Joe Louis or Muhammad Ali who do you rank higher?

1. Ai

2. Louis
3. Foreman
4. Holmes
5. Lewis

For me, anyways

 

This is a ridculous observation.

The truth is that there were probably more good (as oposed to great) heavyweights in Louis's era than Alis.

 

Oh really? what heavys in louis day were as good as frazier, foreman, liston, guarry, ect. ? You need to take a closer look and you will see that it is not at all ridiculous like you say. Ali was fortunate to have competed in the strongest era in heavyweight history and louis, while not his fault, could not say the same.

 

Frazier, Foreman and Liston are standouts in any era.

But for the life of me, i cant understand why so many people overate Jerry Quarry so much. He has a good result against Floyd patterson, but was comprehensively beaten every otehr time he stepped up in class. He wasnt in the same league as Ali in their performances. Frazier had little trouble with him. Norton stopped him. Chuvalo knocked him out. He really was not that much better than journeyman status, albeit, obviously a difficult journeyman. I cant see him being any better in Louis's era. Certainly he wouldnt have been good enough to earn enough world championship shots as he did in his own era.

Interestingly, Quarry was unable to better Tony Alongi in two attempts that both ended in a draw. Alongi is an interesting fellow, as according to boxrec, he has decent size and seems to have a pretty good record, yet i have never seen him discussed at length on any boxing site. HIs career wasnt as good as quarry's on paper, but it does seem as if they were similar in class given their results. Alongi fought from 59 -67 whereas quarry fought from 1965 to 1977. One has to wonder how Alongi's career might have progressed if he had been born the same time as Quarry. One thing is for sure, if he was, he would have been a far bigger name than he is now, given that he would probably end up with a similar all time ranking to Quarry and similar results. IMO, there are many (probably even a lot more than in the 60s and 70s) fighters from Louis' time who were at the same level as jerry Quarry and some of the other contenders from the 70s.

 

Well Quarry knocked Ernie Shavers out in the 1st round,stopped the hard hitting Mac Foster inflicting his first defeat,besides decision wins over Ron Lyle and Patterson i think that qualifies him for more than journeyman status.

 

As a fighter...Joe Louis...as a personality...Ali...

 

That is a decent observation. Ali had one of if not the most charismatic personalities in boxing history. Along with Iron Mike I am not sure if anyone else had the force of personality to carry boxing on their back in terms of popularity of the sport in the last 40 years. I don't personally factor public perception and name recognition into a rating eqation of a boxers greatness. But, I do wonder how many rate them higher based upon their name recognition. Not that I don't find Ali as a worthy #1, (although I have him at 2)...I just wonder how much his personality and the fact that many love him to such a high degree factor, to those who discount the possibility that anyone else is in his stratosphere.

 

Quarry had some bad breaks during his career (cuts, bad decisions). He had the misfortune of competing in an era where there were fighters a level better them him, but he did have some impressive wins against quality opposition. Just a case of him coming along at the wrong time.

 

There was nobody in Louis's era as good as Frazier Foreman and Liston but this dosnt tell the whole story. The era was verry heavy on talent in the teir bellow them.

There were up to half a dozen people who were better than Quarry some of who never even got to fight for the title.

A guy like Chuck Wepner wouldnt have got near the top 10 in Louis's era.

If you matched up the top 10 from any year in those two eras the 70s crowd would likley win 1-4 while the 30s/40s crowd would win 5-10.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uCpJ0bm6RI

WHAT"S UP!!!!! WHAT"S UP!!!!!!!!! I got YOU

 

Just out of interest Janitor who would you say of Louis' era were better than Quarry?

 

Taking the period when Louis was champion the guys who I would say were better are:

Max Schmeling

Max Baer

Tommy Farr

Billy Conn

Elmer Ray

Jersey Joe Walcott

Ezzard Charles (already making waves in the heavyweight division while Louis was champion)

I would also suggest that the following fighters could be considered to be on a similar level to Quarry:

Bob Pastor

Lou Nova

Jimmy Bivins

Then you have fighters who perhaps had the potential to be at that level but never got thje chance to prove it due to the colour of their skin like Tiger Jack Fox and Lee Q Murray.

My pint is that this was a verry deep era in terms of sub all time great talent.

 

with the exceptions of charles, walcott and maybe schmeling I say that quarry beats all of them.

 

Just out of curiosity, if ali is #1 and louis is #3, who is #2 in your opinion?

 

Joe was a master of the finish