I just recently started watching more of Louis fights and in particularly VS Max Baer. In the Baer fight Louis seems so fast even in the bad quality. His hands were pretty much a blur. IMO Louis is a top 5 Fastest hands for the heavyweight division. Compared to modern fighters Louis is definitely faster than Wilder, AJ and probably Fury. Thoughts?
In punching he's faster than all of them by miles, yes. But it's not just metres per second on what he tosses. That's not it. It's how fast the punches come, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 punches, how big are the gaps between shots. Watch someone like Wilder - there can be seconds between those shots. If you watch a lot of footage of AJ, find footage of him throwing four punches and count how long passes between punch one and punch four. It will be two, three times how long it takes Louis, the difference is absurd. In this regard, which is as important as any aspect of speed, Louis may be the fastest. He may be the fastest combination puncher there is over long-distance combinations. Someone like Mike Tyson might be quicker over wide spaces - up, down, left, right, but if you want a guy putting six punches on a sixpence, Louis is fastest (And best). That's balance and technique. “He hit me 18 times while I was in the act of falling.” — Max Baer
Eddie Futch said Tyson had the best hand speed of any heavyweight he’d seen since Joe Louis. And he saw ‘em all.
Louis's hand speed WITH power is the best their is. Ali may have hit faster, Tyson may have hit harder with one shot. But no heavy in history had the perfect combination of speed,power, instinct, and technical skills of Joe Louis.
I think he had some of the fastest hands of all heavyweights. Not saying he was number one in that department but he was up there. He needed that speed to land those combinations.
Patterson, Ali, Tyson, Holmes, Dempsey, But, as others stated. Putting speed into combinations is Joe's best attribute.
