Joe Louis's Opposition (old story, I know)

I remember Ray Arcel being quoted years ago as saying Lou Nova had
the most talent of anyone Louis fought but the bad beating Louis gave him effectively destroyed him.

Excellent post, Cross-Trainer.

 

Yes, this post is excellent. I agree that smashing your opposition can be taken two ways, either you are brilliant or they are shite.

All we can do in these instances is look at the quality of the fight, number of punches thrown, number blocked and slipped, speed and agility, ability to tough it out when hurt etc.

On these criteria I agree that Louis's brilliance prevented a champion-to-be from emerging, rather than there was no champion to be.

 

I largely agree, although I wouldn't go as far as you on this one. I do think that at least Schmeling and Walcott actually were better than anyone Louis met in the middle of his title reign, on the basis of their general careers/results against him. However, for example, if we were to shuffle things around slightly, like, say, transposing the primes of Primo Carnera and Buddy Baer's careers, or Tommy Farr and Jack Sharkey, or Arturo Godoy and Jim Braddock- I can certainly see where they could potentially fall into each others' own niches in history with only that slight circumstantial alteration to their fortunes.

 

Arturo Godoy, Tommy Farr?

 

I would agree with the second interpretation. As everyone around here knows, I think the world of Max Baer's ability - the guy had an IRON chin and a helacious punch. And in 84 fights Joe Louis is the ONLY guy to put him on the canvas for the the ten count. Yeah, Max was conscious and could've gotten up, but he knew what was coming. That Lewis could do that to such an anvil-chinned puncher is impressive, very impressive.

In Louis's absense and with a bit more motivation, Baer would have won the title again and had quite a career if Lewis weren't around

 

Lewis would have been starched early!:rofl

But I agree with CT's post, it is an excellent one and his comment "the more competitive you are with your opponent, the more credit you will recieve for the opponent in the long run" is very true.

Tyson's 80's competition is often underrated due to how badly he wrecked them at his peak, a resume of completely destroying/outclassed Berbick, Holmes, Tucker, Smith, Ruddock, Tubbs is really pretty decent, especially when we have a gauge to compare since two of them(Tucker&Holmes) went on to give other elite level fighters tough fights when they were even further stretched from their prime, where as Tyson blew out Holmes and outclassed a peaked Tucker.

Louis' competition and regard by some fans is very similiar to the above Tyson analogy.

 

:good

 

Title Defenses against the likes of Jack Roper , Tony Musto ,and Gus Dorazio were pretty dismal,Roper was 36 had a record of 26 W 22L 5 Ds,Musto had lost9of 33 fights with 1 drawand had won 4 of his lasty 9 fights, Dorazio, who couldnt break an egg, had a record of36 W 9 L 1 D his only win over a "name was a split dec over Bob Pastor3 years before,Al Ettore ,Arturo Godoy, Patsy Perroni and even Willie Reddish had beaten him.NONE OF THESE MEN WERE RATED CONTENDERS WHEN THEY MET LOUIS.Apart from looking at how Louis demolished them you have to factor in how good they were,their records tell us they were poor undeserving challengers.Louis ,s best opponents fromToomy Farr ,his 1st defence in37 toAbe Simon in 42 ,were Farr,Schmeling,Buddy Baer ,and Billi Conn,only one,Conn could be called an ATG, and he was a light heavy who weighed 169 lbs when he fought Louis ,giving the Champion 30 lbs,Louis when great but the calibre of his opponents was not,better fighters than those mentioned should have had the opportunity to test him complexion played a big part in the choice of Louis,s challengers,and overall they cannot compare to those Ali beat.

 

This is how I see it.

We do however see flashes of what some of his challengers might have been.

Tommy Farr and Lou Nova both proved efective against some of the previous champions suggesting that they might have been on a similar level.

Bob Pastor compiled a resume that suggests that he would have been well in the picture in the absence of Louis.

Buddy Baer remains an all time first round knockout king.

Light heavyweights of the era had a free hand before they stepped up to heavyweight. Nobody would question the greatness of John Henry Lewis or Billy Conn for example.

 

Who do you see being writing champion if Cross Trainer was not arround.

Are some of the current contenders under rated for the same reasons.

 

God post Cross_Trainer. I wrote a long reply, but it didn't display for some reason, and I'm not doing it all over again!

There are some extremely well-informed people on these boards. I'm not going to name a whole list, but when Cross_Trainer or Stonehands post, I definitely take the time to read their material. There's a whole bunch of great posters though...