Joe Louis vs. Vitali Klitschko

Who wins. How? Both at their very best! No B.S. about Louis putting on 20 Lbs. of steroid induced muscle, modern training and nutrition, etc. Who wins based off of the best we have seen from both men?

 

Vitali is 5 or 6" taller, has a 3 or 4" longer reach, and is 40-45 SOLID pounds heavier... depending on the source.

This isn't a slow and clumsy big guy like Carnera or Buddy Baer Louis will be dealing with. Max Baer was considered a big man but he was tiny compared to Vitali Klitschko. This is an all-time great HW who is huge, athletic, has good overall skills, strength, stamina, power, speed, and durability. He has never been knocked off of his feet.

Just some things to consider.

 

Luis would be a cruiser today. Vitaly beats him.

 

I pick Louis to stop him late on. Patiently stalking inside and pounding the body and head at the times when vitali backs up.

I think Louis hits harder, quicker and more accurately than vitali does. Vitali will win rounds against any hw in history but has he shown enough in his career to be favoured over them? Not by my reckoning. He's fought 3 classes of fighter. Class a stopped him. Class b stopped him. Class c was dominated by him.

So I think we can always favour him to work his way to a challenging position in any era but I wouldn't necessarily pick him to upset the great champions of the past.

 

Louis by stoppage This thread gets made quite often

 

Old joe to good for vitali who cuts up badly here

 

Class A stopped Louis (Schmeling and Marciano), Class A outboxed Louis (Charles). None of these 3 were even 190 Lbs. Class A, B, C, and D dropped Louis.

 

He went on to knock out schmelling in a rematch. Any other loss was after a 12 year spell at the top and a retirement.

say what you want about Louis but no matter the opponent nor style, he found a way to win. Twice vitali failed.

 

Vitaly lost only twice and by injury while winning on the cards and your post makes it look like any half decent fighter would just walk through him easily. Byrd was loosing bad even when Vitaly was fighting with one arm and even in the interview in the Klitschko documentary he said that Vitaly is better and would win if not for the injury. Lewis was getting battered in the first couple of rounds and the fight evened out only after Vitaly had a bad cut.
Also, Luis was good for his era, but he wouldn't be heavy handed and strong in the modern era. Fighters are way to big and strong now, and a skinny, not muscular 6 foot 2 guy would not out muscle them. Fat ass Galento dropped him. Small Rocky KOed him.

 

With big gloves Louis would lose a lot of his sharpness.

Also how fast are his feet compared to Vitali?
Vitali might look like a dancing hippo in the ring but he is very fluid, while Louis didn't really have great footspeed.
Having the fastests hands is 100% useless when you don't have the reach or footspeed to reach the opponent.

 

Please these matches as usually made on the on lines of each fighter being a prime version . So the Marciano fight really has no reason to come into thought and please don't compare Charles skills to viatli's

 

Byrd was losing, yes.
But it was pretty close, Vitali won by far the most rounds but those were close.

Lewis was coming back very strong after he got outdone on the outside.

The fights were close,.

 

Lewis cut Vitali... maybe with punches, maybe not. Vitali was up 4 ropund to 2 when the fight was stopped and improved after the loss. Lewis is a top 5 all-time HW IMO.

He didn't really hurt Vitali. Louis didn't punch harder than Lewis. Who else cut Vitali badly?

Byrd didn't hurt Vitali or even outbox him. A shoulder injury resulted in Vitali quitting (yes, he quit and regrets it to this day). Byrd was Class A IMO and bigger than many of the top fighters Louis faced.