Joe Louis vs. Moses Itauma, the theory of boxing evolution...

Louis was counter punched by Schmeling though. If it was anyone else in front of him he would have blowed through them, he was in excellent condition that night. Itauma was winning every round and lost due to a seeming lack of ability to keep his rear hand sheathed and save some energy.

 

Has Itauma ever beat a top-10 opponenet? That's rhetorical.

 

Ah, the evolution of boxing…….

At least he has modern nutrition.

 

Actually I think Itauma would be pretty dangerous for Louis.

 

Right. I picked Itauma over Hrgovic. I thought his speed was it. For the people that mentioned it before the fight, I didn't account for his stamina.

Yeah, Evander Holyfield had the stamina, proven in his 11th pro fight against an on-form Qawi.

 

Oh, hell no.. Louis throws way more short power punches than Itauma does.

Itauma looks good, but he doesn't look better than Louis.

I don't know why the Classic Forum is getting spammed by posters about General Forum boxers. To each their own, I guess.

 

Louis was hardly treating the camp like a serious professional preparation. He was spending a ton of his time playing golf and womanizing instead of putting in the work, and this wasn't just hindsight talking—Jack Blackburn was publicly voicing his concerns about Louis' training and commitment even before they stepped into the ring.

 

Yes ! By throwing better ones !

 

Stories are nice but Joe showed up at a shredded 198 lbs that night and fought 12 grueling rounds, he was in shape.
Here is the training footage for Louis: Boxer Joe Louis golfing / CU Louis / Louis jogging / shirtless Louis... Stockvideo - Getty Images
Here is Schmeling training: "Max Schmeling and Joe Louis in training" / boxer Max Schmeling walks... Stockvideo - Getty Images
If Schmeling lost we might've been hearing a lot about how fishing distracted him from polishing up his counter punching!

Edit: More footage of them training (and fishing ): "Training for the Big Fight" superimposed on Max Schmeling and... Stock Video - Getty Images

 

I do not think a few seconds of footage means anything.
It shows what promoters want or reporters captured briefly-but not how much, well & hard they trained overall.
Any more than fishing footage shows max was lax.

198 3/4 lol! But just being lean means little, also guys like Tyson vs. Douglas have crash dieted to look good, but trained poorly.
It is not reasonable to dismiss good documentation as "stories"-I never heard any debate that Louis was training erratically & focused on girls & golf-I doubt he would contest that.
And if his trainer is saying it publicly, that means a lot.

Itauma did not preserve his energy wisely.
But a more fundamental problem is why when so young & needing to ensure he could go the distance, was he allegedly somewhat gassed as early as after round ONE?
And never even sparred 12 rounds.

If he had better cardio, that woud not have happened.

Anywho, pushing a man off stage-& when he turns his back? Really Brave & Decent. I am glad he lost!
We do not need more hateful & egocentric role models.

 

As Cornucopia already pointed out, a couple minutes of training footage and a fighter's weight tell us very little about how well he was actually prepared. In fact, your Louis "training footage" isn't even a couple minutes. It's 59 seconds total—not even a full minute. And roughly 15 seconds of that is Louis playing golf. So we're talking about around 44 seconds of footage showing anything that could reasonably be described as training.

That's supposed to prove he was properly conditioned for a 12-round heavyweight fight? Come on. Nobody is claiming Louis did absolutely no training; the argument is that he wasn't training nearly as much or as seriously as he should have been. If a few seconds of roadwork on film are enough to establish that a fighter wasn't neglecting his preparation, then you could never establish that any fighter was undertrained.

And the fact that Louis looked lean at 198 lbs doesn't prove he was in proper ring shape either. Otherwise, conditioning would basically consist of getting your weight down and running a few miles. Max Baer is a good example of why that logic doesn't work: he was 209.5 lbs when he beat Carnera and only a pound heavier against Braddock, yet it's widely accepted that he hadn't trained properly for the Braddock fight. Similar weight or physical appearance does not automatically mean comparable conditioning.

There's also contemporary evidence here, not just "stories" told decades later. Less than two weeks before the Schmeling fight, Louis was described as the heaviest he'd ever been and as having a "slight bulge around the midriff." The same report says Louis hadn't seen "any actual combat in months"—I'm not sure how accurate that particular claim is, so I'm not relying heavily on it—but the description of his physical condition is certainly relevant: Article clipped from The News Journal - Newspapers.com™

That also seems consistent with another report indicating Louis was already down to 200 pounds, while describing him as lethargic, although that particular writer attributed it to the heat: Article clipped from The Springfield Daily Republican - Newspapers.com™

And Louis hadn't exactly approached the camp with maximum dedication. He arrived at his training camp five weeks late: Article clipped from The Springfield Daily Republican - Newspapers.com™

Then there's the golf issue, which isn't some post-fight excuse invented to explain the loss. Louis himself later recalled: "Two times Roxy chased me off the golf course -- I was dehydrating myself under that hot sun." John Roxborough and Julian Black | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

And the account of his camp specifically says Louis was playing golf almost daily despite Jack Blackburn repeatedly warning him that it wasn't an adequate substitute for boxing training:

"Chappie, that Golf ain't good for you Blackburn had warned the champ over and over again.

"It's ok" Louis had countered. "I walk. That's good training for my legs." "The timing's different " Blackburn tried to explain. "Them muscles you use in golf, they ain't the same ones you use hitting a man. Besides, being out in the sun don't do you no good. You'll be dried out time the fight comes around"

John Roxborough and Julian Black | American Experience | Official Site | PBS

And again, these aren't merely retrospective excuses. There are contemporary pre-fight reports discussing Louis's new fondness for golf and saying he was golfing as much as he was training: Article clipped from The Evening Telegram - Newspapers.com™

Sam Longford also actually watched Louis train and wasn't exactly impressed, describing him as sluggish: "Joe didn't look so good today." Article clipped from Call and Post - Newspapers.com™

So no, I'm not saying the man walked into the ring completely untrained. I'm saying the evidence doesn't support the claim that he was unquestionably in top ring condition simply because he weighed 198 lbs and we can find 59 seconds of footage, 15 seconds of which is him playing golf. There's considerably more evidence, including contemporary reporting and observations from people around the camp, suggesting that Louis had become complacent and wasn't as well prepared as he should have been.