Did Joe Louis have obvious boxing flaws?

Mmm louis vs carnera.
Louis vs maxi baer.
Lous vs billy conn.
Louis vs schmeling
louis vs buddy baer
Louis vs walcott
Louis vs bradock
Louis vs galento
Louis vs nathan mann
Louis vs abe simmon 2
Vs charles....

 

Well i am not talking about carnera or abe simons ... I am not talking about super hws necessarily. Louis would have problems with heavier hws than him that at the same time were greats... Like tyson,lewis,foreman,vitali, liston. Even some guys that were not great like tua or ibeabuchi would be a test for louis for evident physical motives

 

Honest question: Do you know what it means when people criticize a boxer for having slow feet?

You're really analogizing Louis' feet and footwork to Mayweather's...?

The last sentence is patently false. Louis gets singled out for having slow feet more than virtually any other old heavyweight champions. Plenty of old-school guys who don't bounce around like Ali or Tunney, don't get criticized for their footwork on this forum.

 

So you have only seen one of the three fights that I named, and you probably weren't focusing on his feet when you watched that!

 

Personally I think every heavyweight would have problems with those you mentioned,and they would have problems with him too!

 

If he had this great footwork why did he use it only in in 3 fights?
Also if i have to be focused watching his feet then his great footwork was not that evident?

 

Simple.

He didn't need it normally!

All that he had to do was walk his hapless victim down!

He only used it in his younger years, before he learned to economize, or when he came up against somebody who could hit him back!

 

I'm great man, it's good to see you back here! How've you been?
I was getting to miss your straight forward, brash posts. I don't agree with you on everything, but I feel like you've always had a good eye for strength and power.

When you say he is static, I don't see it at all.
He is constantly poised to spring and react within a millisecond.

Like this: https://streamable.com/tvggd

That's very reactive footwork, which means he isn't plodding, and he is always in good balance and positioning. He's light on his feet actually.

Ali was comparing his style to Louis, of course Alis footwork makes his footwork look bad.
He also made Frazier look like plodder, and Foreman looking like a mummy. Ali had every right to make those comparisons.

But for us mere mortals, Louis had very good footwork.
At least I believe so. I think his footwork was good in the way Golovkins is, efficiency.

 

What did you find superb about his footwork in these fights? Are there any particular rounds that skeptics of his footwork should check out?

 

I see "economical" and "efficient" used as euphemisms for Louis' footwork but are his baby steps really economical if he ends up having to follow Billy Conn or Walcott around the ring for 12-15 rounds? Seems like a more economical approach would have been to cut off the ring, close distance, jump on those guys, and end those fights much earlier.

Seems to me that economical or efficient could be used to describe almost any very good fighter with slow feet.

 

Exactly

 

I don't think that I have even had an acknowledgment from you that he employed footwork in these fights yet.

Lets start with that before we argue about whether it was "superb".

 

Not necessarily.

Louis's strategy was aimed at making his opponent burn more energy then he did, and he tried to finish them when they were most vulnerable, i.e after they made a mistake.

His approach was as much to make a win for his opponent impossible, as to make a win for him inevitable.

If he had tried to jump on his opponents early, then he would have been burning more energy than them, leaving himself more vulnerable to their counters, and of course in would not necessarily have worked.

Now there are some fights where in hindsight he probably should have jumped on his opponent earlier.

The first Conn fight is an example of such a fight, but the Walcott fights are not.

 

I think any heavyweight outside of Ali would look a bit slow footed against Walcott and Conn.Louis wasn't fleet of foot but if his feet were mired in molasses he wouldnt have won all those fights nor score all those kos. Louis was dehydrated for the Conn fight and Conn was a 168lbs speedster.Louis was a depleted version of himself by the time he fought Walcott.If louis was the statue some are implying he wouldn't have caught up with Ramage or Pastor.

 

Problably louis would have more problems with some of them than vice versa