Joe Louis vs Derek Chisora (yes really)

You somehow managed to be ridiculous with nearly every single sentence in your post.

Neither Chisora nor Galento would win any athletic records so I fail to see how that's relevant. A fighter being ranked in 2023 doesn't automatically mean they're going to far outstrip a ranked fighter from decades ago. In some cases it's even easier to get a ranking or a title shot nowadays.

As for the fight, Chisora brings absolutely nothing to the table that would bother Louis. Nothing. He would be a glorified punching bag.

Usyk was still developing as a HW when he fought Chisora. Current Usyk boxes circles around him as evidenced by his dismantling of Joshua. Vitali won by a landslide victory 119-111 beating up Chisora mostly with just his right arm (the left arm had a torn ligament). Your attempts to hype up Chisora based on losses are hilarious.

 

"Neither Chisora nor Galento would win any athletic records so I fail to see how that's relevant."

It's relevant because a little 5'9 pig brawler with shorter arms than modern top 122 pounders gave 1930's athlete Louis life and death. I think Chisora is a vastly superior fighter to Galento.

"A fighter being ranked in 2023 doesn't automatically mean they're going to far outstrip a ranked fighter from decades ago"

Stop talking rubbish and find me the athletic records set in 1940 or before that are not surpassed by the 10th best athlete 70 or 80 years later.

"Usyk was still developing as a HW when he fought Chisora"

Yet one fight later Usyk schooled Joshua, he'd sparred heavyweights throughout his career and schooled them in the 2013 WBS. Chisora has many advantages over Joshua (experience, mass, confidence, determination, chin, engine, aggression, roughhouse tactics), which to a significant degree explains why Usyk underperformed vs Chisora relative to what he did vs Joshua.

"Vitali won by a landslide victory"

Chisora was at best a 15/2 underdog. Vitali was heavily favoured to stop him and instead had the 3rd toughest and most competitive fight of his career, going 12 and losing as many rounds on the German scorecards as he lost vs Byrd and Lewis. Vitali outlanded Chisora 211-163. Chisora's relentlessness and determination no doubt played a role in Vitali's alleged injury, although Vitali was not fighting with one arm (even if the left was injured/less functional to some degree) as he threw 258 jabs over 12 rounds.

"attempts to hype up Chisora based on losses"

It's common for people to evaluate a fighter's performance positively despite a loss, especially against top opponents. They do this all the time with Ali, Holyfield and Vitali for instance. Chisora showed enough in those fights and others for me to believe that he would beat a small cruiser-sized champion from 80 years ago.

 

"in fact athletes from the 40s would only benefit from modern technology"

I'm sure athletes today would benefit from the technology of the year 2100 too. I wonder if there will still be boxing fans in 2100 claiming that "Joe Louis, Mohammed Ali and Mike Tyson beat them all!" It will probably depend on how prominent Americans are in the heavyweight division I guess. I'm comparing Louis as he was to Chisora as he was, not a hypothetical Louis born 70 years later.

 

"a 90 year old Lewis and lost"

You have to exaggerate ridiculously because if you tell the truth (Lewis was 37 and thought he was still at his best) then your argument falls apart. Vitali's worst loss was to Byrd because he wasn't stopped against his will, he quit. But Louis by his own admission wouldn't even fight someone with Byrd's style (or Sanders, or Gomez, who would also likely beat Louis) because he's a southpaw. Louis ducked this guy after being schooled in the gym, saying "I don't want no part of no southpaws".

Vitali's main claims to superiority as a boxer would be that he's beaten on average much bigger, more modern heavyweights, faced a far greater variety of styles, body types and nationalities, didn't just fight in one country as a domestic champion, only lost 10 rounds by consensus on the cards, was never dropped in a pro boxing ring, stopped 87% of his opponents and last defended his title at 41.

 

Against who? An old Shannon Briggs? You still have no proof that Vitali is better H2H than Louis because he's done nothing to prove that but lose to an old Lennox Lewis (who was nowhere near his best, regardless of what he says. Fighters say that all the time when they're clearly past their prime.) He didn't face a greater variety of styles (what examples do you have? Louis' era was filled with unique styles), body types (what?) and nationalities (I didn't know opponent ethnic diversity had to do with greatness, especially considering his opponents sucked)

Vitali's greatest accomplishment is losing to an old Lennox Lewis, nothing you've said changes that.

 

I was just referring to your 'no athlete from 1940 has surpassed one from 2022' claim, and that's due to conditions that previous athletes faced. Different conditions, rulesets etc affect an athlete's performance greatly.

