Joe Louis had the most underrated chin in heavyweight history.

Are you arguing his defense wasn't that good?

 

About how I see it. 5.5 would be average.

 

So now you are saying that he had an average chin for a heavyweight, or little better than?

 

I'd say his chin was about a 6 or 6.5 out of 10. Can't be more than that with as many times he went down. I'd place his recovery powers at a 9.5 though.

 

Let’s give the number of knockdowns that Louis sustained a bit of context.

Louis fought 31 opponents who were currently ranked in the top 10 by Ring Magazine. That is nearly half of his professional fights, and two, three or even four times as many, as some of the other all-time great heavyweight champions. His nearest peers in this regard, are Muhammad Ali who also fought more than 30, and Larry Holmes who fought about 20. Nobody else even came half way to matching him in terms of depth.

There are boxers who were not great fighters, who fought a similar number of ranked opponents, believe it or not. One example is Bob Satterfield. Satterfield was stopped 13 times I think, and had a 44% KO%, despite being one of the hardest p4p hitters of all time. I will grant that Satterfield was not the most durable fighter, but his record gives us some indications of what we might expect Louis’s record to look like, if his chin was not somewhat better than the going rate.

 

Louis could be dropped and hurt, but like Larry Holmes he recovered well and usually quickly resumed beating his opponent up. Most of the times he went down were flash knockdowns. There were 15 years and 40+ fights between his two KO losses, both to Hall of Famers and one when he was years past his sell by date, which hardly suggests a weak chin.

 

Not at all .. every fighter I've every seen outside of Pernell Whitaker and Floyd Mayweather got hit .. Joe was exposed as having a ***** in his armor against Scheming and he could not fix it that night and Max was one of the very few fighters at that time who could have pulled off what he did .. the other shots were pretty much quickly recovered from ..

 

Well put, it also proved, if there were doubts, that he had the bottle.often overlooked is the fighting heart Joe had.

 

Agree .. Schmeling raved about his chin after the bout ..

 

Better than Early Shavers.

 

I think you're being way too harsh .. Scheming was a serious right hand puncher, Braddock was known for nothing but a good right hand and it was a flash knockdown of an overanxious Louis off balance rushing in .. Galento could crack big time, fought the best three rounds of his life and Louis took it fine .. B. Baer was a huge right hand puncher and Louis took it well .. Walcott was a terrific puncher, sneaky and fast .. Marciano could hit a bit too .. :good

The time he was on top and the number of too fighters was amazing ..

 

Excellent post from a poster who does not visit us enough!

 

The comments concerning Tammy are seriously flawed. It does not matter where a fighter started his career. He was a hwt when he fought Louis and was VERY WELL KNOWN to have a killer right hand. He hit Joe with that right hand early in the fight but like the ATG he was Louis came back to score the ko in that same round. The ability to come back from adversity to win is important criteria to be considered an ATG fighter.

It never ceases to amaze me that very well know boxing history is questioned. Mauriello was a well know heavy right hand puncher. Everyone knew it going into that fight. No reason to question it today.