If Max Schmeling had gotten that fight with Braddock,and beaten him,which I think is likely ,he would have been the first man to regain the title,would he crack your top ten if he had done so?
An equaly pertinent question is what if he had been awarded the decision in the second Jack Sharkey fight as most contemporary papers thought he should have been. How long could he have gone on as champion and how would it efect his ranking. Schmeling's whole career is a what if.
I think he be in the bottom half of the top ten if he regain the title. Also the win over Louis helps his ranking nicely as it is. I have Max in the top 15 imo.
Well I reckon Braddock would have had a really good chance against Schmeling first of all, he was super-game and Schmeling, so it is said, was reluctant to dish out the very heavy beating necessary to put him away. Braddock had the stomach for that kind of thing. If Schmeling won that one, though, he'd probably have lost the next one to Joe...or the one after that to Joe...I'm happy with where I have him which is around 15 - he probably wouldn't make it into my top ten.
no, not top ten IMO. with the exception of beating louis, he doesnt have a lot of good wins. he just didnt fight enough. from 1930 to 1939 (his prime) he only fought sixteen times. and that loss to baer is IMO a much better indication of his ability than his win over louis. he fought a lot of great fighters and beat a lot of them......but to be top ten just requires more.
I think the more intresting question is if the Braddock fight had happened and Schmeling did indeed win, would Louis ever of been champ? I do not see Hitler allowing his aryan Heavyweight Champion fight a black man...
These are valid arguments. Schmeling dose not have the depth to his resume of say Jack Sharkey. On the other hand he was much more consistent against the top contenders of the era than Sharkey, Baer and Co. While they split series with the likes of Risko, Uzcdun and Stribling Schmeling dominated them (forgett the draw against Uzcdun Schmeling beat the snot out of him all three times). Taking this combined with the win over Louis and the points that I made in my first post I do think that Schmeling is a clear cut top 20 all time heavyweight. Another thing about Schmeling that people seldom apreciate is the speed with which he was rushed up through the world rankings. In his first fight on American soil he fought Johny Risko in the elimination tournament to replace Gene Tunney. Risko was at this stage the betting favourite to win the tournament and when this previously unknown European fighter dominated him and knocked him out it was like "Where the f*** did that come from"? Two fights later he was the champion.
Janitor--where would Louis rate if Schmeling did fight and defeat Braddock and then for whatever reason, never did fight Louis a second time?
Good question. He might have become a Sam Langford type figure franticaly tearing through the heavyweight division in an effort to force a title fight. It is possible that his resume would have been even deeper in this situation. With the high quality film footage it is possible to imagine Louis establishing himself as a top 10 all time heavyweight without wining the title. It is even possible to imagine a situation where he gets the title without beating Schmeling. Ultimately it might have done more for Schmelings reputation than Louis's because some would infer that Schmeling would simply always have had Louis's number.
Coming off the high of that ko of Louis, Schmeling would have had world class confidence against Braddock. I believe it would have been a methodical, sustained beating, mainly from the right hand that Max would dish out to the Cinderella Man, with a stoppage, probably a tko in the 12th, 13th or 14th round with a couple of knockdowns along the way. Schmeling would have been under intense pressure from the Nazis to win the title for the "Fatherland", and he would not have let them down. A dedicated, disciplined, tactically savvy Schmeling would have been to much for Jim Braddock, no matter how much heart ol' Jim had.
