Who is greater P4P fighter Joe Louis or Sugar Ray Leonard?

I think it boils down to how different people treat their own P4P ratings. Given variations re applied criteria that I’ve read, I can see equally valid arguments being posited for Louis or Leonard.

 

Yes, I was quoting you to point out we rank both similarly, mate.

 

Louis is a top 10 ATG whereas I have Leonard in the top 15. Frankly, Louis has a good argument to be top 5 although I don’t have him quite that high myself.

 

Tier 1 ATGs:
Robbi, Langford, Greb, Armstrong, Benny Leonard, Charles, Pep
Tier 2:
Gans, Fitz, Moore, Ali, Louis, McFarland, Walker, Tunney

I think depending on how you see things, SRL could firmly sit in Tier 3 - the quality of his wins is insane but he has not a lot of fights compared to those he's in and around and I don't really like the Lalonde debacle.

But then again, some great fighters have one single all-timer win in their record - Ray has four of them against a wide range of all-time stylistic greatness.

 

Sugar arguably has the greater signature wins beating 3 members of the Fab 4, but his career was kinda cut short due to retirements/injuries. Joe Louis has a much wider body of work and many more title defenses, and the wins over guys like Walcott, Schmeling, Baer, etc weren't glamorous but they were decent historically.

Overall, I tend to favor fighters who were dominant for a long time when comparing resumes.

 

Fair

 

I already went with Leonard but after further review I can respect some of the arguments favoring Louis as well

 

Went with Leonard but i can be easily persuaded to change my pick

 

I really have zero strong feelings about flipping them opposite to the way I have it, with Leonard higher. This is like the Seinfeld bit about the end of track races where the winner is here (moves head back slightly, standing sideways to audience) 2nd place is here, (moves head back slightly again) dead last is here. You can barely see daylight between people at this level on my list.

 

Louis has more lineal title defences than anyone in gloved boxings c.140-year hostory, not just at HW, but in any weight division, in mostly one sided defences, despite a 4-year break during WWII when he was prime. He has almost as many wins over top 10 ranked opposition as SRL has wins.

Did that do the job?

 

Joe Louis

 

I think Louis & SRL rate extremely closely all-time (both in roughly the 10-15 range), but I generally give Louis a slight edge based on an overall deeper resume & longevity.

 

It's exponentially more difficult to defeat other ATG's than it is to defeat mid / low tier top 10 ranked opponents.

So even though there's a massive longevity gap, I'd take Leonard over Louis. Prime Benitez, Duran & Hearns with a post prime Leonard defeating a Post Prime Hagler is insane. The likes of Walcott, Schmelling, Conn etc don't really come close in terms of top tier wins.

 

Not even close SRL. Hes one of best P4P ever.

 

How is this even a debate? 25 defenses vs 3? The only thing I see in Leonard's favor is that he would NEVER have lost to someone like Schmeling. Staggered maybe, but he wouldnt have lost