How good were Louis' opponents before becoming a champion?

There are some names who merit a closer look.

Lee Ramage was an exceptional technician.

Charlie Retzlaff was a renowned puncher.

Roy Lazer beat an admittedly unsupported young fighter called Arnold Cream AK Joe Walcott.

These are potential tripwires for an up and coming contender.

 

I could go further. If this was any fighter other than Louis, this woudl be seen as a tough road to a tile shot in it's own right.

Just look at the hype surrounding Moses Itauma right now.

 

Better than any champion in the history of HW.


If Louis didn't have 20 something title defenses and didn't become Joe Louis his whole "thing" he'd be known for would be having the best pre title record of any champion.

 

Hard to argue with any of this.

 

Well, here's three of the fighters you mentioned in there with the Brown Bomber. Take a look and decide for yourself whether the level of skill on display here from these three opponents is impressive or not...

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If there's more footage of the above mentioned fighters, somebody post it please. Based on that limited footage though, you might as well have Ken Lakusta in there winging right hands at Joe.

 

They were for the most part pretty respectable opponents.

 

Amazing how well they cleaned up the footage in the first fight here. Incredibly clear for the time

 

Everyone has got skill until they get hit with a Joe Louis combo.

 

Fair enough. Louis was obviously top notch, but I'm not sure about the guys listed above. They may have been accomplished for their day, but who were they beating? People here seem to base their opinions of these old school fighters on what they've read, and not the actual footage of these guys. Take a look at the following and tell me how impressed you are. This is Al Ettore about a year after fighting Louis, this time against Tony Galento.

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If there's any footage of any of the fighters above displaying anything close to elite skill, or at least having an impressive showing, somebody post it.

 

Don't forget that the best of the bunch Louis defeated before becoming champion were Uzcudun, Carnera, Max Baer, and Sharkey. When you add these guys to the pre-championship list, Joe's accomplishments become much more impressive. I understand that the parameters of the thread neglect to include these folks, but the ancillary comments by some of the posters seem to disregard Joe's accomplishments, and I just want to set the record straight. It's unfair to Louis to belittle the lesser opponents he faced without acknowledging his performance against the best of the bunch.

 

Just looking through Louis' record, I can't help but notice that the vast majority of his opponents, and the majority of the ranked Heavyweights from around that time, were White Americans. From the time I've been watching (mid 80s or so), ranked boxers from that group are rare. I mean, who were the last ten White American Heavyweights (or any weight for that matter) to have cracked the top 10 Ring ratings at any point in their careers? Seems you'd have to go a LONG way back to come up with ten. What happened with that group of fighters? Have they actually devolved since the Louis era? Have they just been exposed with more diverse competition? Are they not participating to the degree which they used to? Didn't seem to be many standout black Heavyweights during Louis' reign. Where were they? Can't knock Louis for any of this of course, but the Heavyweight landscape looked WAY different during Louis' reign than say, the 90s. Can't help but be skeptical when I see footage of some of these guys who were ranked back then.

 

The heavyweights look a lot more flat footed then. Which is a disaster when you are facing Joe Louis with that kind of ability to put combinations together. Lee Ramage does try to use mobility and range but Louis cuts off the ring.

 

Not enough footage

 

Ramage was on his bike...floating like a butterfly, and still managed to take every jab thrown his way flush on the face. You're right though. The footwork was lacking with some of his opponents back then.