Did Joe Louis have obvious boxing flaws?

Who did Foreman or Shavers knockout that Louis With his punching power couldn't have done the same to? Norton? Ellis? Louis couldn't have floored Holmes?

 

Louis had excellent recovery abilities. Do I think Liston and Foreman would blow out Louis like they did Patterson and Norton? No! Louis chin is underrated as he took the best a prime Marciano could offer for 8 rounds even as an "old" man. Max Baer was thought to have single shot power equivalent to Shavers.

 

Yeah like a prime 168 RJJ would probably have given lots of modern heavies problems simply due to his speed. We may all agree that say Bowe would KO Jones, but he'd have to catch him first and whose to say that Jones wouldn't make Bowe look plodding and foolish chasing him around the ring while being counter punched?

And speaking of Bowe, he said he thought JJW would be a tough opponent for him. He said he thought he'd eventually get to Walcott late and stop him due to his greater size and power, but that he'd probably be down on the cards like Louis was and it'd be a come from behind win. So there's no shame in being befuddled by Walcott. And I'd pick Walcott to beat even some modern day heavies. Granted, the Lewises, Bowes, Tyson's, Joshua's etc may be off the table for him to likely beat. But the Lyle's, Berbicks , Molina's, Stewarts, Bothas etc of the world can likely be taken. On the right night, Walcott may have even taken a Mercer, Liston or Foreman IMO

 

Luckily Louis had a lot of people who helped him in the end. While Louis should have been more well off than he was, he had some connection that got him a 50 000 dollar a year job signing autographs and greeting at a Las Vegas casino. And while 50 grand a year isn't filthy rich by any means, if you look at it from late 60s, early 70s dollars that's a lot of money when even top professional s like engineers were making ten, fifteen, twenty thousand a year in those days.

 

Yes. Yes I would.

 

I think Holyfield, Tyson and quite a few others would have looked much better than Louis looked against those guys, speedwise. The man had plenty of strengths but his stiff footwork was a limitation that would have been a big factor in some hypothetical cross-era matchups.

 

"employed footwork" = walked around the ring trying to hit his opponents? Sure... So let's turn to my questions, shall we? What did you find superb about Louis' footwork in those fights? Could you recommend any particular rounds or sequences?

 

The Levinsky fight ended in the first round, so you would probably do best to watch round one.

The Baer fight lasted four rounds, so you might as well just watch the entire thing.

 

Didn't see anything superlative about his footwork in the Levinsky fight. In fact, though it obviously didn't matter there were times when Louis followed him around just like he followed around Conn and Walcott.

He showed some good defensive footwork against Baer. Not sure how that particular double-step-back move with the very low left hand would have worked if Baer had been quicker, more skilled, and maybe braver, and had tried timing him with more of those overhand right leads (the Boxing 101 response). Baer timed Louis with one such punch while he was backing out and ended up trapping Louis on the ropes until Baer was done in by his own ****-poor defense.

 

He blew Levinsky out on one for goodness sake!

You seem to be hell bent on finding fault here!

OK, at lest you have admitted that he some good defensive footwork against Baer.

That means that at least he could have done the same in a fantasy fight, had he felt the need to do so.

 

I'm still not seeing movement as being a strong suit of Louis. We can color it any way we like, but let's be honest here, Louis didn't have the best movement around the ring, nor the best head movement, while also struggling with people with good movement. People act like he made great use of angles and setting up different angles during fights, and that simply isn't the case, he wasn't great at that. This doesn't mean he wasn't a great fighter, he obviously was one of the best ever, a top 2 HW champion of all time; but that doesn't mean he didn't have flaws or weakness, but apparently some think he had none.

 

He had weaknesses, but they are not the ones that his critics identify.

Louis critics, are basically very bad at attacking Louis!

 

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Max Baer's right hand might have won him the day against say Lennox Lewis

 

He stood too erect and his defense wasn't great.