But he hardly moves them. Louis often fights as if he's in an elevator. He's got a very low guard open to the right hand, and next to no head movement. You can see what Schemling saw. If he was fighting someone decent with a jab and better range and feet, he's in some trouble.
Well i'm no pugilistic technical expert, there's fella's on here forgotten more than I know, but i'm not seeing what you're seeing there regarding his feet, his head maybe I agree, but his footwork looks impressive enough to me. Where you get "but he hardly moves them" from puzzles me.
Nothing wrong with Louis' foot work at all in that clip,he is on the balls of his feet ready to move either forwards or back as required.
You have to watch the films, not a short 20 second clip. I see slow and mechanical like feet for most of the seconds in a round, a low guard, a sometimes stick your face forward style, and limited head movement.
I understand what you're seeing in quite a lot of his fights, but certainly in a majority of those he used the footwork that was necessary, he was taking people out by simply steadily stalking them, he didn't have to use anything more extravagant, he almost crept up on opponents and before they knew it he was in range and unloading those devastating combos. Yet in other fights against Baer for instance he was light on his feet and as far as I could see his footwork was sublime, as far away from "mechanical" as you could get. He moved around Baer at distance using the jab before moving in and unloading, before getting out,it was a masterful boxing display. I don't think many heavyweight champions in all aspects of the game looked better than Louis did in that fight against a dangerous opponent.
Yeah, very slow feet and his guard is down. Whatever happened to Joe Louis, anyway? Oh he was HW Champeen of the World. Managed to survive with slow feet and a low guard, I guess.
I have the whole fight in this quality. There are moments where Louis does not move his feet for a few seconds. BUT, when he is doing this, he is ready to spring and counter. Think Tommy Hearns without the stick and move gear. Or Mayweather. Sometimes doesn't move his feet for a long time, but he's not plodding, he's working. @KuRuPT We were actually talking about this. If you watch full rounds, you do see times where his feet don't move much. Kind of like Hearns and McCallum in the first 40 seconds of this clip: This content is protected To your credit, I underestimated the amount of times Louis would stop moving around the ring. But at the same time, he's ready to spring from that position with lighting quick speed.
He fought in a time when there were very few skilled punchers. The best skilled punchers he fought both stopped him in Schemling and Marciano. If you want to call Walcott a puncher, he floored him 3-4 times, and dominated him on the score cards to be robbed in the first fight, and in-explictley got caught show boating while in the lead late in the second match. In case you're wondering Max Baer was not very skilled in my opnion, nor was he motivated in general, but he could hit! Louis probably had his his best filmed performance vs Baer. If you have slow feet and a low guard an extra durability is needed, and extra range would be nice. Louis didn't have either. His offense was enough for him.
