Joe Louis vs. Vitali Klitschko

The difference in height is only 5 inches, and not five feet. Louis didn't seem to lose any leverage in knocking out Buddy Baer, Carnera and Simon.

Tyson, Tua and many others never had a problem knocking out much taller men, where the difference between them was greater than five inches.
Five inches isn't going to matter at all in terms of leverage or punching power.

 

I don't think Vitali's opposition is that bad, I think he makes them look bad.

Vitali faced two blown up cursiers in Hide and Norris. Both men had more skills than the Farr's or Pastors that won several rounds vs. Louis. And these two lasted a combined 2.5 rounds vs Vitali.

Louis competition was pretty poor outside of Schemling, Walcott, Charles, M. Baer and Marciano. If these 5 were the best Louis fought, his record vs. them on a fair score card would be 3 wins, 4 losses.

 

The difference in height between the two men is really being overplayed here...Mr. Bill, you're well-versed with the crop of 90's heavyweights.

I'm sure you recall a fight between 6'2" Michael Moorer and Mike 'The giant' White, who stood 6'10" and weighed around 280.
Moorer had him down three times, and although White did last the distance, that was more due to Moorer's usual tentativeness rather than anything else.

In the first, Moorer dropped White with a beautiful left hook, which had White crashing to the canves, face-first, as if shot.
There was eight inches in height between the men in that fight...five inches isn't going to make any difference as far as punching power goes.

 

I love Joe Louis in this fight. He is too fast, way to sharp and hard hitting. He excelled against big men and had zero trouble jabbing and slipping inside and destroying them. There is a big difference between taking taking one or two Corrie shots and surviving Louis' bombs. Joe would stop him inside of five or six. A very good match up for Joe.

 

Joe Louis

[url]http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=9027&cat=boxer[/url]

Vitali Klitchko

[url]http://www.boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_id=7033&cat=boxer[/url]

 

Your opening paragraph could easily apply to Louis as well.

Norris and Hide having more skills than Farr is highly debateable, especially since Norris by 2000 was done and Hide...maybe or may not have been that point. He was beaten by Joseph Chingangu who was marginally talented, in two rounds subesequently, and by a fighter I've never even heard of in three rounds, subsequent to facing Klitshcko.
Bob Pastor ran for his life against Louis in their first fight, and Louis was awarded 8/10 rounds.
He had tried to make a fight out of it, he'd have been knocked out. I think it's safe to say it wasn't ever close, despite what the crowd thought.

As for the last bit - fair enough, but Schmeling and Baer aside, Joe was also a shadow of his former self when he met them, espcecially Marciano and Charles.
To draw from that the inference that he lost to the best fighters he fought would be a grave injustice to Louis.

 

I'd say Farr and Pastor were better than Herbie Hide from what I've seen. Orlin Norris was past it and overweight.

 

I disagree. Imagine if White was 6'2 but just as skilled otherwise. Do you really believe he'd go the distance under those circumstances?

I'm not saying his punches would turn into powder puffs, but a 5 inch height gap is going to take at least some of the steam off them, especially when you know he can and will hit you with a hard counter if you miss. Anything over 4 inches becomes pretty hard to overcome, in my opinion. For instance, Tua, who is one of the heaviest hitters ever, did not seem to make any impression when he caught Lewis (5'10 to 6'5) with his left hooks, even though sparingly so.

Joe Louis is a ridiculously talented puncher and is likely to make up for it, but as The Kurgan said, it would be a very hard fight for him, or anyone for that matter.

 

It depends how you want to look at it.

Half of Louis's profesional fights were against oponents currently ranked in the top ten by ring magazine.

In that sense the average quality of his opposition was off the scale.

Whether you take a positive view of Louis's opposition or not they far exceed Vitaly Klitscko's in terms of both quality and quantity.

For the record I don't think that Norris or Hide were in the same class as Farr or Pastor.

 

Chris, to your opening paragraph, yes I do. It wasn't the height that made the difference in that fight. Moorer started well and had White on the deck pretty quickly.
It was clear that he could hit and hurt White right off the bat.
Yet through Moorer becoming tentative and White being unusally stubborn and very, very game, he lasted the distance. (Though he was down twice more.)
I don't know if you have seen the fight, but if you have, watch that first knockdown again. Plenty of pop on the punch.

