Joe Louis vs David Tua

Janitor, this is numerically impossible.

First of all, a 9/10 chin is something I'd give to boxers such as Holmes, Holyfield, Mercer, Ali, Cobb, etc. 10/10 is literally as high as you can humanely go, boxers such as McCall, Chuvalo, maybe Vitali and Foreman in the 90's, etc.

You think a guy who suffered 10 knockdowns has a chin rating comparable to Holmes, Holyfield, Ali, etc...???



You want to then simultaneously give Louis a 9/10 defensive rating?

If wizards like Mayweather, Whitaker, Pep, or if we're talking heavies prime Johnson, Jimmy Young, etc have 10/10 defense, you think Joe Louis is only ONE rating below them?

You're serious right now?

So basically you're playing the numbers game where double digit knockdowns are ok due to the sheer number of ranked fighters he fought.

Well here's the problem. A guy can both be ranked highly and simply not be that good. He was dropped by Galento who was not particularly great even by his own era's standards and was a hell of a lot sloppier and less skilled than someone like Walcott or Schmeling. Hell even if we're going to stick to sluggers, the Baer brothers looked more sophisticated than Galento and that says a lot.

 

My thinking was that somebody like Chuvalo or McCall would be a 10.

Somebody like Holmes would be a 9 to 9.5.

Then you put Louis at 8.5 to 9.

There you see, perfectly numerically possible.

I make no apology for the approach.

When a fighter starts meeting men ranked in teh top ten, every metric about their record typically changes very rapidly.

Their KO% falls off, as does their win loss ratio, and their chin gets tested like never before.

Now Galento might be lacking in sophistication, but he got as far as he did for a reason.

Want to guess what it is?

That's right, he hit like a mac truck.

 

Tua is never losing to Marciano.

 

Bump

 

If you walk forward with your gloves up to cut the ring Joe Louis will turn you inside out and wear you like a coat.

 

You're thinking of Joe Lektor, a similar, but cannibalistic, puncher from the 1930s.

 

That or just chalk it up to having a 25 title defence reign at heavyweight?

 

If he were facing a murderer's row amongst those 25, then sure you could use that as an excuse.

He wasn't.

They literally made fun of him calling it the "bum of the month" tour. Strong contenders like Walcott were the exception, not the norm. So, again, you will need to either accept chin issues or defense/balance issues. Larry Holmes nearly matched his number of defenses and didn't have as many knockdowns.

 

Louis beat 30+ ranked fighters. The only heavy who beats that is Ali. That's a murderers row lmao. And that's not what bum of the month meant lmao, it became a phrase because Louis would beat everyone in the same way and make them look like bums.
"Joe Louis is fighting in NYC next week"
"Who's the bum this month?"

If you want to critique Louis' opposition, you may as well just rip the rest of the heavyweight division apart.

The Holmes comparison does nothing to help your point. He was knocked down less than Louis, but he has fights where he got dropped by guys he shouldn't have been. That's what happens when you spend years at the top.

Lol at trying to lump balance and defence together. They are absolutely seperate issues - Pernell Whitaker clearly proving you can have an excellent defence and being prone to knockdowns.

 

Of course you bumped

 

He had a better recovery than single shot chin IMO.

A bit like Tyson Fury in that regard.

 

They called it the bum of the month tour due to Louis' fast pace of defences and the dominant fashion of his performances, it was a promotional tactic.

Even Ali talked about having his own ''bum of the month'' tour during his 60's reign when he wanted to be active and have 5-6 fights a year prior to the exile. Guess his manager should have predicted forum discussions like these almost 100 years to the future when coming up with it

Wilfred Benitez, El Radar himself, a guy often being ranked as a top 5 defensive fighter ever, was dropped 9 times.

Deontay Wilder got dropped 6 times.

So either you admit your stat based approach is wrong on all levels, or I'm calling the cops. Wilder > Benitez defensively ? That's a crime against Boxing history.

 

Yeah I'm aware of the number of contenders he beat.

Not all contenders are equal. Some of them were called bums because they were. Tony Galento, Jack Roper, Abe Simon, and Tommy Farr are not a "murderer's row" by any stretch of the imagination. People have eyes. I can see how good these guys are, or rather how bad they were.

I would not need to rip apart the rest of the HW division. You're exaggerating. Unless you're trying to claim the quality of Louis' opposition in his title run surpasses the 70's, 80's, 90's? Hell even the 2000's had multiple contenders superior to many of Louis' opponents.

So Holmes should be embarrassed for being dropped by Shavers and Tyson? Is this the hill you really want to die on?

I don't need to lump anything together. You've got quite the uphill battle claiming both his defense and chin were good and that the knockdowns can be written off solely due to longevity.

 

The Wilder and Benitez composition is silly because Wilder faced hardly any good opponents for 88% of his career. Try again.

 

No need. Benitez got dropped by Bruce Curry 3 times in the same fight, in the middle of his prime. Bruce Curry would have well belonged in the Bum of the Month club if he was a 30's Heavyweight. Louis never got dropped 3 times in the same fight.

In previous posts you aksed for fighters known for their defense who got dropped as many times as Louis. Well, Benitez got dropped 9 compared to Louis's 10. That's close enough given Benitez's status as a defensive wizard.