Joe Louis vs Sonny Liston of 1960?

Yeah. If I had to guess which was the physically stronger man, I'd go with Liston, though.

 

Or people could just use common sense and simple honesty. Over the years it's been embarrassing at times to see the complete lack of intellectual honesty during such debates.

Louis won the title at 197 1/2. His legendary thrashing of Schmeling was at 198 3/4. 200 pounds would be a very fair assessment of his peak. Taking Liston from his first big win over Williams thru the Patterson fights would see him at around 212.8. you'd go back to 212 as he one one mild outlier and by the time of the Patterson rematch was at that stage where they all add a few pounds.

It's fair to say Liston has 10-12 pounds of weight on louis at their finest. What one makes of that is entirely up to them.

 

Liston wins all day long, and by KO.

 

There would be no upset, Sonny is big favorite and rightly so, he'd send Louis into the ER.

 

Yes. Although the nature of the subject invites some of the nonsense; insisting that there is One True Weight doesn't fit how things work.

Sometimes I also think of these debates as reflecting a similar sentiment to that satirical meme where a 5'11" guy is portrayed as tiny, while a 6'0" guy towers above him. And then everyone is shocked when they see fighters standing together and nobody being dwarfed. Except Patterson and Rocky.

Oh, and the measurements we get are sometimes invented by promoters, so there's that.

Liston has a little weight on Louis. Louis has a little height on Liston.

It does occur to me, in thinking about it now, that it's a little odd to argue, as some do, that Louis "drained" himself for Conn by getting heavier than the Schmeling fight. But then, Louis might have filled out a bit between 38 and 41.

Anyway, I don't make much of it.

 

Well it usually comes up in H2H discussions and these are usually taken as best for best obviously. There's plenty of credence to the one true weight in that discussion. Holmes at his peak always aimed for 212 1/2. Looking at the weights around his peak 212 1/2 would be a fine representation of his size. Boxers are incredibly fine tuned athletes and we can see patterns emerge during their big fights. We see Holmes extremely close to that number during his big fights against Spinks, Ali and Cooney. I mean he was bang on for two of them and 1 pound off on the other. These would have been his most heralded fights between Norton and Cobb.

Height and other such things are obviously another matter entirely.

Both his trainers are on record years apart singing from the same songbook regarding the weight drop for Conn. That's a pretty big stick to wield.

 

I assume they were telling the truth. Hence my comment that he presumably filled out a little between Schmeling 2 and Conn 1.

Otherwise, it's a funny sort of weight draining that leaves you heavier.

 

Highly likely. I guess it's entirely possible even if rare that the scales could be ever so slightly off. The odd set of weights have been strange over the decades.

 

Did Holmes himself say that he aimed for 212.5?

I take your point about finely tuned athletes. But I think that only takes us so far, because we are dealing with a moving targets.

Fighters vary. We in the forum might disagree on their best performances. Ali at his 60s peak varied from 201.5 (Cooper 2) to 214.5 (Chuvalo). He didn't exactly suck in Cooper 2, or Mildenberger, when he was under 205. Nor was he terrible at 212.75 for Williams.

Fighters get older, while not necessarily becoming any worse. We already covered 1938 vs 1941 Louis, and both versions are about as good as each other, despite being ca. 10 pounds apart. Fighting weight might change a little with boxers' body compositions as they get older, or when their life circumstances change slightly. Or because they want to come in a little leaner/heavier for a specific opponent.

This has become even more extreme now, when guys like Wilder can choose to come in bulked up, when Joyce can come in his career lightest for Zhang, etc. (Wilder was probably right in the former case; Joyce not so much.)

And again, this assumes nobody's messing with the weights, and they're measuring competently. Not a guarantee, as we both agree.

Overall, I think people treat these numbers a little too crudely. Like they're written in stone, when there's actually a bit of blur around the edges.

 

Yes, as well as Futch. It was a point of contention with Futch who wanted him to start coming in heavier around the Witherspoon fight due to age.

I disagree to a fair extent. A lot of the variations can be put in context e.g. I've shown Holmes coming in lighter for his biggest fights around his best period i.e. the weight he believed he fought best at.

Ali's 60's peak was oh so obviously as he was going into exile. He was peaking at around Holmes beloved 212. He'd grown into himself.

It does. By the time they have to let their weight out they are invariably past peak. These weights are commonly not their peak weights. It's mostly age/body specific. At some point trying to train down to previous best performing weights = diminished returns.

It's a bit of a different game at this point in regards to what we are talking.

Well they'd never be far off but perhaps they might be enough on a rare occasion to ponder the Louis/Conn situation.

Yes and no. I find some want to utilize them for personal leverage at the expense of being true and fair. Some of it is so blatant it's embarrassing tbf.