Joe Louis -vs- Lennox Lewis:

Their best display or the version that should come to this particular party?

Louis's best acomplishment is the 2nd Schmeling fight though he did continue to improve after this. Nobody else has ever done that to a top 20 all time heavyweight.

The Louis of the 2nd Buddy Baer fight is the one that you would want for this fight and probably represents his absolute peak.

Interestingly we might never have seen a peak Louis due to the war.

Lewis's best career acomplishment is beating Evander Holyfield and he probably did it more convincingly the first time round ironicaly.

The performence that really made me sit up and start thinking of Lewis in all time great terms was the Tua fight. Perhaps this Lewis using a strategy rather like that of the first Holyfield fight would be the magic ticket.

 

I wouldn't bet either, but like you, if we both regarded it as a very evenly matched contest, I'm sure if my mortgage and kids depended on it and my whole faimliy's well-being was at stake, I'd have to plump for the 6 ft 5 guy with the 3 stone weight advantage. :good

 

And i'd be right there in the que behind given in the same circumstances.

 

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I don't see this fight going many rounds, and if it does, its Lewis having an easy time using his height, and longer reach piling up the points, then owning Louis in the clinches. Fighters with good jabs gave Louis trouble at all stages of his career.

I see a fight that where the beginning of the end will start once someone lands a hard right hand. Lennox hits hard enough to hurt and stop Joe, and Joe hits hard enough to hurt and stop Lennox. Joe’s guard was it low, and he really wasn’t a pressure type of fighter that would worry Lennox by rushing him and forcing him to fight. I’d give Lennox the edge and pick him based on ring generalship and using the advantages he and flaws that Joe had to win. It would not surprise me if Joe won. As McCall and Rhaman showed, it only takes one quick right hand to defeat Lennox.

 

lewis - louis

lewis 6'5 230/240 pounds
louis 6'2 190/210 pounds

my thought are that louis cant move as quick as lewis you can see how easily outboxed he was against conn (and to be honest conn wasnt much of a boxer) just lewis is bigger and hits harder and can clinch better i think he can outbox him with his long jab which will act as a range finder and a damaging jab. he will walk around him and when cornered will fight his way out.

the bigger man just seems to mobile and too strong louis key is his jab and brawl stlye but if you could back joe up you had a pretty big chance of winning.

 

You mean like Lewis was outboxed and outjabbed against the masterboxer Mercer, the same Ray Mercer who was badly outboxed against Damiani or against a 50 years Holmes...

 

Conn wasn't "much of a boxer". What kind of nonsense is that?

 

Billy Conn was a good boxer, while Buddy Baer was a hard punching giant among past contenders. Conn was leading Louis for most of the early rounds until he was stopped late, while Baer managed to hit Louis, sending him over the ropes and out of the ring.

In my opinion, Lennox Lewis is a cross blend of these two fighters, possesing better than average boxing abilty along with ample size and punching power. Additionally, he survived the onslaughts of many big modern day punchers and always found ways to get a "W". Louis certainly had tremendous inside skills, fast hands, and great power, but its always been my opinion that the quality of a fighter's abilties need to be judged by who he performed them against. I personally can't see Louis dispatching a fighter like Razor Ruddock in a mere 2 rounds the way that Lennox did. I also think that had he fought a guy like Vitali Klitschko at age 37, the way that Lewis did at age 38, he likely would have suffered a horrific loss.

I agree that there are some fighters from the 30's, 40's and 50's who harbored many skills, some of which may have been lost through the ages. We can't generalize and say however, that every man Louis fought was better than every man who Lennox fought. In fact, a lot of them were very poor in their own way. I will always rate Joe Louis above Lennox Lewis on an all time list, due to an incredible career legacy worthy of rememberence. I simply can't however, favour him to win in a head to head match-up against Lennox, or many modern fighters. The sad reality of boxing and many other sports, is that the game evolves over time. Sometimes for the better and other times for the worse. In Lewis's case, evolutuion produced a truley magnificent boxer/champion who would have had a chance against even the finest of legendary fighters. This includes the Brown Bomber.

 

Good lord. If limited fighters like McCall or Rahman could make short work of Lewis, the Brown Bomber should be able to bomb him out in a few rounds.

Louis KO 3