Joe Louis's resume is very poor

His opposition could have been rubbish, but he dominated too much and beat too many former champs and future champs (Baer, Braddock, Schmeling, Carnera, Sharkey, Walcott). His comeback campaign was also impressive.

The way he dominated the division is just astonishing. He has 25% more defenses than Larry Holmes and 45% more than Wladimir Klitschko. And were talking about the guys who follow him on that aspect.

 

^
That.

Joe Louis' Top 10 Rated Opponents

1934: Lee Rampage - No. 10
1935: Patsy Perroni - No. 6
1935: Natie Brown - No. 10
1935: Primo Carnera - No. 4
1935: King Levinsky - No. 10
1935: Max Baer - No. 1
1936: Charley Retzlaff - No. 4
1936: Max Schmeling - No. 2 - Loss
1936: Jack Sharkey - No. 4
1936: Al Ettore - No. 3
1936: James Braddock - World HW Champion
1936: Tommy Farr - No. 3
1938: Nathan Mann - No. 3
1938: Max Schmeling - No. 1
1939: John Henry Lewis - World LHW Champion
1939: Tony Galento - No. 3
1939: Bob Pastor - No. 2
1940: Johnny Paychek - No. 5
1940: Arturo Godoy (2) - No. 1
1941: Red Burman - No. 4
1941: Buddy Baer - No. 5
1941: Billy Conn - World LHW Champion
1941: Lou Nova - No. 1
1942: Buddy Baer - No. 4
1942: Abe Simon - No. 6
1946: Billy Conn - No. 1
1946: Tami Mauriello - No. 1
1947: Jersey Joe Walcott - No. 1
1948: Jersey Joe Walcott - No. 1
1950: Ezzard Charles - World Champion - Loss
1951: Lee Savold - No. 4
1951: Cesar Brion - No. 8
1911: Rocky Marciano - No. 3 - Loss

Overall record vs. Top 10 Opposition: 30-3

Other Heavyweights:

Muhammad Ali: 32-5
Larry Holmes: 20-5
Lennox Lewis: 15-2-1
Mike Tyson: 13-4
Rocky Marciano: 11-0
Evander Holyfield: 11-7-2
Joe Frazier: 10-4
Sonny Liston: 8-4
George Foreman: 7-3



So where do you guys rate Louis then, considering his **** opposition? :think

 

Majin Buu?

 

Well... he beat some good and great fighters in between getting beat by a 190 Lb Euro fighter and getting dropped by mediocre boxers.

Let's take a look-

 

Before winning the HW World Title he beat-

Primo Carnera KO6, HW Champ and Hall of Famer

King Levinsky KO1, tough trial horse with a very good chin, he had never been stopped before and was only ever stopped 5 times in 117 fights.

Max Baer KO4, HW Champ and Hall of Famer

Paulino Uzcudon KO4, a good HW with a great chin who beat Tom Heeney, Harry Wills, and Max Baer among others. He gave plenty of good fighters tough nights like Max Schmeling x3, Primo Carnera x2, Tuffy Griffiths, Tommy Loughran, George Godfrey, and others. Louis was the only fighter who ever stopped him.

Charley Retzlaff KO1

Jack Sharkey KO3, HW Champ and Hall of Famer, worst beating Sharkey ever took

Al Ettore KO5

Bob Pastor W10.... and KO11 (in a HW World Title Defense)

so far so good

 

Schmeling was a top contender and during that time hwt champion over a 10 year time span. He defended his championship against the dangerous and leading contender Young Stribling. During that 10 year time span he went 20-4. Schmeling was rated for a while as a top 10 all time hwt champion.

 

Yes, he was dropped by Schmeling in their first fight (he had never been down before) and stopped in the 12th. Max fought a great fight and Louis came in a bit overconfident. Louis stopped Max in the 1st round of their rematch. Schmeling was a HW World Champ and is a Hall of Famer.

He was down vs. Braddock but went on to stop him in the 8th and win the HW World Title vs. the Hall of Famer.

He also beat-

Tommy Farr W15

John Henry Lewis KO1, LHW Champ and Hall of Famer.

Toney Galento KO4, Louis was down but beat the crap out of Galento for most of the fight.

Abe Simon KO13 and KO6

Buddy Baer WDQ7 and KO1, Louis was down vs. the 240 Lb Baer (first fight) but beat the crap out of him for most of the fight

Billy Conn KO13 and KO8, LHW Champ and Hall of Famer.

Lou Nova KO6

Jersey Joe Walcott W15 and KO11, a past prime Louis was down 3 times in 2 fights vs. Walcott but earned the unpopular decision in their first fight and stopped him in their rematch.

