Bare in mind Combat, that when Louis gave these rankings IN 1975 there had been no Larry Holmes, George Foreman had been recently demystified, there had been no Evander, Frazier tho all heart and respected by all wasn't going to figure too highly due to being mashed by Foreman twice and being considered (correctly ir incorrectly) mastered by Ali over the course of their careers, there had been no Lennox Lewis and above all JACK DEMPSEY was probably still the most beloved sports hero in the history of Americana and popularly still most historians number one outside of Joe Louis - remember todays revisionist historians had yet to be born
Cheers Burt, ps hope you've been well this Christmas by the way and all the best for the new year mate:good
Well put, Split. Also, I like the modesty Combat displays when viewing Joe Louis's opinion as a joke and proffering his own. I mean, it is clearly obvious that the great Combatesdeboxeo's knowledge of heavyweight boxing is far superior to that of Joe Louis.:roll:
Especially as Joe Louis's prime lasted pretty much a decade. Luois himself (in his autobiography) stated the Baer (1935) fight was his best performance, and that the Tami Mauriello fght (1946 I think, I haven't checked) was "the last time I felt like my old self". There it is, from the horses mouth. As for Schmeling 1, Louis (also in his autobiography) claims he trained for that fight on the golf course. No-one else's fault but his own obviously, but Louis's record indicates it was a mistake he made only once!
Joe Louis probably changed his mind a few times over the years, he had to play the 'game' like everyone else. It's a good list but maybe he just had lunch with Dempsey! I think Sonny at his best should rate a bit higher and Marciano always rated him
The best asset Joe Louis had was accuracy. When he threw a power shot, he hit the target. Handspeed had a lot to do with that too. Louis vs Ali is a real toss-up imo.
Does anyone know where Joe put himself in the mix? - generally guys with as much class as the bomber don't want to talk themselves up but it would be intresting to know? I know he always said nice things about Demps such as the "the rules say Dempsey can't hit me right?" comment when he heard jack was going to be in maxie baers corner for their fight but Louis must've known that he was considered as on mount Olympus with manassa jack aswell
Holyfield at 6 and Lewis at 10? Holyfield lost twice to Bowe, who refused to get his ass kicked again by Lewis in the pros, Lewis lost twice in his entire career. Plus Lewis beat Holy twice and has far more dominant wins at the elite level. Holy was a great cruiser/good heavy but clearly behind Lewis, Johnson and Dempsey.
complety wrong. 1_ jimmy young did beat foreman too, do you put young above foreman?, holyfield was a natural cruiser and he faced super hws, holyfield was a complete shot when he faced lewis and still , the first fight was close.. a prime holyfield would beat lewis for sure. 2_riddick bowe did not beat even a prime evander, a peak holyfield was in 1990. he was in his 30s against bowe.evander did beat bowe in the rematch and he did hurt bowe in the third fight,but evander could not finish him because he was bad of the heart, he had no stamina in this fight. 3_ lennox lewis was ko by clean shots by mccall and rahman, he was not even tired. 4_ evander holyfield is the only 4 times hw champ 5_who did beat jonhson and dempsey? you need To revise the history of the boxing
lewis lost twice against 2 buckets of garbage, simple. holyfield did beat a much better version of tyson twice, evander did beat bowe,michael moorer, a shot holyfield was competent against a great version of lewis. if bowe avoided lewis it does not prove who would have won, because tyson was exposed twice by tillman at amateur and he destroyed tillman as pro.