Joe Louis Vs. Wladimir Klitschko

Yes, he looked sensational beating a big guy who couldn't box and had a terribly soft chin. Let's call it for what it is :deal

 

:rofl:rofl:rofl

So you pick a SMW with a susceptibility to taking right hands against a naturally bigger, stronger, more powerful man with one of the most accurate and devastating right hands in the history of the sport.

Calzaghe schools Marciano, I've heard it all now.

 

Im still not reading an explaination to how Joe would 'school' Marciano.

All i see is the results of google searches.

 

Past it Eubank landed plenty of right right hands on Calzaghe, Robin Reid was tagging him at will with the right hand, the very limited Starie and Brewer both had some success with their right hands against Calzaghe, Byron Mitchell dropped Calzaghe with a right hand, feather fisted bum Salem heavily dropped Calzaghe with a right hand, Kessler won the early rounds against Calzaghe and landed lots of right hands, old man Hopkins who longer carried much power dropped and hurt Clazaghe with a right hand and totally shot Roy Jones dropped Calzaghe with a right hand.

Calzaghe would not make it past the 4th round against Marciano.

 

You mean one of the most devastating hands of the 1930s. The history of the sport has evolved 80 years since Louis' era. Louis' punching power would be on par with LHWs and CWs today, it wouldn't be anyhting to write home about vs. modern day HWs.

 

and won the world HW title, you forgot to mention.

I don't know why people feel the need to be so disrespectful to HW champions.

You didn't stop there though - obviously Marciano would kill Calzaghe. Its freakinn Rocky, man.

 

So Marciano loses to Joe based off the fact he went the distance with a couple of guys you saw on his record?
What a breakdown.

 

Byrd would run circles our Louis and make him look silly. And Haye would knock him clean out, Louis wouldn't even see the punches.

 

wow you are disrespecting a HW champion and you continue to try to justify it after being justifiably asked not to be so disrespectful. Welcome to the Ignore list. I am sorry its come to that, but I cant abide having to read past such classlessness towards a high acheiver when reading ESB.


don't worry you have company of just one other on my list, the clueless Elroy, though hes permanently there.

 

elroy, there is no point in you replying to me. that's what ignore function is about, I no longer have to even glance one word of your rubbish 'fatter people are better boxers' theory crap.

so don't bother.

 

LOL at the ineptitude of someone on your ignore list trying to reply to you.

Like Adam Sandler putting someones volume on mute in the movie 'CLICK' that they silently babble back. Actually Elroy probably sounds like Adam Sandler in the Waterboy, that's how it carries anyway.

 

For those people who claim that Marciano was a "natural" LHW, Louis was a "natural" CW, and Walcott was a "natural" LHW, you're ignoring your own arguments about modern training.

Fighters today are bigger because they have better training methods. Guys like Klitschko, Peter, Brewster, etc. wouldn't be as heavy if they'd never started with weights. It's not their "natural" musculature in the ring that you're seeing. It's their weight after years of being a professional athlete.

Similarly, Louis, Walcott, and Marciano are so small because their training was pretty awful. The weight that you're seeing on them in the ring isn't their natural weight either.

You think Walcott walked around at 190 pounds? Or that Marciano did? No. They were training down to that weight because the fitness gurus of the day STILL thought that boxers' energy demands were like marathon runners. They had them dieting, doing long runs 5-6 times a week, staying away from weights, etc. They used a regimen that burned muscle tissue almost as much as fat. Which was stupid, but what can you do.

Yeah, fighters have gotten bigger, but not by nearly as much as the weights suggest. They've mostly gotten BETTER TRAINED. (Oh, and roids help too, btw). Which makes me wonder why you're talking about a fighter's "natural" weight at all.

So...Louis was a "natural" CW by today's standards, or Louis's training methods were garbage. Pick one or the other. Not both.

 

That's an obvious third option, but it weakens your argument at both ends.

You haven't taken that path, though. You've used the most extreme formulations of both arguments -- that old-timers were naturally small guys, AND that they were hopelessly incompetent when it comes to training.

If you actually want to go somewhere in the middle, then you'd need some more middle ground statements -- "They were somewhat smaller, and their training was a bit worse." Or something like that.

What are you basing your "bigger bone structure" theory on, though? Are you just looking at the broad shoulders on Brewster's (heavily weight-trained) physique? Did you dissect Brewster?