As to your second paragraph...I'm not convinced. Frazier had no trouble landing on Ali or Mathis, Tyson had no trouble landing on taller guys (sometimes much taller guys) and neither did Tua. I mean landing with power shots.
I'll need to re-watch the Lewis fight to see exactly what you mean. I do recall him (Tua) landing a good left hook at the end of the third round which Lewis took well, but Lennox was also moving backwards if I recall, which possibly took some steam off the shot.
As for any other hooks he may have landed, I'll need to re-watch the fight.

Now this is going to sound a little odd, but I went and tested the theory on a heavy bag I've got set up at home.
I found that yes, if I plant my feet and throw a shot (straight left; I'm a southpaw) at a target 5 inches (I made it 6 to be safe) higher than myself, I would lose a bit of steam on the punch.
The trick obviously is to step in, narrow the gap to a little closer than normal before firing, and launch one.
I couldn't find any difference in power, using that technique, as opposed to if the target was the same height. Hardly a scientific analysis I know, but still.

Anyway, one last thing we must keep in mind when discussing height is that no fighter fights at his true height. Once you get into a stance, you're going to lose a couple of inches. Naturally that works both ways, but how many inches does either Louis or Klitschko lose in relation to the other? Hard to say.

 

I have to admit i've only seen highlights (the knockdowns) of Moorer vs White. And yes, Tyson did dispose of a lot of tall boxers. You have a point.

Still, i'd say that once you get at 5 (or so) inches or higher, you reach a threshold where it becomes exponentially harder to get leverage for each inch you go up. Indeed, Frazier had no trouble with overcoming 4 inches against Ali. He did struggle a bit with Mathis, but Mathis did not really fight tall nor was that good. He still needed a lot of leather to stop the man, on his feet if i recall correctly.

The key may be in your last paragraph, now that i think about it. Lewis basically defined "fighting tall" against Tua, and it was clear that Tua had great trouble close the gap, especially with his hook.

Interesting on testing it yourself. I have tried the same with a target at 6'6" high, which would be the tip of Valuev's chin. I'm 6'0, but noticed that it's pretty hard to get good leverage on it, especially with a classic straight right hand. Looping it works a bit better. But i found the biggest problem to be that you have to leave yourself open so much, and risk your balance. Against Valuev it's not such a big deal since he is slow and his defence is laughable. But against Lewis or a Klitschko, even if there is less distance to cross, they have great footwork and can take your head off with a counter... now that, is a problem.

Which, i think, Joe Louis can overcome, but still, it's not going to be easy.

 

2nd raters made Louis look bad. No man has ever made Vitali look bad. There is a huge difference here.

Hide has more skills than most of Louis opponents, and his chin would be less of an issue in a era with few skilled punchers. Sure Norris was on the downside, but so were plenty of Louis opponents. If you want to dock Hide for being Ko'd 3 times, then he's in good company as most of Louis title guys were in fact Ko'd more than that.

The first fight was very close. 8 of 10 rounds? According to who? Louis looked bad in the first match.

I just don't see how Louis, who would be giving 6 inches in height, at least 4 inches in reach, about 50 pounds, and had less defense and footwork is going to win a decision. The question is can Louis hurt Vitali and stop him clean? Plausible but in this fight I think Vitali is likely to land first, and show better ring generalship. Louis was in fact often slow to adapt in the ring, and if the likes of Conn and Farr could stun him, I have to think Vitali could do a lot more.

Different eras here, and its documented that Louis had big time issues with good boxers.

 

V.K. is much more skilled than those tuff but clumsy victims of Louis back in the 40s............ Louis would NOT find Klit's chin in that very manner..... "Baer, Carnera & Simon" all had poor defense...... Louis would have to step in on Klit, thus, Louis would be subject to being countered by Klit..... Klit has the size, strength and skills to put a certain amount of pain on Joe Louis...... Louis never fought or dealt with a man as massive and as skilled as V.K. in his entire career from 1934 to '51.........

I see V.K. being good enough and strong enough to keep Louis at bay with a long jab and lateral movement, added with a potent right cross...... I like and I have many films of Louis on file, however, part of his legendary status is based on his WW2 service, lengthy reign in a weak era, tax problems & a trip to the funny farm later in life.... Louis was indeed great, but also beatable.......... Cheers......

MR.BILL:goodbbb

 

when has louis ever fought someone in vitali class:hi:

 

I notice with interest that you don't mention the other blown up cruiser that VITLAY faced, why is this?

I love the fact that you say no-one ever made VITLAY look bad, yet the only 2 decent opponents he's ever faced made him look just that.

Louis takes this fight easily, VITLAY isn't in the same league.