Joe Louis. Was he a little bit "special" in the intellectual sense?

Louis relied heavily on Blackburn. He would often go to the corner asking for advice. Slow to adapt on film, Louis was not a thinking man's fighter.

 

ok, he was not a thinking mans fighter who destroyed fighters in rematches and had perfect boxing technique.

Is it your intention to turn this into a fighter bashing thread? I know you dont hold louis in as high regard as I do mandoza, but I hope you are not willing to demean yourself to that level. hopefully not.

this thread is bull****, I hope you realize that.

 

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Jack Dempsey





Sounds like Sanders vs. Wlad

 

John Roxborough, one of Louis's managers ,taught him the social graces ,how to hold the right knife and fork and cope with interviews.
Louis was painfully shy to the point of being withdrawn with people he did not know. Jimmy Cannon probably got as close as any journalist to him, he said Louis was smart enough ,and had a very dry sense of humour ,he thawed out once he knew you ,Billy Conn commented on Joe's sense of humour.

 

Being shy and/or withdrawn from people you don't know are Asperger's/NLD traits. Also being on the slow side doesn't mean your not smart.

 

There is no real way to know without a diagnosis.
Joe Louis certainly has traits of having Asperger's and or NLD. However my best guess based on what i know about Joe Louis and Asperger's and NLD. Is that he had Asperger's or NLD. Being that they started to diagnose Asperger's around 1994. There is no real way of knowing for sure.

 

Muhammad Ali once said that Louis had a razor sharp wit in one to one coversations.

 

The guy just didn't speak too well.
Some kids have stammers that they never really get over. And people who clam up and dont speak much never really get the practice in to improve.

It means nothing that he went to a "special school", and it doesn't mean much these days with all these new-fangled labels and diagnoses.

As far as I know, he was well capable of looking after himself and functioning as an adult.
He learned a trade and became the best in the world at it, made a load of money, had wives and kids, and ****ed a load of other women.
Which is probably more than most of you have done.

Also, even though he didn't talk much, he was actually known for his pithy one-liners.

 

This is an honest statement ... Louis was able to make adjustments in rematches, when properly instructed and trained, that he could not during a fight ... the Schmeling fight, the Godey fight are both perfect examples ...

Intellectually I think he was average ... keep in mind from a very young man Louis was taught to be very humble in front of white audiences of any sort to not be perceived as another Jack Johnson and I believe that stayed with him ... he appears far more relaxed and less stoic in interactions with other black people than with any white audience ...

 

He rose to the top in an era when it was against the odds for black people to do so.

 

An was a creature of the era ... a dirt poor, uneducated Southern black who despite the heights he achieved still was the sum of his parts and his early formation was a huge under pinning of these parts ..

 

Having no training in this area ,I could not comment.

 

Nothing to do with the thread but it cracks me up every time i here Vlad interviewed - he's sounds exactly like Borat!! "Yiiees David said he would liiiike!!!?? yiiieees he says he liiike but then he does not??"

 

Ray Robinson said Joe Louis was always laughing all the time but the two were good friends. its probaby just his public persona.

 

Remember that his management told him that he had to be the opposite of Jack Johnson in every conceivable way: don't brag, speak when spoken to, don't be seen with white women etc.
When you're looking at someone through the warped lens of the media there's going to be distortion.