Boxing, on the other hand, is different. It's ruleset hasn't really changed since 1920, so this argument doesn't apply. Now, if we use the eye test (AKA analyze their technique ourselves through film) we'll see that Louis not only holds up to modern standards, but surpasses them. He's too smart for Derek

 

I covered this already but I still find it weird that you use this claim. What do the athletic capabilities of other sports have to do with boxing? Ignoring the fact boxing is one of the sports that is least reliant on athleticism on the entire planet, let's use science to explain why modern athletes have all the records to begin with:

Let's use Jesse Owens and Usain Bolt for example. Jesse Owens' best running performance was 10.2, which wouldn't be very impressive today. However, the tracks that Jesse Owens had to run on back in 1936 were made out of cinders. Cinders, as in what is leftover after wood is burned. All tracks at the time had a cinder surface, and they were used at every Olympics through 1964. Jesse Owens also never had any starting blocks, which athletes nowadays benefit from significantly (Over a 100m distance, it is estimated that the lack of starting blocks can cut up to 0.2 seconds of a runner's time). Owens' shoes also would've certainly impacted his performance in comparison to modern runners (likely could've taken away another 0.1 or 0.2 seconds, not to mention how much time the cinder track takes away).

They got Olympic sprinter Andre De Grasse to run under similar conditions as Jesse Owens. De Grasse was a bronze medalist at the 2016 Olympics in the 100m and has a personal best time of 9.9 seconds. Owens and De Grasse were both of similar height and weight. De Grasse ran the 100m, under Owens' conditions, in 11 seconds (1.1 seconds above his best, and 0.9 seconds less than Owens!)

David Epstein, the author of the book The Sports Gene, concluded:

Biomechanical analysis of the speed of Owens’ joints shows that had been running on the same surface as Bolt, he wouldn’t have been 14 feet behind, he would have been within one stride.”

If you take away Owens' handicaps, he would still be a world class runner today. The same applies to other athletes from the past.

 

Learn how to use the quote feature properly you neanderthal.

1) Chisora doesn't even hit as hard as Galento. Galento caught Louis with a powerful hook when he was off guard. It happens. He got off the floor and beat him up.

2) I don't give a **** about athletic records they're irrelevant to the topic.

3) Usyk beat Chisora by UNANIMOUS decision and improved as a heavyweight in his next fight. If you have to use losses to hype up a boxer in a h2h discussion, that boxer is trash.

4) Lol I am not even a Vitali fan, I criticize him quite often. But trying to criticize Vitali for not stopping Chisora when he was 40 years old with an injured arm is peak stupidity and desperation. That isn't anything for Chisora to be proud of going the distance against such an opponent.

5) Ali, Holyfield, and even Vitali have multiple WINS people can evaluate to determine how good they are h2h. You haven't bothered referencing a single win of Chisora's to make his case because he has so few of them. What's his best win, Takam? Price? He's garbage. He's even worse than Chris Arreola. Just a punching bag journeyman people used to pad their record with a "name" opponent. Stop.

You cannot mention a single thing Chisora does better than Louis and your main argument is "uh, Chisora fought in a more recent era and did better while losing against elite big men".

 

"An old Shannon Briggs?"

Klitschko was older than Briggs but Briggs lost every round clearly, never pushed the pace or did anything threatening and isn't even one of Vitali's top 10 opponents. That you even mention Briggs shows how clueless you are about assessing the ability of Vitali's opponents.

"especially considering his opponents sucked"

By modern standards Louis and all of his opponents sucked, including the many he lost to or went life and death with.

"Lennox Lewis"

6'5, 235+ athletic heavyweights didn't exist before the 90's. I don't think Louis would have won a round against Lewis and he'd have got clean KO'd, like he did vs Schmeling but much faster.

"clearly past their prime"

Vitali made Lewis look past his prime. Prior to the fight Lewis was looking for at least three fights before he retired and was in good form in his previous two. Lewis wasn't believed to be in decline at all, hence he was a 5/1 favourite to beat Vitali. While Vitali was at a massive high level experience deficit relative to Lewis.

"nationalities (I didn't know opponent ethnic diversity had to do with"

It should be obvious: heavyweight boxing in those days was basically just an American thing, that's a very small talent poor relative to modern global eras with a far bigger world population to boot.

"greater variety of styles (what examples do you have?"

How many southpaws did Louis fight? Oh yeah he said he never would fight one after getting schooled in the gym by Bettina. What about athletic super-heavyweights? Counterpunching backfoot snipers? 250 lbs tough pressure fighters? 225 lbs slick movers? These types didn't even exist 85 years ago.

 

"Ignoring the fact boxing is one of the sports that is least reliant on athleticism on the entire planet"

Highly questionable claim. Speed of hand and foot, reflexes, agility, co-ordination, balance, stamina, strength and power at minimum are all athletic attributes and all are very important for boxing. It's not simply about skill (which athleticism enhances), intelligence, discipline, mental toughness and durability (assuming bodily toughness isn't a component of athleticism).

"What do the athletic capabilities of other sports have to do with boxing?"

