Joe Louis vs. Jersey Joe Walcott II

Simple? I prefer the term subtle sophistication. Joe Louis lost a few seconds, minutes etc here and there and got dropped for a tiny bit against the big hitters. Those fights where he was dropped that are held so direly against him (Not Walcott) he utterly crushed them the second he got up. He was as close to invincible as any boxer has been he won nearly every second of a decade of pro boxing.

 

I agree on all accounts here .. if you look at the KO, Walcott was swinging away too and might have connected as well ... Louis looked good at 213 a d was a solid fifteen pounds heavier than the man who crushed Max Baer .. he may have grown an inch over the years as he was a solid 6' 2' at that point ... I've seen many photos of him next to and with Ali and they seem very close in size ..

 

Look there is little doubt when you watch entire Louis bouts opposed to the KO sequences that he was human. The speed , fluidity and power of his combinations are even more impressive than Tysons in my opinion but the style he was programmed , as exceptional as he was, and may not have been the best for him. As an amateur Louis used his legs and movement more but Blackburn knew he had to make him a puncher to be a draw and have any hope of making a career so modified him into a stalker .. Ray Robinson said in his biography that as great as Louis was he would have been even greater if he used his movement more .. you can see flashes of it in perhaps his greatest performance, his destruction of Max Baer .. he actually had a pretty good chin .. the men that decked him such as Galento, B. Baer, Walcott were big time punchers ... Braddock had a very good sneaky right and that was as much as opening minute flash as anything .. Schmeling was a very good right hand hitter and hit Louis flush many times over many rounds before the KO .. Max said after thew fight he could not believe how good his chin actually was .. anyway, whiner he rates all time is always a debate but he was an exceptional fighter ..

 

Why are you telling me this? He was a exceptional fighter I get it

 

He does look bigger, mainly because he tended to fight smaller men after the war.

Conn, Mauriello, Charles, Bivins, Agramonte were all guys who had come up from smaller divisions. Walcott was pretty ripped for his era, but he and Marciano (who is considered to be a small heavyweight) were roughly the same size visually when they got in the ring, Rocky being heavier in his legs and Walcott in his torso and shoulders.

But even Walcott was barely six feet tall.

The guys Louis fought before the war, like Carnera, Simon, both Baer brothers, Schmeling, etc., were big heavyweights for their era. Even Braddock, who was a former light heavyweight, was 6'2" ... a good three inches taller than most of Joe's post-war opponents.

 

On the other hand, in the films of his fights with Cesar Brion, who is listed at 6' 2.5" Louis looks the taller man to my eye, or at least as tall.

Good points, though.

*I have done some research, and growth does not seem possible for a man in his mid-twenties. However, improved posture can make you taller by straightening the spine. Louis may have slouched before the war. The army would have emphasized good posture so possibly his spine straightened a bit and thus he stood taller after military service. This is obviously a comment from a layman just skimming info about it.

 

This is a forum. I was responding to and elaborating my interpretation on your post.