Joe Louis tells how he would beat Ali

Louis was more technical than Bonavena, had a lot more two handed skill than Frazier, and hit harder than both of them

What would have been cool is if Ali and Louis debated their strategies with Cus as a moderator

 

Yes, only Shavers, Foreman and Liston among Ali's opponents could compete with Louis in terms of two-handed power and none of them was as skilled. Liston coming closest and Shavers being the furthest away.

 

I won't.

 

Cuz nobody ever gets hit with a right hand in a boxing match right? Do you recall the Doug Jones fight? Do you recall Ali getting buzzed by Milderbeger's right (albeit momentarily).

I don't know how you can say Louis 'didnt look great' because he was challenged and didn't bowl the guy over. How many boxers did Ali look great against?

You could also make the same argument about Ali and left hooks. He got hit with dozens against Frazier, got knocked down against Cooper and Banks.

 

You could absolutely make a similar argument about Ali and left hooks, and probably should in a h2h fantasy match-up discussion.

And, yes, Doug Jones is also pretty fair to bring up in a discussion such as this.

As for Ali against boxers? I'd say Terrell, Ellis, Bugner and Young were the best fairly pure boxers he faced. Among those, he looked good to great against three of them. The one he didn't look good against was Young, but that was also the version of Ali that was by far the one most removed from his best.

Of course, this probably have little bearing on a match-up with Louis, since their styles was nothing like his.

If we're talking the subset of boxer puncher, the best Ali fought was Jones, Liston, Patterson, Folley and Quarry. I think Ali on balance looked excellent against these guys. The main exception here being Jones. Lyle could also be added to this bunch, though less technical. Ali looked pretty lackluster in this one, but got the TKO. As with Young, this was also the version of Ali most removed from his prime.

Moore was of course a great boxer puncher, but because of his age when he faced Ali, I didn't include him. I didn't include Bob Foster either, since he never really did anything at HW. But he had his moments against Ali, but there were also rounds where Ali literally played with him. But as I said, his great qualities as a LHW never really carried over to HW.

Stylistically, the kind of fighter that most bothered Ali, I think, was what we could label swarmers/pressure fighters, often with a somewhat unorthodox style and high work rate. Frazier and Norton belong here of course, but also Cooper and I would make room for Mildenberger as well. Bonavena probably fits as well. A bit off rhytm fighters, that kept coming and kept the pressure on.

That's why I personally believe that a guy like Marciano could well cause Ali more problems than some better ATG fighters. Ali thought so too.

But that's just a guess. I'm too often wrong predicting fights between guys in the same era to make any firm predictions on guys in different ones.

Stylistically, though, I think a match-up with Louis probably favours Ali more. If we look at the fights where Louis was most bothered in his prime we have the right over the left (Schmeling), left-right and in and out movement (Conn) and a bit a mix of both (Farr). Then we have Godoy, that of course was a very different style.

But in three out of four Louis was troubled by things that all were among Ali's best attributes. You could to an extent say the same the other way around, but not to the same extent I think.

Does this mean Ali would beat Louis? Not necessarily. We will never know that. And it is very true that fighters with a similar style to Louis, but much inferior, gave Ali trouble. Jones a lot, Folley some. So nothing is set in stone here. But stylistically, I think this is one of the better match-ups for Ali against another ATGs. Just my 2 cents.

 

Best listen when Joe speaks.

 

I don't disagree with much of what you've said.

When it comes to a potential Ali-Louis match-up the two Ali opponents that interest me the most are Jones and Norton. When Eddie Futch was training Norton for the fight against Ali he insisted that Norton jab with Ali (whilst parrying Ali's jab with his right hand) because Ali never blocked jabs, that was one of the reasons that Norton had success, its also important to note that Norton parried the jab in a similar manner to Joe Louis, his investment to the body in the corner is almost certainly a strategy that Louis would utilize. Another thing I notice about Norton is that he was rarely, if ever, overzealous in his attacks. Futch I believe based his game-plan for Norton on his theories of how Louis would've fought Ali. Jones was able to catch Ali while he was leaning his head backwards, he was able to land his jab and counter Ali with his right with some consistency, he also showed how much trouble you could give Ali by challenging his jab, pushing forward and getting in close (which Frazier would do at FOTC), Jones was the first fighter to prove that Ali was hittable. Jones is also a notable opponent because he made Ali miss quite a lot in the fight and that is something Louis could potentially do. There are moments in the Folley, Mildenberger and Cooper fights that show more vulnerabilities.

Tommy Farr had more success with his left hook than he did with his right hand, Louis' right eye was pretty busted up. Farr had a lot of the success he had because he tried to force the fight - something Ali wouldn't do unless he had a death-wish. Billy Conn got away with a lot of the stuff he did because he was smaller and more educated on the inside - he would wrestle momentarily, throw lightning-quick combinations (quicker than Ali's in my opinion) and then disengage immediately, Conn would also throw a leaping left-hook on a half-beat to throw off Louis' rhythm, he had a very hard time getting set to throw a good punch because Conn's movements were so unpredictable. I suspect Louis draining himself to get down to 200lbs and perhaps not taking him as seriously as he could played a role in his having a lot of trouble but that could just be idle-talk. I do not think Ali could've replicated Conn's game plan as it was more suited for a smaller fighter. I also don't see Ali adopting Schmeling's tactics and spamming the right hand simply because that requires him to spend a substantial amount of time planting his feet which seems antithetical to Ali's purposes, this is a fight where he'll need to move and for other reasons that we disagree on.