If virtually every other sport has seen large improvements over the generations then it's unlikely that boxing is an exception. Objective measurements about boxing are rarely made public (probably because they'd make past fighters look bad) and it's also a much more complex sport to measure holistically than sprinting or weightlifting because of all of the intangibles.

"They got Olympic sprinter Andre De Grasse to run under similar conditions as Jesse Owens."

An obvious flaw here even if true is that presumably Owens had practiced and competed on that surface for his entire sprinting career, whereas De Grasse was using it on a one-time basis, having been used to a different surface. If a tennis player who'd only ever played on grass was suddenly made to play on clay, he'd likely see a far bigger drop in performance than if he'd played on clay all along.

"David Epstein"

Forgive me for being sceptical of claims made by a left-wing American journalist. There is an American myth about Owens surrounding Nazi Germany and WW2, so they will go out of their way to glorify him and make out that he's on a par with Usain Bolt. If Michael King (alias Martin Luther King) was known to be a ******, a communist-sympathiser and a plagiarist (hypothetically of course) by the powers that be, do you think they'd make a big thing of it? Of course not because he's a cult figure in America, like (to a lesser extent) Jesse Owens or George Floyd or Joe Louis for that matter.

"The same applies to other athletes from the past."

Even if it applied to one sport it would be erroneous to conclude that it applied to all or even any others. For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progression_of_the_bench_press_world_record

If Louis had been born in a different generation he would have likely still been a top boxer but it's impossible to take away his disadvantages relative to modern athletes, such as having zero southpaw experience or willingness to fight them, being 80 years out of date in terms of boxing knowledge, having no PED's and being in modern terms a small cruiserweight without a mover style.

 

I think Chisora goes the distance, but he loses 12/15 rounds, and maybe wins two, with one even.
Chisora is tough and rugged, so his torment wouldn't be over quickly. I think he takes a bad beating but goes the distance.

 

"Chisora doesn't even hit as hard as Galento"

I'm sure the 5'9 morbidly obese man with a 51% KO ratio against 1930's LHW and cruiser bums was a big puncher by modern standards. I'm also sure that a 20% KO ratio blown-up middleweight was a huge puncher by modern standards because he had Louis rocking and rolling all over the place.

"athletic records"

There's no reason why boxing is an exception to these trends, much as it may devalue your 1930's and 60's American heroes in your mind.

"Usyk beat Chisora by UNANIMOUS decision"

Bettina also beat Louis by unanimous decision in the gym, which is why Louis admitted to ducking him and said he'd never fight a southpaw.

"But trying to criticize Vitali for not stopping Chisora"

I'm not criticising Vitali, I'm praising Chisora for giving great modern fighters like Vitali and Usyk their 3rd toughest and most competitive fights, something I don't believe any 1930's 200 pounder could have done.

"when he was 40 years old"

Who said this I wonder:

What about this:

There you have it: by this logic the massively favoured Vitali was at no disadvantage relative to Chisora. And compared to Povetkin vs Whyte, he certainly wasn't!

"Ali, Holyfield, and even Vitali"

For a start they were all A-side fighters, Chisora is not. With Chisora's officials Ali would have had 10+ losses, Holyfield did have 10 losses and Chisora is probably Vitali's best opponent beaten. Chisora has beaten Takam, Pulev and Scott (who were all favoured to beat him) but could have easily won decisions against Whyte, Parker and Helenius, as was the consensus.

"He's even worse than Chris Arreola"

Another fighter that would beat Louis.

"You cannot mention a single thing Chisora does better than Louis"

I've mentioned about half a dozen things Chisora does better than Joshua, who I think is vastly better than Louis H2H, so it's redundant.

 

Are you actually trying to bump up Vitali's win over Briggs just because Vitali was older? Briggs was still clearly past it, not to mention he wasn't really that great to begin with. His best win was a robbery over 50 year old George.

I'm gonna pretend you didn't call Louis, Schmeling, Sharkey, Conn, Jersey Joe Walcott, Ezzard Charles and many of Louis' other opponents trash by modern standards, because that is silly.
You're trying to act like I'm 'clueless' about Vitali's resume when in reality you are the clueless one. Vitali dominated one of the weakest eras in heavyweight history. All significant names he faced beat him, this is a fact. Sure, in the Byrd fight he was injured so we'll give him that one, but we can't count it as a win regardless. Let's analyze his wins then, shall we?

His best wins are over number 9 ranked Corrie Sanders (38 years old but he just beat Wlad so decent win), number 7 ranked Samuel Peter (who's greatest accomplishment was getting dominated by Wlad), Kirk Johnson (wasn't in the top 10 for 3 years by the time he fought Vitali), Chris Arreola (good win), and 40 year old Shannon Briggs. Am I missing something here?

