fisted fighter vs. 1 fisted fighter

Joe Louis, all day, pretty much every day.

 

damn.. you nailed it.

 

So you think Ruddock left hook was equal to Galento left hook?

 

Based on what, Conn wobbling a weight drained Louis in the later stages of a fight? A crouching 230 pound man who hit him with full momentum on a left hook? Nobody's denying Ruddock has the pop to stun or drop Joe but on what basis is he falling asleep off of one smash on the chin? Say what you want about the skills of Buddy and Galento but what you can give them credit for his that they're huge and punch pretty damn hard. And when they both knocked Louis down they had a ton of momentum in their favour on delivering those left hooks yet Louis got up and strolled back into the fight like nothing happened in seconds. He's got some great recuperative abilities and I see that making the difference here.

 

Yes sir. At the very least it's equal.