To larger heavyweights in power. I'm curious to who Louis compares with favorably at about 200 pounds... People are who 40-50 pounds heavier than him. Does the compact Louis's power equal any of the superheavyweights? Not on P4P basis, but pure power. I'm curious to hear thoughts on this one.
Well, the hardest single punch of his career was the uppercut which drove Uzcudun's teeth through his mouthpiece in flattening him back into retirement. There's a great photo of Joe prying Mauriello off his feet, and airborn with a left hook. He didn't have Marciano or Baer type power, but it was more than sufficient for his needs. Joe easily and quickly took out modern sized heavyweights, whose bulk wasn't artificially inflated with growth enhancing substances, but a natural endowment. His power wasn't size generated, but technique oriented, and therefore more reliably consistent. Like Marciano, he generated it coming up, with but each punch supplemented by the next, for a cumulative effect. Buddy Baer's graphically detailed accounts of what facing Louis was like are readily available on-line. He didn't wind up, so the force behind his blows wasn't expended when his punches made contact. One punch would send his victim into the next one, and if he missed, he could come back with the next one as if he hadn't, for a progressive magnification effect. Sure, his power certainly equaled that of superheavyweights, but I don't know that superheavyweights are necessarily all the hardest punchers. Shavers was 210 when he dropped Holmes, and he's widely acclaimed as the hardest puncher in history. Does 210 make Earnie a superheavyweight? Louis weighed just over 211 when he sent Mauriello airborn in the final prime performance of his career. (If I visit the IBHOF this month, I'm going to more closely inspect the fist castings of some of these boxers, to check their relative sizes. All I remember off-hand, is how huge Carnera's fist was, and how tiny Henry Armstrong's was.)
does joe louis hit harder than marciano? i think that he punched better due to his perfect form but in terms of raw power it goes to marciano.
Weight and fist size do not fully determine punching power. Louis at his best was about 200 pounds, and has relatively small 11 3/4" fists. Yet, his power, leverage, speed and acceleration of his punches produced some amazing looking knockouts. The point to consider is the gloves used by Louis were much lighter, and had less padding in them. This increased the velocity of the punches, and the impact of the blow when they landed.
You are absolultely right. I would rather get hit by Marciano than Louis 9/10. But you're probably more likely to be killed by Marciano.
I think Louis was the most correct and precise puncher of the Heavyweights,and Blackburn drilled him incessantly to perfect his balance and combination punching,inbetween the Godoy fights ,after Godoy had befuddled louis by fighting so low his gloves actually touched the canvas a couple of times ,Blackburn had louis throwing uppercuts with either hand in the gym,he ripped Godoys face to shreds in the return.
This is certainly true, but Ali has occasionally said he thought his small hands played a role in the problems he had with them. (What this could also indicate though is that he may also have relatively small feet as well, a factor which may have played a role in Muhammad's ability to maneuver well.)
