Joe Louis vs Lennox Lewis

So in exactly which fight did anybody have significant sucess against Louis using the jab?

 

If you took a great modern day classical concert pianist, or concert guitarist
and put them next to Beethoven, Liszt (piano) Bream, Sor (guitar) the modern great would compete but ultimately be inferior, however there
would certainly be respect. Great musicians nowadays have all the technique in the world, but most are not bringing the music to life, not saying anything.Beethoven grew up during the French and Industrial revolution and his music reflects the chaos, menace, and radical change. I believe this match is like a modern master vs a legend. Louis went through more adversity in his life, and became a master of feinting, ring generalship, setting traps, etc. developing CHARACTER along the way. Louis was the complete package, just like a musical legend.
Lewis was not the complete package, and as strong as his right hand
was, Tyson, Mercer, Zenovic?, etc ate plenty of flush right hands for breakfast. After Louis gets dropped twice, he starts to pick apart Lewis.
Just like a hot shot musician getting masterclassed and picked apart.:happy
Life was harder in Joe's time, he simply had a greater will to win.
Louis ate plenty of Baer right hand as well, scary.

 

Lennox Lewis had all the tools to walk through Joe Louis. He had the tools to walk through Holyfield and Bruno, too, but didn't. That is because he was inherently cautious; he was patient with the odd exception.

I don't see Lennox gambling on an early blitzkrieg attack against Joe, but it might be his best chance. The size difference would be huge, similar to Buddy Baer and Louis. Baer hurt Louis and indeed knocked him out of the ring; so I believe Lennox has the power to do the same. But would he?

Lennox rarely gambled with punchers and came unstuck when he tried against McCall. Would he do it against Louis? I can't see it, somehow.

So that leaves us with a boxing match. People talk about Lewis's jab, but Bruno out jabbed Lewis at times in their fight. Are people really saying Bruno had as good a jab as Louis?

So we have a battle of jabs that Louis could well win and a boxing match. Could Lewis play it safe from the outside? Was his defence that good? As others have said, Holyfield and Rahman found Lewis easily accessible, so why couldn't Joe?

I don't think that the fight is a certainty either way, but I shudder when people discount Louis out of hand. The man was way too good for that. Who has Lewis destroyed that was as good as Joe? He didn't have the confidence to blitz Bruno or Holyfield but decides to trade with Louis?

I think the fight would be decided by Lewis's caution. I would pick Louis by TKO because of it. I think lesser skilled gamblers like Foreman and Tyson would have a better chance against Joe because they would be aggressive enough to take it to him.

 

Absolutely how I see it and have been trying to argue.

 

Styles arguments kind of get thrown out the window when you're facing someone who is much better at what they do than any man you've met before who displayed a similar thing.

 

It carries less weight, but it doesn’t go out of the window completely.

You always look at fighter As opponents who were most like fighter B, and how the styles meshed.

In this case of course, we don't have much to work with.

 

That's only on one side of the coin.

Can we agree that a prime Joe Louis was a superior boxer than the 38 year old Holyfield who was outboxing Lewis for spurts in the rematch?

 

So I ask again.. WHAT exactly is Louis gameplan against Lewis.. I'm serious... Plodding around the ring isn't going to work.. and he literally fought that way most of his career. So what is the game plan again for Louis to win.. please don't tell me feint his way to KOing Lewis. Bonus, if possible, please show me Louis feinting somebody right before a KO punch please.. which fight?

 

Educated pressure behind his own jab. Like Mercer and Holyfield before him.

 

those guys could eat Lewis's punches.. I doubt Joe Louis could.. And even so, they were very different fighters.

 

What Louis does is so subtle that you often miss it.

You will notice that he often takes a step back from an oponent before he stops them.

What he is doing is making them step into position to aim a punch at him, and using that to trap them.

He didn't wait for his opponents to make a mistake, he forced them to make one.

 

-I don't think he would need to eat that many and I have confidence Louis could take the odd power shot or get off the canvas early to win.

-The success you saw Mercer, Holyfield, and even Bruno have in backing Lewis down with the jab is very much within Louis' capabilities if not moreso.

 

- While he's definitely taken hard shots and come back to win before, I don't think he's truly been systematically decked by a guy who had both the combination of power and landing mechanisms to consistently hit him with big shots. I also disagree that his chin is the equal of Holyfield's and Mercers.

- If we're honest, the Mercer and Bruno fights were not the best showings of Lewis, and Holyfield basically got dominated..

 

-I can't see Lewis giving a systematic beating to Louis. I don't believe it would go down that way. Lewis was too cautious and Louis was too good at slipping long range punches. It was short counters that Louis had a weakness for, I'm not ruling out Louis getting caught with the odd punch or even dropped or hurt, but I don't see Lewis laying down a methodical beating.

-Holyfield was not dominated in the rematch, especially when he had his jab going. At 38 he didn't have the energy to press like that for 12 rounds though, and only could only fight in spurts. He also didn't have the ability to follow up on his attacks that rocked Lewis.

 

- He was rocked by big men with lengthy reaches. Just none of them even came close to being in Lewis' league, which frankly is the most important factor here.

- His style differed from Louis's and again, he had the chin to withstand shots that I don't think Louis would. Furthermore, Lennox wasn't pressing for the knockout in either of those fights, and Evander still lost more than convincingly enough.