From where I'm standing, you could easily reverse Marciano/Louis/Walcott's physiques and Brewster's physique if you just switched their training. Walcott was well over 190 while training like a marathon runner. Louis broke 200 lbs. doing the same. Have you ever seen long distance runners? They've got the same "skinny fat" look that Louis did. Conversely, Brewster's 220-odd pounds of muscle would melt pretty quickly with Marciano's counterproductive training. (Bagwork...LSD run...spar...bagwork...LSD run...spar...) Take away his roids and it's even worse.

Which I acknowledged. The height difference is relatively minor in the scheme of things since mid-century, though. Two inches, I think. Louis was still fighting in Third World conditions, but it wasn't like he was fighting emaciated people from the London/Boston slums like Sullivan did.

Also, people have (partly) been getting heavier because they've been getting obese. Which I think we both agree isn't very good for heavyweight boxers.

I'd be perfectly happy to let you chow down on that cake IF you could give me some valid method for assessing a guy's "natural" weight besides eyeballing him and making a guess what his bone structure looks like.

(I doubt that bone structure is overwhelmingly important in boxing anyway -- Northern European populations show lower average gracilization than African or South American populations who perform just as well, and look just as muscular.)

If you want to convert "natural" size between eras, I think it's sounder to look at what modern training can do when it's introduced. Holyfield went from ~200 lbs. with a lightish frame to about 215 or so after Hatfield got a hold of him. With lower body fat. I think you'd see at least that sort of boost with Louis, Marciano, Walcott, etc. Probably more, since they hadn't used weights at all.



So I think that the more accurate formulation is something like this:

"Louis and his contemporaries were naturally slightly smaller men, which they made much worse by counterproductive training."

I think that would be fair.

 

Okay, it seems we mostly agree that training bears the lion's share of responsibility for the size difference, then.

Yeah, I'd agree with this as well. Say what you like about Abe Simon or Buddy Baer, but they'd look like monsters with modern weight training.

I agree that Marciano was a smaller man than Brewster. He'd either be a cruiserweight or a very small heavyweight today rather than a LHW, but yeah.

Many argue that Marciano was a pound for pound anomaly, in the same sense that somebody like Henry Armstrong was. It's not a bad argument, and it explains part of his success. (As does the poor state of the 1950s heavyweight picture and lack of truly large heavyweights). So we should keep that argument in mind when assessing his chances against the modern division.

Walcott was "naturally" slightly smaller / about the same size as Brewster, and I suspect that he would put on muscle quickly. Louis was basically Brewster-sized. A little taller, a little narrower.

One additional issue we haven't touched upon: I can't prove it, but I've occasionally heard bits of anecdotal evidence that fighters add a little extra height to their "official" stats these days. This happened in the past as well, but I got the impression that it's a little more widespread now. Not enough to affect the debate much. Just something to keep in mind.

Google "Sailor" Tom Sharkey, a top HW contender from the turn of the century. 5'8" and about Marciano's weight even though he was three inches shorter. Pretty low body fat. The guy's built like refrigerator with fists.

The nutrition issue is interesting. We certainly get a lot more calories today, but I think 1930s meals were a bit healthier for the general population. When they got to eat, that is.

Professional fighters are a different issue. They have professional nutritionists, so they theoretically have a major advantage over the historical people. Theoretically. In practice, few of them seem to consistently follow those recommendations, so...

I can see where you're coming from. A "time machine" bout is usually best, since that way we don't have to worry about how some theoretical 210 pound roided version of Marciano would perform.

One other tricky detail to think about, though:

Some people -- both in boxing and in other combat sports -- believe that a "naturally" larger fighter has an advantage over a "naturally" smaller fighter who bulks up. To the extent that Louis and company weren't "naturally" smaller men than Brewster, we shouldn't assume that it would be like watching fighters from different weight classes. More like a well-trained HW versus a marginally trained HW.

This makes a difference. Maybe not much, but some.

There's a lot of overlap, yeah. I think that this thread could benefit from more reasonable discussion and less "shout the other guy down with hyperbole" -- from both sides. :good

 

Yeah, that's understandable. Different posters have called me a delusional old-timer fanatic for defending Tommy Burns, and a delusional modernist fanatic for defending the Klitschkos. (At least I'm consistently delusional, if nothing else...) We're all a little opinionated here.

Keep at it, because we need somebody to shake things up. ESPECIALLY in Classic. Seriously.

But keep an open mind about what's "realistic", too. And I don't mean faith in mumbo jumbo. Just recognize that there are a lot of hard-to-measure factors in boxing -- and all combat sports. If it was a science, the bookies would be right a lot more often. Numbers are a great starting point. Often, they're enough. But with cross-era comparisons, you really need to start looking through a microscope for the nitpicky details that can make all the difference.