Jimmy Bivins W10, Hall of Famer

He lost to Ezzard Charles L15 and Rocky Marciano LKOby8 while past prime... both HW World Champs and Hall of Famers.

Yep, Louis sucked!

 

The strength of Louis's resume is built on

1. Longevity at the top

2. His record claim to most title defenses

3. Devastating nature of his wins

His opposition is what I would classify as " decent. " Its nice to say that he beat 6 guys who held the heavyweight title at one time or another, and a handful who held the light heavyweight crown as well. But some of those guys were less than impressive champions. Braddock took a step up at the right time and elevated himself from journeyman level, and became a genuine contender at the time he challenged Baer. But it wasn't until two years after he won the belt that he fought Louis, and was inactive in between. Carnera was a big man, but not the most graceful or durable. Baer was dangerous, but lacked defense and skill. Sharkey was finished. I suppose Walcott and Schemling were genuinely good wins and Buddy Baer's size and power would always have to count for something. Overall it was a great resume. His opposition has never been a favorite of mine however

 

Louis' resume is great, although slightly overrated by some. His best wins over Schmeling and Walcott are, IMO, great wins. Can't take anything away from him for those ones.

That being said, after that Louis' resume kinda falls a bit. His next big wins are over LHWs in Billy Conn and John Henry Lewis (this is a pretty good win since Lewis had already defended his title a few months prior). Good wins, but even if I rate Billy Conn highly I just can't rate a win over someone you outweigh by 30 pounds as an ATG win. Still, deserves some credit for those ones. I wish I could rate the Sharkey and Baer wins higher, but Sharkey was shot and Baer had a broken right hand when they fought Louis.

I believe Louis did fight the most top 10 contenders out of any heavyweight in history, so that means something. Still my number 2 HW.

 

It's this time of the year.

 

Exactly.

Imo Louis suffers in the same way that every dominant champion suffers. i.e. he was so good, so consistently and utterly dominant, that no one else could emerge as great, therefore he's seen as dominating a weak era.

It's notable Louis's best wins are considered to be fighters who won the title before (Schmeling, Baer, Canera & Sharkey) or after (JJW) he did. Is it just a coincidence that no other fighters emerged that were as good in between, during his 11-year reign? Or is it more likely that the best of those that did aren't held in as high regard because they never got to be champion because Louis was so good?

I accept Louis didn't have a challenger of the quality of Foreman or Frazier during his reign, but by way of explaining why he was the most dominant champion in boxing history, statistically it's far more likely that he, as one fighter, was better than the single individual world champions from other eras (relative to the evolution of their respective eras), than it is that all the contenders during his 11-year reign weren't as good as all the contenders from every other era, at every other weight division, in all of boxing history.

 

All the great ones :Ali,Holmes,Louis and more get a shafting every now and then in various ways - they never rematched this guy or were lucky against that guy etc...etc. Most would agree that Joe Louis is a top 3 all time great heavyweight.

 

He fought what was there at the time. That's all you can ask. How he would have done against champions of other eras is anyone's guess.
It is true, Schmelling was not regarded all that high at the time, and he KO'ed Louis the first time.

Louis was a fast combination puncher who could punch. He was better than all the rest from his era. When you talk of weak resumes, the same could be said about a lot of great fighters.

Having said all that, I too wonder how he would have fared against a lot of different fighters, but we'll never know for sure. I do think his chin was on the suspect side, and there were a lot of sub-par fighters that put him on his arse. However he did come back and beat them, and that's the mark of a real champion, (though these were guys who had no business putting him down in the first place). Conn was techinically a super-middleweight with no punch and he rocked the hell out of him...

Techincally him, and Marciano would have been cruiserweights by today's standards.

 

I am sorry but Holmes is the one who does not belong in that list.

To me, the best other heavies of the eighties were Withespoon, Dokes, Page, Tubbs, Thomas, Spinks, Tucker, and Tyson. Holmes managed one either-way victory against them. Not all of that was his fault. Some of those fights were not plausible, one involved a bad decision, and some of those fighters were hot when he was past it. Still, some were blatant ducks and fights he should have won. Things are very much the other way--Holmes gets waaaay too much credit for being WBC company champion.

As for Louis, yeah, Baer, Schmeling, Sharkey, Carnera, Walcott, Braddock, Conn, Lewis, Bivins, and a ton of top contenders makes one of the best ever. It would have been nice if Ray and Murray were on there, but I understand he did one or both of them pretty handily in exhibitions anyway. I honestly don't think OP was being real.