'6'5, 235+ athletic heavyweights didn't exist before the 90's. I don't think Louis would have won a round against Lewis and he'd have got clean KO'd, like he did vs Schmeling but much faster.'

What does this have to do with anything? I agree that Lewis would beat Louis, but it doesn't mean anything in this discussion at all. Vitali still lost against an old Lewis. Louis and Vitali both faced mediocre giants either way, so I don't think it matters.

'Vitali made Lewis look past his prime. Prior to the fight Lewis was looking for at least three fights before he retired and was in good form in his previous two. Lewis wasn't believed to be in decline at all, hence he was a 5/1 favourite to beat Vitali. While Vitali was at a massive high level experience deficit relative to Lewis.'

Yeah because Lewis faced a 38 year old Tyson and Hasim Rahman in those previous two fights, not exactly world class competition. Also, you forgot to mention other factors about Lewis in the Vitali fight. He had been out of the ring for a whole year at this point, something detrimental for a 37 year old fighter, and was a pudgier version of the man who beat Tyson the year prior. Lewis wasn't completely out of shape, but it's fair to say that he wasn't at his best. Even then, he still managed to beat Vitali and outperform him in the last 2 rounds of the fight.

'It should be obvious: heavyweight boxing in those days was basically just an American thing, that's a very small talent poor relative to modern global eras with a far bigger world population to boot.'

Untrue, boxing was very popular globally and had been for years before Louis came onto the scene. What's your source for this?

'How many southpaws did Louis fight? Oh yeah he said he never would fight one after getting schooled in the gym by Bettina. What about athletic super-heavyweights? Counterpunching backfoot snipers? 250 lbs tough pressure fighters? 225 lbs slick movers? These types didn't even exist 85 years ago.'

You'd be surprised. Louis faced many giants, even if they weren't southpaws. Him not facing southpaws is the only real gripe I have with him

 

Chris Arreola beats Louis...

Yeah we're done here.

 

'Highly questionable claim. Speed of hand and foot, reflexes, agility, co-ordination, balance, stamina, strength and power at minimum are all athletic attributes and all are very important for boxing. It's not simply about skill (which athleticism enhances), intelligence, discipline, mental toughness and durability (assuming bodily toughness isn't a component of athleticism).'

Boxers of the past still had great stamina, speed and agility. This was the 15 round era after all, and many of these fighters would show incredible endurance during these instances. In the current era, we see many fighters gas after a few rounds. This isn't even after a significant pace either. I don't think the cardio of past fighters is questionable to anyone who knows anything about the era.

Compared to the sports you've listed in bench pressing and sprinting, boxing couldn't be less dependent on athleticism. It's one of the most skill-dependent sports on the planet, and the skills of fighters from that era are, for the most part, on par with modern fighters. It's more comparable to chess than bench pressing, which is absolutely benefitted by modern nutrition (AKA steroids)

That being said, boxing isn't bench pressing. Or the 100m dash. It's a very technical sport, and we've seen countless instances where skill beats athleticism. I think there are more cases of that than in any other sport actually. That's the beauty of it. I've gotten the better of in shape very fit dudes in boxing just due to my technique and approach when I'm personally out of shape.

'If virtually every other sport has seen large improvements over the generations then it's unlikely that boxing is an exception. Objective measurements about boxing are rarely made public (probably because they'd make past fighters look bad) and it's also a much more complex sport to measure holistically than sprinting or weightlifting because of all of the intangibles.'
First we need to analyze why those changes happened. I agree that every sport evolves, but we've seen boxing evolve already. Compare boxing in 1897 to boxing in 1927 and you see two completely different sports. But, if you compare boxing in 1927 to boxing in 2023 then you'll notice the evolution is far less significant. Here's an example:

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(1897)

You'll notice the differences in this fight and in modern fighting, it's as clear as day.

Here's boxing in 1923:

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Here we see Tommy Gibbons, one of the most celebrated tacticians of the 20s, dismantle his opponent using modern methods like feinting, angles and footwork. He looks practically identical to a modern boxer. Here's another example, from Joe Louis himself:

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'An obvious flaw here even if true is that presumably Owens had practiced and competed on that surface for his entire sprinting career, whereas De Grasse was using it on a one-time basis, having been used to a different surface. If a tennis player who'd only ever played on grass was suddenly made to play on clay, he'd likely see a far bigger drop in performance than if he'd played on clay all along.'

True, but it still doesn't take away from the fact that the surface Owens competed on significantly impacted his results. If we take away his 'cuffs', so to speak, he's a world class level runner today. And this is without modern nutrition, modern equipment like shoes and starting blocks, etc.

Great athletes always existed, even in powerlifting. In fact I consider athletes like Owens more impressive due to performing so well in such poor conditions. Regardless, I don't think they have anything to do with boxing, they're too dependent on athleticism.