I´ve seen him taking not only the kitchen sink, but the whole house including the lot facing and beating Ernie Shavers! One year prior to Spinks, but two years apart from Holmes! Louis did not even stop 5 of his 8 comeback bums in 50/51.
Several of those comeback “bums” are HOFs and beat Spinks what does that say? He was completely shot even in the shavers fight. Should have hung it up after that. If your argument is that he only stopped 3 of the 8 that’s not a very good one. He fought a lot better and more often that year. You’ll find no bigger Ali fan boy here either but let’s be real he shouldn’t have been allowed near a ring. Same can’t be said of Louis at the time
Have you people watched Louis in 1951 with an objective eye? He is a one-handed fighter missing huge openings, not by an instant, but by a full second. He has the balance of a toddler He resorts to mauling and wrestling because it's all he has left in his arsenal. If you people loved Louis as much as you claim you would find that performance as depressing as Ali's latter day efforts.
I suspect that he falls off the cliff very quickly. He would have had a couple more wins against Cesar Brion level opponents, and then one of them would have beaten him. After that he would call it quits, and wish he had done so sooner.
As depressing perhaps, but we have to ask who was further gone? I think that Ali had more brain damage at the time we are discussing. To quote McGrain, he probably couldn't have passed a road side sobriety test!
I would say that a quarter of the active boxers I have met beyond the age of 28 exhibit brain damage... but they were still mostly elite boxers.
Ouch. That is probably true, but it is not a nice thought. "It ain't table tennis, 'arry", as Bruno once said.
