Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali who do you rank higher?

Joe Louis is number one

 

ali would box louis' head off and stop or KO him.as far as preference,i'd much sooner have louis but don't think he'd beat ali.
as for quality of opponent,ali's is the best of any heavyweight king

 

Yeah, this might be true. On the other hand I don't think he would have had such wars with Frazier if it wasn't for the lay-off. And I would say that they were very much a reason behind his rapid aging after 1975.

 

Louis is a dangerous match up for Ali ... if Louis was trained properly ha could easily play Trinidad to Ali's De La Hoya ... Ali never fought anyone who was that fast and hard fitting and their size was close ... In a two fight series Ali might win the first by decision but Louis could improve for a rematch and chase him all over the ring ...

 

I really don't want to raise the ire of the good people here, but the claims being made about Louis stem more from his legendary status in boxing history and not from an objective assessment of the two boxers. Ali is superior whether you rank the record based on head-to-head criteria or on accomplishments. A few points.

Ali was never knocked out and he faced some of the hardest punchers ever. Louis was knocked out twice, once in his prime, once at the end, by fighters Ali would have defeated rather handily. Louis often struggled with and found himself on the canvas against opposition Ali would have annihilated. Of course, it's not Louis' fault that Ali had a special ability to take a punch. But it's not Ali's fault either.

While Louis has a lot of title defenses, the vast majority of them are of the quality of non-title tune up fights. Have you studied the record of some of these cats? I respect all boxers, but as title contenders go there's a lot of nobodies on that list. We can't simply go by the numbers. I think we all agree with that. Other fighters ran up a lot of title defenses, too. We have to look at the quality of opposition. Ali faced a few bums, too, but he didn't make it a habit.

Ali defended his title against some of the best heavyweights in the history of the division: Liston, Patterson, Frazier, and Foreman, to name a few of the most obvious. Louis never faced any great heavyweights. Carnera, Baer, Schmeling, and Braddock, despite having held the title, were not great heavyweights. Charles was a great light heavyweight, probably the best ever, but not an all-time great heavyweight. As has already been pointed out by others, because of historical circumstances, Walcott was buoyed by the poverty of the division at the time. Just look at his five fights leading up to the first Louis fight. Walcott posted a record of 5-2 against the same two fighters, one of them light heavyweight Joey Maxim. Yes, my friends, Walcott lost to Joey Maxim. Marciano is an interesting and exciting historical figure, but he is not a top ten all-time heavyweight, and I'm not sure, given Joe's chin, he would have lost to Louis had they met in Joe's prime.

Speaking of Charles, Louis couldn't regain his heavyweight title from a light heavyweight. As I said, Charles was a great fighter, but do you realize that Louis, a full size heavyweight (6'2" 218 lbs), outweighed Charles by something like 35 lbs?! Holmes loss to Spinks, at the same age, even though Spinks stood 6'2" and weighed 200 lbs, and even though Holmes did better than Louis in the fight, harms Holmes legacy. Does the Charles fight not harm Louis'?

Ali not only won the title twice, but won it three times. He remains the only heavyweight to have accomplished this feat (screw all these ABC belts, I'm talking the linear championship here). And while the third time was against a fighter would should not have been allowed to challenge for the title (even though he would have been one of Louis' better defenses), Ali regained the title the second time from one of the best heavyweights ever.

I am not trying to be mean or argumentative. Somebody asked the question and I am answering it and giving facts to support my answer. I realize emotions run high with Louis. I have had many debates in bars over this case. If Joe Louis should be on a top-ten best heavyweight list, he has to at least rank below Ali, Foreman, Holmes, Liston, Frazier, Holyfield, Tyson, and Lewis.

What about if they met in the ring? If Ali could make Liston and Foreman look as bad as he did, just imagine how he would make Louis look.

I think the thing that hurts Louis' reputation the most is the Schmeling beatdown. That was brutal. Kudos for Joe for saying upright as long as he did. But he was clueless in there.

 

I tend to go Ali #1, Louis #2. No problem with reversing that. I think there are a few alltime heavies who Louis might have a little bit easier time with; but I think Liston and Foreman would be quite a bit more a threat to Louis.

 

Mr. Marvel ...I think your post is interesting but a bit all over the place ... how do you compare the styles of a 35 plus year old Liston or 74 George Foreman with Joe Louis?

You make issue of a 35 year old Louis coming off a long layoff with zero tune ups losing a decision to a prime Ezzard Charles as if it has any reflection of Louis in his prime. I feel it does not at all .

Ali was never knocked out. His chin was exceptional . However he never fought anyone with the combination of speed and power that Louis did. IN addition, any can get KO'ed as Ali almost did by 188 pound Henry Cooper and 204 pound Joe Frazier.

I agree Ali was terrific but if you study his career instead of listening to his mouth, if you actually watch many of his bouts, he was not so great all the time.

Doug Jones : Could have gone either way and Jones was a light heavyweight.
Cooper: Almost knocked him dead.
Chuvalo 1: A much more brusing fight than often remembered if you watch it.

This is pre-exile ... there are many fights post exile pre-Foreman where he looked very average ... my point is that most legends are built on a few key victories. In Ali's case it is against Liston, Frazier and Foreman ... Liston was very old, Foreman a headcase and Frazier basically fought him close to even ... winning the first, the second was a ref's fight and the third was career ending hell for both ...

Louis had a chin where he could suffer flash knockdowns but had exceptional recooperative powers. Schmeling tagged him with dozens of his best right hands before he finally stopped him. Max raved after the fight what a great punch Louis took ... to get knocked out by Marciano at 37 is no insult as Rocky has been know to hit just a bit ...

You certainly have every right to pick Ali over Louis. Ali was an exception fighter. However, to discount Louis is a big mistake.

 

So now he gets extra credit for losing and winning against one of the worst champions in history of any weight, who'd only had eight fights.



...and anyone that doesn't regard Holyfield win over Tyson as being for the heavyweight title needs not to be taken seriously. Linear means nothing when the champion forgoes his belts to take on Crawford Grimsley.

 

To be fair, if Louis had lost to Banana Sam and then regained the title, he would've been on equal footing. :yep

 

Losing to Charles sure beats the hell out of losing to 6-0 Neon Leon.

 

I would rank Muhammad Ali above Joe Louis, but it's close...in my opinion.

 

These comparisons are more misleading than informative.

Fighters from the 70s had better win loss ratios simply by virtue of the fact that they were more protected early in their careers and fought other top fighters less often.

 

:huhProvide the evidence.

 

I have Louis at No.1, Ali at No.3, so that also puts me in the minority!

I would favour Louis to get to Ali late on. Joe was an extrmely precise puncher & hit extrmely hard with either hand. Louis by SD, but its very close! These guys are so great a case can be made either way!

Louis was champ for nearly twelve years, made a record 25 title defenses. That will never be broken in the HW division!

 

I think it has more to do with 1) those favouring Ali being a little (or a lot) less mature than those favouring Ali, who tend to be avid historians and experts, so they haven't yet discovered how many shades of grey in boxing there are; and 2) as one would expect from relatively less mature people, they think that this is a bit like haggling: one starts from an unreasonable position so that the lowest one can come down is to a less firm statement of one's original position.

Personally I favour Ali because I only do "rankings" on the basis of achievement. Head-to-head I would favour Louis, but head-to-head is much too speculative (especially when they don't have a SINGLE common opponent) that I rank purely on the basis of achievement. Louis' long title reign and list of opponents is very impressive, but Ali's combined resume is mind-boggling.