Joe Louis vs. Bob Fitzsimmons

An aggressive stalker versus the ultimate counterpuncher. Both guys were extremely good at feinting an opponent out of position, and both could demolish an opponent with precise, hard punches.

How do you see this one going?

 

Perhaps we're using slightly different terminology to say the same thing. Louis was definitely great at countering his opponents' lead-offs, but he used that talent to apply pressure with constant (shuffling) forward motion. Fitz strikes me -- no pun intended -- as a more defensive counterpuncher who preferred to hang back and wait for his opponent to lead off. Fitz didn't like it when Corbett forced him to give chase, and he ended up firing more than he would have liked.

 

First off, great avatar.

On topic: In the footage that we have, Fitz faces a mobile, Billy Conn-ish fighter. He might be less tempted to fire first against Louis because he wouldn't need to chase Louis in the first place. Because Louis stood in front of his opponents, Fitz won't have to move onto the front foot and start swinging at air. Also, I'll add that Corbett couldn't punch like Louis, so Fitz's aggression made more sense in the Corbett fight.

 

Quite so. My point was that Fitz wouldn't be as wild against Louis as he was against Corbett, nor would he lead off as much. The Corbett footage might be deceptive in that way.

 

Come to think of it, Louis's jab might be the key to this bout. Fitzsimmons fought in an era with even more feints than Louis's, but he dealt with straight lefts (kind of a lunge). Louis's jab might be fast and economical enough to baffle him and force him to move forward.

Another thing to consider is the single-shot-versus-combination dynamic going on. Fitzsimmons' era relied more on single punches, but most blows were designed to allow a fighter to slide immediately into a clinch if it missed. Louis's combination punching might be smothered just a bit. Like watching a counterpunching, middleweight John Ruiz with power, if such an abomination could exist.

 

Boxing didn't "evolve" so much as "adapt". Although Fitzsimmons and company fought with a very different style from modern fighters, I wouldn't characterize it as wrong because it's built upon a very different set of assumptions than modern boxing.

Think of modern boxing and old-style boxing like two different types of cars. Both of them will get you to your destination, but they're each constructed from different parts that fit together in different ways. If you swapped out one or two parts between the cars (say, switched the engines), neither car would work.

Similarly, some of the ingredients of 19th century boxing (low hands, "cycling" fists, a lunging jab) wouldn't work for a modern boxer. They're "mistakes" for a modern boxer because his style isn't designed to compensate for them in other ways. For example, if a modern fighter lunges too much with a jab but keeps every other ingredient (modern stance, modern footwork, modern blocking techniques) the same, he'll get clobbered because his style isn't designed to fill the gaps that the old style leaves. It's like swapping out a car's engine without rebuilding the rest of it. Just doesn't fit.

A 19th century style, on the other hand, already had other "weird" techniques that compensated for the openings that a lunging jab might create. They feinted more, blocked differently, fought from longer range, used a different sort of head-slip, relied more on clinching, etc. etc. That's why old-timers look completely wrong -- because once you change one or two ingredients drastically, you need to rebuild the entire style to compensate.

Not "wrong", exactly. Just very, very different.