1942 Joe Louis vs 1992 Evander Holyfield

I'll go against the grain here. Here's the time where it works in Holyfield's favor to bring it to a brawl. Holyfield was more durable, straight up. You can argue Joe Louis would outbox him. You can point out that Joe Louis hit harder. But in a drag out brawl? Holyfield's durability and recovery come into play bigtime, combined with the fact that he's actually quite skilled and quite good at brawling.

 

I think Evander takes it, I feel like Louis's stalker esc style could work against him and have holyfield leading him into his own combinations. I don't see Evander or Louis being KO'd but I do believe louis might be a little stiff in movement compared to evander on top of louis never fighting anyone like him. Holyfield is durable enough to go the distance with a good punch out put in a tough brawl

 

Holy scores a killer knockdown with a surprise left hook in the second round, but Louis' ugly ass jab and brutal combinations lay waste once Holy tries Warrior mode in round 7. Where the first part of the fight was a thrilling party of punches, the rest of it is mostly notable for Holy's amazing heart. Louis is landing flush more often as the time goes on, and this is making Holy hold a lot (and stuff). Despite wild card, all-too-rare supernatural rallies by Holy he is ultimately battered badly and stopped in 10.

And this is coming from a far bigger fan of Holy than Louis (though I love them both).

 

I imagine this would be one of those damaging fights where neither would ever regain the form they had before the fight. Damn close any way you look at it, IMO.

 

Holyfield all week long and twice on Sunday !!!!

 

Brutal KO for Louis - weird description but the class difference would look like Toney vs Holyfield - he’d stone faced murder Holyfield and I love Holyfield but his skill set ain’t up for it here, It’s highly likely JL unloads on him early he won’t take his time when he sees how much opportunity EH is giving him and up close… man on the inside that ain’t where Evander wants to be, there isn’t a distance EH holds advantage over.

EDIT: Holyfields is at his best against guys that wanna get down and fight, situations where he can make his mix of assertiveness, strength and countering work for him - against other guys who are skilled operators… I think he looks pretty ordinary as the “Bull” take Usyk, Holmes, Toney, Moore and Charles they’d probably make him look pretty second rate, match him with Baer, Foreman, AJ, Peter… he’d butcher those guys especially the smaller ones, against guys smaller then him it’d be interesting to see, Ali was bigger then pretty much every guy he fought and I think it’s created an interesting impression, I’d like to see Evander with the same consistent advantage in physicality.