Joe Louis's chin is it underrated?

I think overall his chin was not top notch. His recovery abilities were though.

I think he was a bit like Patterson (I think his chin was better than Patterson's, for the record) in the sense that he wasn't very hard to drop, but he was very hard to keep down and stop.

When I think of chin, I think of the ability to take shots without going down and think of how hard it is to be stunned/dazed/shaken. In that category, imo Louis rates about a 6.5-7 out of 10.

When I think of recovery abilities, I think of getting up when dropped and how quickly someone recovers from being stunned/dazed/shaken. I also fit heart into getting up and continuing on from hard knockdowns.

I think Louis had very good recovery abilities, but his chin was not anything special.

 

:think

:hey

 

I apreciate that people who compare Louis to Patterson are not literaly saying that his chin was comparable to Pattersons, but it is a flawed comparison for other reasons.

Although Louis was down a lot of times, the people who were knocking him down were all elite fighters and elite punchers, and he was being exposed to this type of fighterwith a regularity that other heavyweight champions simply wern't.

In some ways Ezzard Charles would make a better comparison.

 

Easy to drop, hard to stop.

 

If you think 8/10 would be the VERY MINIMUM for Louis then what would you give Max Baer and Ali? 12/10 :think

 

I don't even know if it's an advantage to have a chin rated "great".
Many people here will say Tyson had a great chin and a chin far superior to Louis's chin. But Tyson got KTFO more than Louis did.
I can't imagine either of them being KO'd by a single shot, though it's possible.

People talk about "recuperative powers". Often that's just HEART and FITNESS. Then again, so is taking a punch, often.

Louis took a full-bodied right hand in the jaw from Max Baer that physically moved him, but he didn't go down and his legs didn't go jelly. He just absorbed it.
He looked a more hurt from a sweet left hook from Billy Conn.
Different days, different effects.

To be fair to Louis, just about everyone who ever actually knocked him down was known to be a puncher.
Galento, Marciano and Buddy Baer were consistently BIG punchers. Walcott was a good puncher with proven one-punch KO ability. Schmeling and Braddock were known for having very respectable right hands

 

I would give them both a 10.

If we are grading chins out of 10, then 8 only implies that 20% of the field are better.

 

9 and 10 should be reserved for the McCalls and Chuvalos. That's not Louis.

 

His chin was durable. It wasn't made of Iron, but it wasn't made of glass.. I'd say it was better than average.

 

Since Louis was only ever stopped twice i'll assume A is Rocky and B is Maximilian.

The thing Joe has going for him is that he was only stopped twice in a million fights over 100 000 years. The negative is that he was dropped numerous times and never fought absolute top shelf fighters who were massive punchers like Ali did.

Holmes was also dropped and hurt vs second tier fighters such as Louis. He was also stopped when over the hill like Joe. Larry has a big rep for chin and recuperative powers.

Louis ain't too bad.