This one I think is trickier than the previous I did, comparing Max w Joe with Frazier's win in FOTC, because the situations here are very similar. Both Louis and Tyson were undefeated and seen as more or less invincible going in to the fights - which they were heavily favored in. Sure, Louis wasn't champ yet, but he had probably defeated a similar number of ranked opponents as Tyson and just as convincingly. His destruction of Baer was arguably more impressive than any one performance by Tyson. And still Max and Douglas both won their fights by dominating KO. It's really very little that separates the two wins imo. If anything it might be that Douglas was at his peak, while Schmeling was a couple of years past his.
I think Douglas's win over Tyson trumps it.. Tyson was already an established dominant champion and one that some thought was the greatest of all time. And unless I'm mistaken, Douglas was a bigger under dog against Tyson than Schmeling was against Louis.
Douglas was absolutely the bigger underdog than Schmeling, but that is tempered by the method in which they dispatched Tyson and Louis respectively. Douglas was on the canvas himself (and there is the whole 'long count' worm can) and Tyson was knocked into a crawling daze but not quite out cold. Granted, neither did Max put Joe to sleep exactly, but he did one-shot him with a bit more emphatic punctuation...and had been well in control all the way breaking the Bomber down until then, with none of the seesawing momentum in the Bronx that would be seen 53 years later in Tokyo.
I'd put these wins close together. I'd give Schmeling's win the edge, purely because, when all is said and done, I consider Joe Louis to be clear greater than Mike Tyson.
Douglas, because Tyson was better than Louis, that and it being a master gameplan to neutralise Tyson. Douglas would have beaten any version of Louis that night with less bother too.
Yes indeed, and i consider Joes KO over Max in the return bout, the Biggest victory EVER from an American stand point, because Max was backed by Hitler and the Nazis...
Schmelling though was against the Nazi party and hid Jewish people from them with great risk to his own well being. He rejected Hitler and was forced on the front line because of it.
An all-time great heavyweight in his physical prime while holding the title is the whole bag for the weight division, really. Louis was awesome, and also in his physical prime, but not yet the finished article. So you have to weigh how far Tyson had slipped and how far Louis had to go against who they were at their best. I like Douglas's win better personally.
And Tyson would have beaten any version of Schmeling. I see no point in such comparisons over eras, since I believe that boxing evolves like all other sports. Schmeling soundly beat by far the best and baddest HW around at the time, and that's all you can ask of anybody. For what it's worth I believe Louis was further ahead of the rest of his era than Tyson was of his.