Should Louis' record title reign come with an asterisk due to WWII inactivity?

So he retired unbeaten as champion. What a legend Fury is. Only one of two heavyweight champions in history to retire unbeaten in his career and everyone here had the chance to lived through it.

I bet you thought you wouldn't ever get the privilege to see such a major accomplishment like that again, right Perry?

 

Fury's announcing a comeback before the year is out i reckon.

 

And they don't. I have never seen anyone who claims Williams hit more than 521 home runs. I have seen guesses that his total might have been 650 or so w/o war service, but only as might have been speculation.

But I would say the comparison is more like noting that Williams won batting championships over an 18 season period (1941 for his first. 1958 for his last.) but maintaining we should cut that down to a 15 season spread because of the three years of war service. (for those who don't know, Williams did play some games in 1952 and 1953 although he was recalled to active duty during the Korean War)

 

Well, actually Louis is only the longest reigning "unbroken" champion. Ali actually was champion over the longest period-1964 to 1978 (or is it 79).

One real good defense of Louis on this one is that he fought 4 fights against the #1 contender after he came back. I think there are quite a few champions who never faced #1 contenders in four fights.

"I'm not saying he should be docked"

But what else are you doing? He was champion. He didn't lose it in the ring. He wasn't stripped. He defended against those considered the outstanding contenders when he came back.

That Ted Williams analogy sheds light on what you are arguing. George Brett won batting titles in 1976 and 1990. Okay a 15 season spread. Ted Williams won batting titles in 1941 and 1958, an 18 season spread. But Williams missed three years in 1943-45 for WW2 and most of 1952 and 1953 to the Korean War. So knock out five seasons in which he didn't have enough at-bats to qualify for the batting title and conclude therefore Williams won only over a 13 season spread. Makes no sense to me.

 

Fury is a horrible fighter and if you knew anything about boxing you would already know this as fact. Whether he retired as an undefeated fighter changes nothing.

 

That's undefeated heavyweight champion of the world, Perry. Cmon, you waited all your life to say that you were there, saw it all and lived through it. You has got to tell future generations because people who didn't lived and experienced it won't have a clue.

 

He was mixed

 

"baseball analogies are meaningless to me"

I was worried about that and fair enough, but I thought maybe the analogy of cutting out seasons because of war duty would come across despite unfamiliarity with the sport.

"while he didn't willfully stop competing, he did stop competing in title fights during those four years."

Well, one thing. Only three years. He defended his title in 1942 and 1946. (box rec lists a 1944 defense, but that is nonsense in my judgment). For Dempsey, the three years would be 1922, 1924, and 1925.

Louis actually defended his title in 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42--46, 47, 48, which comes out to nine years,
but there is a catch. The NYSAC considered Louis still the champion, I think, when he fought Charles in 1950. Does that make his reign actually 13 years and 10 years with defenses. Louis definitely announced his retirement in 1949, but recognition by some sanctioning body is enough to get more recent fighters championship status.

I have no issue with noting that he did not defend his title during the three war years. I think to an extent there are three different achievements. One is the longest unbroken reign. That is Louis. Another is the longest time span as being champion. That is Ali. Another is most calendar years defending the title. That might be Wlad Klitschko, but I have never actually looked it up.

But I stand by that trying to reduce the span that Louis was champion because of his WW2 service is really unfair and basically docking him for the war over which of course he had no control.

*I would point out that while Louis might have been upset during WW2, that is speculation, while the long layoff was certainly harmful.

**I'll try another sports analogy. Let's say a runner won gold medals in the 1936 and 1948 Olympics. Is it fair to say he only won in consecutive Olympics so we have to disregard the 12 year span and his achievement is no different than winning in 1936 and 1940 would have been.

***added-the longest span being champion is actually Foreman, not Ali. My old mind slipped up on that one. But Ali was champion over a longer span than Louis.

 

Louis had something like 25 title defenses. That is the important part. Had WW2 not happened then Louis would have probably had at least 30 title defenses.

 

[/QUOTE]

"Everyone of those but the champion was active during WWII."

A circular argument. That is because only active fighters were rated. When a fighter went into the service, he dropped out of the ratings. The champion remained champion as the general feeling was a champion could only lose his title in the ring. Billy Conn is a prime example. He was the #1 heavyweight contender when he left for the service, dropped out of the ratings of 1942, 1943, and 1944, and was returned to his #1 ranking when he left the service. He was rated the #1 contender when Louis fought him in 1946.

Here is the record of other champions and their defenses during the war era--
Gus Lesnevich
11-14-1941 (Tami Mauriello)-----5-14-1946 (Freddie Mills)

Tony Zale
11-28-1941 (Georgie Abrams)-----9-27-1946 (Rocky Graziano)

Red Cochrane
7-29-1941 (Fritzie Zivic)-----2-1-1946 (Marty Servo)

Even longer layoffs in title fights than Louis, although all fought several non-title fights before putting their titles on the line. The lightweight and featherweight champions were active during the war for the most part. I don't know why they were and the heavier guys weren't.

"That is a stretch of more than four years inactivity, not three."

Yes. But I think a champion should get a certain off period after a defense, and in fairness the reason the Conn fight wasn't in late 1945 or early 1946 was that they were waiting for the summer so the fight could be outdoors at a larger venue. So while you're technically correct, you are also being about a year unfair to Louis.

"No runners could compete because there were no Olympic games at all."

In the Olympics, but they could compete. For example, Sydney Wooderson set the mile record of 4:06.4 on August 28, 1937. It was broken by Gunder Hagg at 4:06.2 on July 1, 1942. Hagg and later Arne Anderson would further drop the record to Anderson's 4:01.6 on September 4, 1944. Hagg dropped the mile record to 4:01.4 on July 17, 1945. That record stood until broken by Roger Bannister with 3:59.4 on May 6, 1954. So there was competition, just not Olympic or championship competition. But that in effect only denied either Hagg or Anderson an Olympic gold medal in 1944.

"A runner wins gold medals in the 1952 & 1960 Olympics, but doesn't compete in 1956"

But there wasn't any Olympics to compete in. The competition was not at the championship level. It is true that Louis volunteered (although I find a criticism of him for that to be twisted), but how do we know he wouldn't have been drafted anyway. A proposed Louis-Conn rematch in 1942 for war relief was vetoed by the Defense Department.

*my take is the war put Louis in a no-win situation. He gets it for not defending his title during the war years. On the other hand, if he had stayed out and kept fighting, I'm certain there would be plenty of voices knocking him for padding his record with second-stringers during a period of diluted competition caused by the war.

**just an aside, in the US the most famous athletes served in WWII. Besides Louis and Conn from boxing, Joe DiMaggio, Ted Williams, and Bob Feller from baseball, and Tommy Harmon from football, plus all sorts of top celebrities like the movie stars Gable and Stewart and Power.

 

There was an an article in Ring Magazine in December of 1945 about returning veterans which made this point about Red Cochrane--

"Then, with many lucrative money shots in the offing, Cochrane, nevertheless, threw away these literally golden opportunities to enlist in the Navy."

I don't think we should forget that Louis also threw away a lot of purses by joining up.

And this comment about the popular view of the war time competition--

"Gus H. Fan will chortle gleefully, 'Now we'll see some real fighters."

 

Ali had a shot in March 1971 to be the Champ, but some guy named Frazier got in the way. A victory there might have added 3 years to his reign.