Ezzard Charles vs these big punchers

They’d probably never land a worthwhile right hand… any of them, the way you beat a good boxer is with your left hand not the right, the right is heavy artillery you need your left hand in check and classy to compete with someone like Charles, Charles at his best beats the ever living (pardon the vulgarity) F*** out of all these guys if he doesn’t have the power to stop them… there faces would be hanging off the skull he’d hit them so often, it’d be like Mayweather vs Canelo the skill gap is comedy, actual comedy on the inside where they’d try to get they’d look clueless.

 

Elmer Ray was a great fighter but in terms of punching power he has the most padded record of any great HW. Against elite or semi elite competition(10 or so fights) his KO rate drops to almost 0. Out of 72 KOs Savold is the only top guy Ray knocked out. And by "top guy" I don't mean "contenders", "top 10" or what not. I mean fighters people knowlegable about boxing history have heard of. To top it off Ray was in the smallest era.

Louis lost his power between the Mauriello and Walcott fights. Louis was still great as a fighter but he was no longer "dangerous".

Not that Charles has a weak chin or anything but I see no evidence he can survive against top punchers. On paper(and probably just paper) Cleveland Williams should beat him too.

 

Go to 17:47 and put the video at 0.25 speed.

This content is protected

 

I didn't say Louis no longer had any "power" but he no longer had "his" power that people associate with Joe Louis. When people credit someone for surviving Joe Louis they are thinking of the Joe Louis that knocked Buddy Baer 3 times in a round. That Joe Louis wouldn't have taken 10+ rounds to knock down someone Walcotts size. He could put down almost any opponent at will. This Joe Louis couldn't do that.

Saying he lost his power might not even mean he couldn't hit as hard, might be something mechanical. Either way the danger of fighting Joe Louis that Marciano, Charles, Walcott and Bivins faced was not the same. Louis was still otherwise a great fighter who could hand out a nasty beating over time. He wasn't "washed" but for whatever reason "that" was gone. Foreman was older but he had a similar thing happen where when he came back from a layoff he never scored another knockdown. Was otherwise fine. Maybe its the layoff maybe its a random part of aging.

But the point is Charles going 15 with that Louis does not mean he can survive a Lyle or Shavers.

 

I can agree that the Louis of the Charles fight onwards had obviously diminished punching power but there's no reason to include Walcott into that.
Yeah he took 11 to put Walcott out but Pastor and Conn stayed around as long too.
The fact that he even finished a prime Walcott is incredible when you remember the amount of punchers Walcott faced and nobody could put a dent in him aside from Marciano. Layne, Ray, Murray, Charles couldn't do it and all those guys could hit.
Louis hit him solidly in the 11th and then got him out of there within 10 seconds.
He definitely had a lot of power left at 34 years old, which he undeniably lost in his 2 year lay off.