Curious as to how Joe Louis would survive the opening rounds vs a prime Mike Tyson

I can't think of a counter-puncher that Tyson faced, who compares to Louis, either; a puncher who could sit in the pocket and consistently deliver short punches, with the type of power Louis could.

 

Louis K.O.ed 260 lb Carnera, 210 lb Max Baer, 250 lb Abe Simon, 237 lb Buddy Baer, etc. Louis has more than enough hand-speed & firepower, to stop, or move Tyson backwards. An alternate question might be: "What is Tyson's Plan B".

 

Imagine Tyson fighting the people Louis fought
LOL
Tyson's chin is very underrated in this forum. Louis too small to hurt Tyson.

 

The fight comes down to something very simple. Tyson excelled at drawing a jab, slipping it and doing damage on the way in. If I know that, Jack Blackburn would know it too. You wouldn't see the methodical Louis; he'd be stepping back and around early on and using a lot of feints to try and pattern how Tyson intends to get around the jab.

Tyson is not going to come reckless. You don't do that with Joe Louis because he can hurt you. Tyson would know that and Rooney would know that even if a bunch of internet geniuses don't. So there would be a lot of feinting and counter feinting early on.

If Louis can pattern Tyson, put a jab out to make Tyson slip into a hook or uppercut, it will hurt Mike. Not drop him or badly hurt him, but make him think. When Tyson thinks, he stands up straight. When he stands up straight, when Louis patterns him, Joe starts landing the jab. Then Louis will win.

Tyson, in my eyes, doesn't bring enough variety; he ran out of ideas pretty quick. I don't believe for a freaking second that anybody ever associated with Tyson would tell him to go out and try to blitz Joe Louis. Those were long time boxing guys that knew what Louis was all about. Granted they didn't know what what 2019 internet guys know, but they wouldn't have tried to blitz Louis.

 

How is Louis gonna push Tyson backwards? With his arms, I suppose. But I guess a 200 lbs Louis is stronger than a 238 lbs Razor Ruddock? Than s 245 lbs Frank Bruno? These giants STILL had to tie Tyson up.

 

It seems my opinion is that Tyson has a better chance than what the people who posted seemed to believe.....

 

You can say that but TBH who did Louis fight with better head movement?

 

Tyson fighting Two Ton Galento.

TwoTon: "I´ll moida the bum!"
Tyson: "Huh, whut?"
Tyson: "Mike Tyson vs. Tony Galento, fat white Tony Galento dies!"

And the show is on.

In the end: "If he doesn´t die it doesn´t count!"

 

Holyfield was a very good counter-puncher, but he often did so in exchange, in more of a head-on duel with his opponent; during which it seems the intent was for his punches to outnumber those of his opponents'. Louis combined his counter-punching with a more intelligent and sustained attack, inside the danger zone - forming a key aspect of his defense within the offense.

The 'movement' that Louis is so often criticized for (not having), was actually quite prevalent in his work and particularly in his defensive counter-punching, if not obvious. He could stay in the pocket, shift direction to create an angle and fire off his counters, in he face of an assault. Louis also threw shorter counters with more venom in them than Holyfield.

As for durability... ...what we know is that, in his physical prime (but not as the finished article, technically), Louis was stopped (Schmeling 1), after taking dozens of chopping right hands - falling eventually in the 12th round. He wouldn't be stopped again in over 40 fights and only once again, in his very last contest.

We also know he was dropped several times. But this is not a problem for the question of durability. On the contrary, it establishes that he was able to get up and take care of business on many occasions.

I think the durability of Louis is unsurprisingly but overly questioned.

 

Tyson's head movement worked well for him against those attempting to box him from the outside. It was his means to work his way into range, without taking too much in the way of clean hard punches on route. But it wasn't an ever-present feature of Tyson and it was non-existent with every jab he threw; at which point, his head was stationery and 'painted' for a right-hand counter.

Tyson's head movement also becomes less of a problem for boxers, who are happy to shorten that distance and fight at mid-to-close range.

 

Who did Tyson beat that had half the punching ability?

There's a first time for everything


That being said, Walcott probably

 

Maybe the question should be reversed: How would Tyson survive the opening rounds against Louis?
Two murderous punchers, but Louis had better straight punches in his deadly arsenal.

 

Here's the video below. And Mike is one to show respect to the greats before him.

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