Louis I think had more problems with fighters that had a mixed approach - i.e fighters that were willing to box him when needed and take the fight to him when needed, the fighters that over-committed to one strategy got taken out.

I also think that Louis fought more fighters who were like Ali (presented similar problems as he would), Billy Conn had similar footspeed, Pastor and Ramage had the similar temperament for staying on the outside and Joe Walcott and Max Schmeling had the countering ability (superior in my opinion), the only thing that Ali has that might surprise Louis is his jab which was fast and surprisingly stiff.

The fight that gives me an idea of how he could've fared against Ali is the Lee Ramage fight (part 2).

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Ramage (though not the dancer Ali was) has similar mannerisms: circling footwork, hands pretty low, leans his head back to avoid straight punches: Louis cuts the ring off, slips and blocks the jab, hits him with sharp counters, invests in the body (causing him to drop his hands even lower), semi-circles as opposed to moving in a straight-line, makes the most of every opportunity to hit him when they're up close, he also lets Ramage jab first so that he can land a jab in reply or land hooks to the body. Louis feints and at times changes levels before throwing a jab so that he is not too predictable. Louis puts him away with a very short left hook (a known weakness for Ali) whilst he is attempting to escape a close encounter. Though I do not think that this is exactly how the fight goes, I think this fight gives an idea of how Louis might have approached a fighter like with the style and skill-set of Ali.

I think the biggest factors in this fight are Ali's lack of fundamentals and Louis' finishing ability. Though Ali fought and took good shots from big-hitters like Frazier, Foreman and Shavers; what separates Louis from them is his killer instinct and the fact that he was willing to hold his fire and wait until he had a clean, accurate shot, this clearly contrasts with the aforementioned fighters who went buck-wild when they tagged Ali and allowed him to recover, Frazier could've taken Ali out in FOTC but allowed Ali's clowning to confuse him, that wouldn't happen with Louis in my opinion. I think Louis would knock him out between the 9th and 14th round.

 

Which shows your enormous amount of bias. No-one is looking at the past peak version of Ali nor the 17 fight kid. Christ Louis himself is talking about the 1967 version in case that didn't somehow compute. We may as well be looking at the Walcott version of Louis.

 

You are grasping at straws.

I was only looking at those fights for stylistic cues. I didn't say that that would be the version of Ali that Louis would fight.

The example I gave of Louis fighting Ramage is from when he was 15-0 and 20 years old. Funny how you conveniently overlooked that. Ali fought Doug Jones less than a year before winning the title from Liston. Louis would fight three more years (17 fights including the beating he took against Schmeling) before getting the winning the title against Braddock. Why aren't you crying foul about that?

 

I agree with JT. When people quote the Jones and Norton fights withuot mentioning that that wasn't prime versions of Ali, I get a bit suspicious.

I didn't mention Walcott in my post, since that wasn't prime Louis.

Norton also fought quite differently to Louis style wis, out of a crouch, and I think his success with the jab gets overstated. Certainly if you look at the rematch, when Ali looked the closest to his prime self.

The two fighters most similar to Louis Ali fought in his prime were Liston and Folley. And when he faced Jones in his prime, in an exhibition, things looked quite different. Of course, Jones was sliding then.

And why this "Ali pulled his head straight back" myth persist, I don't know. The most usual was that he pulled his head back at an angle. Sometimes he would come back with his pull counter from that angle. From 2:30:

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Here are stylistic cues from a prime Ali against Jones:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uBN8DaOhj-I

There's a more complete (first two rounds) version you can find as well.

In fairness, a Jones on the slide. But peak Ali... ****.

 

Btw, I once more got reminded how hard this prediction game is. I thought Haney would make easy work of Garcia...

 

And your bias has been rampant throughout.

You called the Liston Ali beat "washed" despite him coming off his two best performances. You called the Patterson Ali beat "washed" despite that he would continue to operate at that stage for seven more years. You could have covered yourself by citing his back injury, but you want straight for "washed", which is a very clear tell.

And you contested that Ali never landed his lead right on a "defensively sound" fighter, which would exclude practically all the top 5 contenders and champions 64-75 from being defensively sound, which is absurd.

If you want to enjoy good discussion here you should loses than bias up and learn more about fighters than those you like. The talking points about Ali you've been regurgitating are just from the "I don't like Ali"-playbook and doesn't require more knowledge about Ali than reading White Bomber's posts on the topic. Here in Classic the demands are higher.

 

Did I say Ali was in his prime when he fought Norton?

I didn't say Norton fought exactly like Louis. I said he parried the jab in a similar manner. They both fought in a half-crouch.

"Ali pulled his head straight back"

That's a blatant misquote.

I brought up a Louis fight from even earlier in his career as an example and also mention Jersey Joe Walcott. Does that make me biased against Louis?