Did Joe Louis duck any fighter???

Well, how often your defend your title is part of how your reign is viewed in hindsight.

Taking on two top rated guys in 3,5 years is far from the poorest of ratios, but it's not among the best either.

Hate to harp on about this, but Ali's second reign gets a lot of stone from some quarters and while there is some reasons to critize how he held himself as a champion during that reign, he took on guys like Lyle, Frazier, Young, Norton and Shavers in a similar period of time.

So if we're going to citize him some, one also has to say that Louis taking on Conn, Maurelio and Walcott during the last 3.5 years of his reign just isn't that impressive. But it's not terrible either.

His reign up until WWII was very good, though.

 

Actually, Conn had been restored to his #1 ranking by some bodies after coming out of the army. So technically, Louis had a total of four fights against the #1 contender over roughly 3 years.

 

Well, that sounds better, but it's hardly all there is to it. Walcott was the only up and coming fighter of the three.

What was wrong with Mauriello? Louis gave him the fight as a favour as the story goes. But if he was nr.1 contender he shouldn't need that favour, though.

 

Elmer Ray certainly deserved a shot in 1946-1947. Louis took a 1 year 1/2 gap between the conn fight and walcott fight. Ray was currently in the middle of a 65-1 winning streak and worked his way to # 1 in the rankings with a win over walcott, and would go on to beat a prime ezzard charles in 47. In Louis defense, both fought an exhibition in 1949 and Louis knocked the Alligator Wrestlers out cold.


Bottom Line: Joe Louis fought one of the best black hall of famers in the 1930s and won by KO 1 John Henry lewis, and he fought the best black heavyweight of the 1940s Jersey Joe Walcott and knocked him out. He also fought the 2nd best black heavyweight of the era ezzard charles. He took on Hall of Famer Jimmy Bivins and won a clear decison.


While Louis did fight a long list of black fighters, he did take on the very best. Just imagine if louis had not been inactive from 1943-1945, he most certainly would have taken on some of the top rated black men.

 

Paul,

Joe Louis knocked Roscoe Toles out. Both were young prospects at the time, but this does say something.

 

I agree with you, I was just stating that he didn't fight too many times.

I'm not too sure why he didn't defend his title for more than a year in between the Mauriello and Walcott fights. Perhaps boxing exhibitions (which were often more like real contests) were enough to keep the public pleased.

Mauriello vs Louis was a fun fight:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUzJaokX_N8

 

I got it wrong. I mixed Mauriello up with John Henry Louis. My bad.

Fighting 4 times against top 1 ranked guys in 3.5 years isn't shameful by any stretch of the imagination, that's true. Fighting more often and taking on at least one of Bettina and Ray would make it better, though.

 

It's a nice one. Louis looks very sharp still.

 

Not trying to start trouble (I know how people feel about Joe Louis), but if Louis didn't duck anybody what does that say about the heavyweight division during his reign? I regard his title fight opposition, with few exceptions, as very weak.

 

Louis must have had bolts for hands.

 

Why would it say anything? The division is what it is, regardless of whether Louis chooses to "duck" anyone or not.