If you defend the title 25 times then not all of them can be high quality defences. Also, if a champoion is genuinely taking on the most dangerous contenders then you can allow them an ocasional warm up fight. Even Thomas wasn't that bad as a title defence by todays standards.
Vitali used it quite effectively against Arreola (at 0:22 it is the most apparent): [yt]ZlwX2BHkMcA[/yt]
Joe Louis was active, and his opponents did try. That we can all agree on. 25 years later,,,,,,,,,Ernie Terrell vs Doug Jones,,,,,,,,,'put a bullet in my head'
Fighters arm position gets moved by punches at some point in nearly every fight you would care to name. It's being able to pick off\parry and deflect punches with your gloves and arms that takes skill and a certain amount of strenth do employ effectively.
I liked when this thread was about Louis, though, knobslobberdeschlongseo really isn't worth the effort.