1991 Ruddock vs prime Joe Louis

Maybe someone knows the answer to this question, how many heavyweights rated in the ring top ten did Ruddock beat when he fought them? One?

 

I never would have imagined I'd be in a debate this evening on whether Buddy Baer or Galento was in the same league as Ruddock when it comes to punching power, if that's what we're doing.

Galento was a 5'9" endomorph who would have been at 160 or so if his body fat percentage was normal. Not sure I'd call him huge, especially in comparison to Ruddock, who's 6" taller or so, solid, faster and more athletic than TG. There's no comparison really. On film at least, Ruddock appears far more explosive than Galento, Buddy, Schmeling, or anybody else on Louis' resume.

I really don't see Louis just running roughshod through the 90s crowd, including Ruddock. Ruddock fought in the single best era, Louis in one of the worst. No telling how Louis handles the bigger, more athletic fighters the 90s had to offer.

 

"Galento was a 5'9" endomorph who would have been at 160 or so if his body fat percentage was normal."

What exactly are you basing this off of? Earlier in his career he looked pretty lean at 210-220;

Also, I never argued about who's more athletic, skilled or explosive; when it comes to raw power, regardless of how talented or explosive they are, what argument is there to Ruddock being in a different league of power to someone like Buddy who was 6'6 240-250 with a 90+ knockout percentage? Not to mention having a pretty freakish physique in his own right with those broad ass shoulders alongside his even more physically freakish bro. Galento, being 210-220 in shape at 5'8, would count as a physical freak himself even if he was grossly overweight by the time he met Louis. They had the type of physiques to generate good power, particularly the Baers.

Both Galento and Buddy had the best possible circumstances in their favour if they were to one-shot KO Louis when they actually landed; Galento was crouching as low as he could and sprung up with a left hook, Louis came back up immediately and fought on like nothing happened. Buddy leaped forward and caught Joe on the jaw who quite literally just strolled back into the ring 2 seconds later like he'd gone back home to get a beer.

My point is; why do you think Joe's lights will go out the moment Ruddock lands his smash when he's shown wonderful recuperative abilities whenever the big punchers he faced close to Ruddock's size actually landed under the most favourable circumstances possible for them?

 

Im so stupid I thought it said Bowe. Louis KO. A

 

Honestly I would be stunned if this fight saw the second round.

There's a cottage industry that's sprung up of people trying to denigrate Joe Louis. In his absolute prime he was not a perfect prize fighter, but IMO he was as close as it's humanly possible to get.

Next folks are going to have Razor Ruddock, a journeyman IMO, whipping Ali's ass, simply because he was modern and big, and modern and big uber alles ...

 

That was good. Thank you, sir.

The "modern beats all" posts can get tedious and occasionally obnoxious.

Ruddock was explosive sometimes, and that's it from him. That's all he has.

 

Ruddock is not a journeyman wtf.

 

The thing people don’t realize is that Ruddock beat Weaver who beat Tate who beat Bobick who beat Neumann who beat Young who beat Foreman (like a drum) who beat Frazier who beat Ali who beat Moore who beat Harold Johnson who beat Ezzard Charles who beat Joe Louis.

 

I don’t think he’s top 50 all time. YMMV.

 

He's barely above it. He had a good two year run.

Ruddock was a one armed fighter. He wasn't going to last too long. He'd get found out.

 

He was in the Ring rankings to for straight years.

 

This is true, but at the same time, he was stopped by Dave Jaco somehow. Asthma attack in the ring was the reason given i believe...

 

90+ KO percentage vs. whom? People can watch film on him and decide for themselves, but IMO, Buddy simply didn't have the juice/zip/velocity on his shots that Ruddock had on that left hand, and it doesn't appear close. For example, I don't think Buddy can produce the type of spectacular KO vs. the washed version of Dokes that Ruddock fought, and I'm not sure he wins that at all. The explosiveness just isn't there to the same degree...at least that's what I think I'm seeing.

Not that it matters much, but I do agree on Max being a physical specimen, especially for the pre-roid era. But Buddy? Big guy, but his arms have all the definition of a couple of PVC pipes.

 

I've seen Joe wobbled or hit the deck vs. guys who didn't have the reputation as big punchers, and the big punchers of the day he did fight (Galento, Buddy) didn't appear to get anywhere near the same kind of leverage and velocity as Ruddock. Ruddock was 6'3" 230ish, and seemed to put all his hopes and prayers on that one punch, which made him extremely one dimensional, but if one of those happen to connect on Joe, it's probably going to be more damaging than anything Louis has ever experienced. Ruddock is levels above anyone on Louis' resume when it comes to one punch power, or at least it appears that way on film to me, and I think he's in deep excrement if he happens to catch one on the chin. Far lesser punchers have hurt Joe. Have to believe Joe has problems if Ruddock tags him.