Gerry Cooney vs Joe Louis 1941

I understand the appeal of this prediction -- it gives Cooney his due as a scary puncher, and Louis his due as a great heavyweight. Each guy gets a chance to shine in Hollywood fashion, show their stuff in a fantasy fight.

But I have my doubts -- respectfully -- about how realistic it is compared to either Cooney or Louis just winning outright.

If Cooney hurts and drops Louis, Cooney has a big advantage at that point. He's much more likely to be able to finish off a hurt Louis than an unhurt Louis.

Once Louis gets hurt and dropped (if he did), I don't think live betting odds would give him a 50%+ chance of winning from that point onward.

 

Better.

 

Statistically untrue. Of the 7 fights where he was dropped, he lost a grand total of 2 of them which would mean he'd had a 28.57% chance of losing from that point on.

 

You could make a strong argument that both men have a better best win.

 

It is also worth mentioning that the two fights were both well outside his prime.

 

One of them. He was about 1-2 years pre peak in 1936, not what you'd call well outside. The caveat being that this particular loss does more to prove his durability than downgrade it.

 

I've always thought his durability was never quite the same after this fight.

 

It's also worth mentioning (well not really) that 4 out of 7 of these fights happened in June.

 

Considering he wasn't stopped until 15 years later and went on to have the longest title reign, his durability was probably fine. The difference between Schmeling and the rest of the punchers Louis faced later on was his ability to keep hurting opponents and not leave them off the hook, which was exactly what was needed for offsetting Louis' recovery ability.
Walcott, for example, hurt Louis multiple times, but whenever he tried to capitalize and take on the lead he screwed it up, got outplayed and backed off again. Jersey Joe was in Schmeling's class as a counter puncher but nowhere close as a finisher.
Charles and Conn didn't have that type of power, Marciano did not have the accuracy, skill or speed of Schmeling but by that point in Louis' career, it didn't matter.

 

I never said his durability wasn't fine, afterwards. Just not the Iron (yeah that's not gonna be very popular here but I stand by it), it was before Schmeling. The punishment he took from Schmeling before succumbing was outrageous. Schmeling even stated, he'd never seen a man take so many punches before finally going out.

It's absolutely not unreasonable to think this took something out of Louis's durability, as history has shown us far to often once a chin is cracked (especially after a brutal beating), their durability is often not quite the same.

Louis definitely improved as a fighter overall later, but I don't see guys like Galento, and Buddy Baer dropping a pre-Schmeling Louis. Buddy dropping Louis despite his older brother who was superior in every facet of the game (apart from size) being unable to do so, is an indicator to me, Louis's durability had declined.

 

While Buddy dropped Louis, Joe didn't take the count or seem hurt at all. Buddy also drove his massive torso into Louis, pushing him through the ropes, so the whole "knocked him out of the ring" as many like to say is a little overblown.
The thing is that Buddy, Galento, Walcott, Braddock didn't just land the kd punches, they landed several others (in the case of Walcott, a lot more) but Louis didn't drop every time he got tagged. If his durability was compromised you'd expect power punches to keep hurting him, but aside from producing singular early knockdowns, Joe took them fine. It tracks well with the Schmeling fight too. Max drops Louis in the 4th round with about the 20th hard punch he lands on him, which is a fraction of what he eventually needed to land to win the fight.
Other punchers managed to produce the early KD but they couldn't keep it up.
M. Baer or Retzlaff could have dropped Louis, it just happened that the punches they landed didn't produce a knockdown, the same way most of the punches B. Baer, Walcott and Braddock landed didn't cause a knockdown.
Fighters can receive beatings that ruin them, but they don't tend to receive them in the beginning of a long career, but rather at the end.
The fight I would point to to prove that Louis retained his durability well past the Schmeling fight is the Charles 1950 fight. While Charles lacked Schmeling's or Walcott's power, he was still a good hitter and was landing on an exhausted Louis at will but couldn't take him out. Usually when a fighter loses their stamina, their iron chin turns to glass. Louis while completely exhausted, at his fattest, still managed to make it to the final bell.
There are some photographs that show just how brutal that fight was.
https://imgur.com/a/rhCqIai
If he wasn't as durable post 1936, someone would have knocked him out before Marciano.
It's simply the case that no one could hit him as hard and as often as Schmeling to manage it. They either lacked Schmeling's ridiculous stamina, power or finishing ability, attributes they wouldn't really need if Louis was not longer as durable.

 

It's worth remembering that Schmeling put Louis on ***** street with a single right hand before dropping him in the follow up volley long before any accumulation had built up.