Joe Louis Vs. Wladimir Klitschko

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYaKJSI90Qg


Tyson missing away versus legendary Steve Zouski:bbb

 

You think Frazier fought through his career with one eye? You actually believe that?
He had a cataract for his last fight with Ali. Two fights later he retired.

Tyson could of taken him out whenever he felt the urgeatsch

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/webroot/a.../3884708_o.gif

What about the previous 11 rounds when Wlad hit Chambers and he didn't go anywhere?
Chambers was suffering serious exhaustion at that point. He was a zombie. A LHW could of put his lights out.

 

To be fair, chess de la dama (its modern form) has only been around for about 500 years. The earliest games we have from Polerio, Lucena, and Greco -- the best players of their eras -- don't measure up to modern standards. Philidor in the late 1700's was probably the first player who would stand a chance against modern grandmasters.

Leaving opening theory aside, Capablanca may have been the strongest player in history, and he played in the 1930s. http://en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-strongest-player-

Chess is a good example to show the limits of a statistical approach, though, since chess is a competitive form that seems built for statistical analysis (unlike boxing), and is still very hard / almost impossible to compare across eras.

 

The Communist Bloc is a major issue to consider, but the demographics are a little more complicated than that.

Does Boxrec have a function that lists the total number of active professional boxers in different years? That would give us a good baseline.

(Not perfect, because the modern period is better documented, but good).

 

Also, I think it would help to come to some baseline consensus about this before continuing:

We need to get some kind of handle on converting a fighter's weight using old school training to modern fighting weight. Otherwise, we'll keep going in circles about who was a "natural" cruiser and who wasn't.

I propose Holyfield as a model. He started weight training in 1989, when he fought at 202 lbs. He was a lean 218 against Tyson six years later, and he wasn't even using optimal methods until Hatfield got ahold of him.

Based on this VERY crude first attempt at conversion, we could temporarily agree on a minimum 7.9% increase of lean body mass between eras, with low (modern) body fat percentages.

That puts Patterson and Marciano at 202 pounds with modern training ("natural" cruiserweights or very small heavyweights), Walcott at about 212 pounds ("natural" small heavyweight), Louis about 221 pounds ("natural" heavyweight). Ali and Terrell would both be about 228 pounds ("natural" heavyweights). Frazier would be about the same as Louis -- 221 pounds -- but shorter and stockier. This method seems to result in a middle ground between our positions, so it's fairly convincing to me.









Incidentally, this method also puts Buddy Baer and Abe Simon at 270 lbs with modern training (very large heavyweights, comparable to Jameel McCline). Carnera, by this measuring stick, would be a whopping 286 lbs today. So I'm not surprised that Carnera was clumsier than Wladimir Klitschko. He was "naturally" a much bigger man.

Alternatively, you can turn it around and project modern heavyweights backward. That would make Wladimir Klitschko about 227 pounds in the 1970s without his weight training, which is also unsurprising. (I would have guessed around 225). He'd be a little bigger (and leaner) than Joe Bugner. About 17 pounds heavier than Terrell. Very big for the era, but not totally out of context.



EDIT: Just to be clear, you can either adjust old-time fighters' weights upward (make Louis 223 pounds) or adjust modern fighters' weights downward (make Klitschko 227 pounds) to compensate for the training differences. I provided examples of each. You can't do both simultaneously.

 

Good. So this will provide a sensible baseline for future comparisons.

This would explain some of the remaining size difference after you factor out "natural" vs. "weight trained" weights, yes.

HOWEVER, if you want to use my reasoning on amateur boxers, it cuts both ways. You're recruiting more tall boxers, but you're also eliminating shorter heavyweights who'd be well suited to the professional ranks.

Yes, this is sensible. It would obviously be silly to pretend that a 1930s Joe Louis weighed 223 pounds, because he didn't.

I seem to have written my post a little misleadingly. Let me clarify.

You can EITHER --

[1] Put old-timers' weights in modern terms (Louis 223 vs. Klitschko 245)

OR

[2] Put modern fighters' weights in old-timers' terms (Louis 205 vs. Klitschko 227).



...But not both. I provided examples of each.

 

Nice find. If you plot up "Age of players prime" vs. "standard error" on a scatter chart you will find nice linear relationship: The older a player is the higher his average error per move or the worse player he is according to computer statistics. Obviously you have outliers (such as Capablanca) but it reiterates the point that athletes get better over time no matter if the "game" stays the same.

The whole argument in the thread was that boxing, its rules and "technology" stayed the same, therefore athletes stagnates which is a ridiculous assumption easily invalidated by other competitive sports.

 

Fair enough, except that this argument is about Joe Louis -- an outlier like Capablanca. Louis was abnormally good for his era, just like Capablanca was.

(Plus, as others have already mentioned, chess metaphors only go so far when you're looking at boxing. The difference in institutionalized professionalism between chess and boxing in the 1930s, for instance, was considerable. Capa was a gentleman amateur, which makes his skill all the more shocking).

 

That's not what we're doing though, at least in my understanding. The assumption here is we have a "time machine". We take Joe Louis on fight night from 1937 and transfer him into modern age "as is".

Yes, it is unfair and Joe is at a huge disadvantage, but the pretense is that this classic era version of Joe Louis would still overcome all physical odds and beat a modern day peak Wlad Klitschko -- a notion that some here find ridiculous.

 

Absolutely correct, Louis was incredibly skilled for his era and looked great compared to his classic era competitors -- much like Capablanca. If however we were to transfer them to the modern days by ways of a time machine their results would (IMO) be mediocre at best because they'd be competing vs. vastly superior opposition than in their classic days.

 

Yeah, I agree that we're debating whether a "time machine" Louis would win.

The weight-conversion argument only deals with one nuance in that debate -- "natural" size and performance. Some people on this site (and in other combat sports) believe that a fighter who bulks up doesn't have the same advantages as one who's that way from the beginning.

Chin-wise, there doesn't seem to be much benefit to bulking up, since weight training doesn't improve concussion resistance. (From the studies I've seen; it's been a while). So the fighters' natural weights might say something about their chins.

EDIT: Elroy already covered it.

 

True, but if the analogy holds (which I doubt, since chess =/= boxing), then Time-Machine Capablanca is still less error-prone than Kramnik OTB. He wouldn't be as dominant against today's guys, but he'd be good enough to equal or beat Kramnik mano a mano. Barely.

 

Louis wins.

Why? Because Waldo is a chicken**** *****. :bart

 

Chess is mathematical, there are only so many moves that can be used before a game is over. atsch

 

Yeah, but to "solve" chess you'd need more computer memory than there are atoms in the known universe.

But I agree with your overall point -- chess isn't boxing. At best, the Capablanca argument is a neat diversion from the main issue.