Deeper Resume -Lennox Lewis Or Joe Louis?

Just to get this straight........you are saying Joe's era was the strongest ever?

 

Yup.

 

Anybody that thinks Louis resume > Lewis' needs to compare Louis' best wins to Lewis' on a H2H basis and see how that stacks up. Louis can be argued to rank higher in terms of "greatness" and dominance of his era and of course quantity. But if you directly compare the scalps taken to each other, it is clear Lewis resume > Louis resume.

 

Make the case.

 

Joe but Lennox's is also exceptional.

 

There isn't one.

For starters, who makes 25 straight title defenses in the greatest era ever? It virtually contradicts itself. To further strain the credibility he believes Joe would have made 50 successful defenses in a row if not for the 2 1/2 year war break.

Someone ploughs thru 50 straight title defenses in the strongest era ever?

So Joe Louis comes along and replicates similar during the peak Tyson era? He brushes past peak Tyson, Holyfield, Lewis and Bowe, not to mention 20 other fighters without loss? Or 45 other fighters if we match the 50 defenses claim?

He punches past Liston, Clay/Ali, Foreman and Frazier and about 20 other 60's70's sidekicks without a loss?

I'm not having a personal shot at him (he's friendly and genuinely believes such stuff) but the same gentleman believes Foreman to be the greatest heavyweight ever. If he somehow rates Foreman #1 and Foreman was accompanied by Ali/Frazier/Norton and quite a few other dangerous fighters how does he rate Joe's era #1 over Georges? Guys like Galento and 169 pounds of Billy conn must be something incredible.

 

Deepest HW division ever by a lot. Best top 100. And I actually did a thread listing them. It might have went to 80 or 90 but I was making a point to limit it to HWs who had a case for being elite at some point. If you pull up the list I can give you 10 or 20 more. No other era has that much depth.

Louis's top contenders kept retiring or exiting the picture after fighting him instead of sticking around to fight each other like the 70s guys. If you look at Alis opponents besides Frazier they mostly round robined each other. Louis lost about 10 number 1 contenders IE the likely 2nd best guy in the division to various circumstances. The only such guy that stuck around for years after fighting Louis to fight other top contenders was Max Baer. He retired at 32. What guys like John Henry Lewis, Tommy Farr and Buddy Baer did by 25 is insane.

Its debatable if the 35-45 period was better than the 70s. But it unquestionably had more depth.

 

A resume comparsion anyone?

 

Lists of opponents can be found on their respective Boxrec entries and all/most posters will be familar with how both stack up in terms of title defences, so to add to that:

• Quantity - Record against opponents who featured in the Ring's top 10 - Louis 44-3; Lewis 21-2-1 (22-2 on fair scorecards).
• Quality - Record against the highest ranked HW in the world aside from themselves - Louis 9-1; Lewis 4-0-1 (5-0 on fair scorecards).

They both stack up well historically by both measures, though Louis has a significant advantage. I don't see an argument for ranking Lewis higher, unless you factor in some kind of cross era fantasy fight H2H criteria, which I do not.

 

This is it in a nutshell. It's very straight forward.

Performance vs their peers - Joe Louis comfortably.

Perceived H2H achievements vs ones peers - open to guesstimation.

 

A bit too loose?

 

Nice hear from you Greg.

 

Likewise mate