Joe Louis vs. Harry Greb

it would take place on the Eve of a Full Moon and Greb would be "en Route"

 

Well Greb had movement and one heck of a chin. He weighed more that Conn and might had taken quite a few rounds vs Louis who did not do well vs movers! Greb certainly throw a lot of punches and rule bent a bit. Could be Louis via SD....yes I am serious. Louis slow feet and defense do not impress me at all. Greb has a shot at 170 pounds or so.

 

Tell me exactly what about Louis’s footwork and defence is bad?

 

Are you pulling my leg? Forgive me I have trouble with sarcasm in print. Louis has slow shuffling feet. They did not call him shuffling Joe Louis for nothing! It wasn't a compliment. Louis's ability to track down faster fighters the Conn, Walcott, and to and to extent Godoy who was pretty mobile are there on film to see and Louis had the reach in all cases. So Louis foot speed and technique were lacking.

Defensively on film he shows low left guard and next to no head movement. He is one to jabs and right hands. His offense was his defense!

If I were to score best boxers he faced in Schmeling, Conn, Walcott and Charles, Louis is way down on points, mostly because of his footwork and defense. Yes score them yourself. You will see its true.

 

Arguably the greatest HW of all time with superb technique, timing, good hand speed, and numbing power, vs a feather fisted middleweight who threw comical wild punches? Gee, this is a tough one to think about.

 

A Bridge Too Far for Harry methinks. Might be interesting for a few rounds or it might not.

 

1-Conn used his fast feet to box carefully and move away from Louis. Reading descriptions of Greb, he often swarmed and pressured his opponents. That would be a suicidal strategy against an elite HW like Louis. He has a 0% chance of hurting Louis considering he couldn't even hurt most of his middleweight opponents. Are you aware of his very low KO%...?

2- Conn was a natural light heavyweight and beat other heavyweights. Greb was a natural middleweight. Louis demolished giants like Carnera, Baer, Simon, etc who had 20-30+ lbs over him.

3-Conn still lost despite his superb, cautious game plan. They had a rematch and Louis won even more convincingly. Louis beats the dog **** out of any middleweight past, present, and future.

 

1-and yet Louis took bombs from Baer, Walcott, Carnera, Galento, etc. He had a very inconsistent chin, but he always got back up or shook off the cobwebs. You had to basically pound Louis into the dirt to KO him because he had a huge heart. Scheming needed to land dozens and dozens of right hand to pull the trick with multiple knockdowns. Using a light heavyweight temporarily rocking Louis as proof an even lighter punching middleweight may be able to rock Louis is quite a stretch and a desperate leap in logic.

2-conns weight in the Louis fight is very inconsistent. It also doesn't help Greb's case at all since Conn lost by KO twice. I never understood the logic of people saying "x boxer used a game plan that nearly got him killed, so y boxer could use it to win". Especially since the y boxer (Greb) would be giving up a huge amount of weight and would be even less cautious than Conn. It's silly.

3-And do you think the in your face swarming Greb, who fought aggressively on the front foot, is going to be wiser than Conn and will back off and be cautious? This just keeps getting sillier and sillier. Greb was a hot blooded pressure fighter and Louis would feast on him due to the enormous difference in class and size. He doesn't have to chase Greb around like he did Conn, he'd light him up with his jab as he bored in, clips him with an uppercut, and then unleashes combinations that would make Greb feel like he stepped on a land mine. Louis by brutal KO within 120 seconds or less. If the greatest HW technician of all time can't beat a sloppy, wild swinging feather fisted middleweight, then boxing is apparently based on pure luck, sweet science and weight classes be damned.

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His footwork meant he was never out of position to punch, it was purposeful and textbook perfect no one had better out of all the HW champions. I don’t know what to say about his head movement you can see it on film he was an excellent counter puncher, just fine. His left hand placement? I don’t know how to say this but it was also fine, a guy who defended his title as much as Joe in the fashion he did knew where to keep his left hand better then you Mendoza, or are you a more credible boxing authority then Blackburn and Louis?

Using sweeping statements like “mostly because of his footwork and defence” is like me saying someone lost because they were punched in the face. Be specific about it, they all beat him through different means.

 

I agree with your first 2 points and the start of your 3rd, though I wonder if you underrate Greb based on how you end at that point. I consider Greb as having the most exceptional win resume in history. I agree the much bigger Louis would likely have KO'd him, but Greb must have been an awesome fighter for his size, for the sheer quality, consistency and depth of the fighters he beat.

 

Conn-Louis certainly was a moment in boxing history but people make too much of it when they insist because Conn did “x” on one night in history, Greb (or insert whatever other name you want to insert) must automatically do “y.” That doesn’t work algebraically or in boxing.

 

Another issue is few since Billy Conn have been close to as good as he was.