K2 Brothers vs The Brown Bomber

As soon as somebody refers to Joe Louis and his 'plodding' footwork anything else they say becomes gibberish.

 

Fair.

 

The tapes show him hugging like an octopus

 

Wait, wasn't he that guy who barely cracked 6 foot and weighed 200 lb soaking wet? That's the problem with that era ... it was like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were coming to town. Vitali got some flak for fighting "blown up cruiser" Adamek, but 217lb Adamek looks like a monster compared to those dudes. They'd have been calling him "Big" Tomasz Adamek in the 40s.

 

There’s actually quite a bit of evidence that suggests Owens could still compete in the modern day Olympics, though not win gold:

"The Sports Gene" on Google Books, from page 115:

"Biomechanical video analysis of legendary sprinter Jesse Owens has shown that his joints moved as fast in the 1930s as those of Carl Lewis in the 1980s , except Owens ran on cinder tracks that stole far more energy."

Even Carl Lewis in the 80s didn’t have the benefits of modern tracks and track shoes that Bolt has. It’s also worth considering that Owens is pretty short compared to modern day elite sprinters, he was only like 5’10.

And with regard to basketball, there was also quite an underrated talent pool back in the 60s. The rules are the main reason why dribbling looked so goofy, in his interview with Chris Webber Oscar Robertson said that the players of his era dribbled in pretty much the exact same way as modern players do. The rules forced them to bounce the ball with an open palm, look at those old school Harlem Globetrotters and some Pete Maravich clips and you’ll see how little has changed.

 

Louis goes 0-2 unless he cuts Vitali up or lands a huge punch on Wlad.

He'd basically be doing what David Haye did...just hoping to change the fight with an ambush that might never come.

 

Even if you believe the pseudoscience behind the theory of Owens being elite today, he'd still be an outlier and not representative of the rest of his field from back then.

 

What evidence do you have suggesting that it is pseudoscientific?

I mean, would he? I’m not an expert of 1930s track and field, but from I’m seeing from other 100m results, they don’t seem that far off from Owens’ 10.3. In the same Olympics Ralph Metcalfe got 10.4 seconds (but got 10.38 in 1932), Tinus Osendarp got 10.5. Eddie Tolen got 10.38 seconds in the 1932 100m finals, so it’s not like Owens was the only person capable of producing such results. From what I’ve read Ivy Leaguer Ben Johnson and James Johnson defeated Owens a few times as well.

Not even taking into account how much the cinder track and lack of modern equipment affected their speed either, look at how a modern Olympian in Andre De Grasse underperformed under Owens’ conditions without time to adapt to it:

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Asking for evidence to prove that it's pseudoscience is hilarious. The proof lies in actually proving that it's true. It could be, but it's speculative.

 

Has there been a 175lber as good as Archie Moore today?

 

So there might be three or four others who might be able to compete. The vast majority wouldn't be worthy. And Owens wouldn't be matching Bolt.

 

Implying that something is pseudoscientific would mean that you’ve read the biochemical study of Owens' joints, and that you believe it's methods in the study are unscientific despite masking itself as so. Merely not knowing about the study's contents and methods doesn't constitute something as pseudoscientific at all, it just makes that study an anomaly.

Here's an excerpt from the study:

"One question posed had been to compare two of the best sprinters of that time, Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis, to the great Jessie Owens. Try to imagine how these three great sprinters would run around the track against each other. Of course, it could only happen in a dream or a vivid imagination. What we could accomplish biomechanically was to digitize Jessie Owens and compare his running technique against the two modern sprinters. Jesse Owens won 4 gold medals and broke the world record in the 100-meters dash in 10.20 seconds in the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. His 100-meter dash record stood for 20 years and was broken by Willie Williams in 1956 in 10.1 seconds. The question was how Jessie Owens’ results compared to sprinters who ran the same distance in 9.90 seconds and faster. Since modern sprinters ran on artificial tracks, used starting blocks, and had access to special sprint shoes with spikes to gain better contact with the running surface, was it possible to eliminate those factors and compare the runners outside of their actual competitive environment?

Bud Greenspan, the famous producer of the series on the “Olympics Games”, was a friend of mine. One of Mr. Greenspan’s most beautiful and moving productions was “Jesse Owens Returns to Berlin” (1968). Mr. Greenspan gave me access to the original film of Jessie Owens’ Berlin Olympic performance. In my data collection, I had various Olympics and International competitions, including sprinting performances of Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis. When a sprinter runs, the movement results from the displacement of his/her rotational leg and hips segments. In addition to the hip displacements, the movement of the ankle joint is added to that of the displacement at the knee and the hip joints. When these angular displacements are calculated in their coordinated actions, the total stride length is created. Of course, the net distance is always slightly less since some motion is wasted at the surface contact, while another motion is absorbed due to the flexibility of the shock absorbing joints. Another factor is air which will resist the movement forward.

The amount of time that the runner is out of contact with the ground and the height that the center of gravity is displaced will, also, affect the result. However, the most important joints about which forces are generated to propel the body forward are those at the ankle, knee and hip. By calculating the angular velocities at these joints, it is possible to calculate the absolute velocity and compare athletes that ran at different times and under different conditions. For example, one athlete might run a hundred meters in 10.0 seconds, but another athlete running into the wind might run the same distance in 10.20 seconds. In other words, the distance covered would be the same, but external circumstances might be the factor producing the time differences. If the calculation of their speed was measured by determining the angular velocities at the joints, a comparison of the absolute speed of two people running at times, places, and under dissimilar conditions could be made.

Using the films provided by Mr. Greenspan, we applied biomechanical analysis to several of the sprints Jesse Owens ran in the Berlin Olympic competitions. Based on our calculations of his joint center kinematics (which yielded positions, velocities, and accelerations), Jessie Owens was as fast as Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis. However, these modern-day sprinters won the same 100-meter race, at faster speeds, most likely due to the environmental conditions under which they competed. Carl Lewis won the Gold medal in the 1984 Olympics in 9.99 seconds. However, Carl Lewis performed on an artificial surface with special sprint shoes. Comparing the kinematic parameters for these athletes suggests that they would have been competitively equal."

https://www.arielnet.com/chapters/show/dtdf-ch15/the-horse-connection

 

Definitely not Bolt, even the biochemical analysis suggests he would be within one whole stride of Bolt. If I remember correctly, Owens ran in four Nationals in the 100m, but only won once.

However, it still suggests that Owens wasn't the outlier of his time, and who knows how many genuinely talented, genetically proficient sprinters there were around the world that just didn't have the resources to make it to something like the Olympics.

 

It’s an estimate that hasn’t been peer reviewed that I know of. There will always be other variables at play too, such as gaining entrance to the Olympics is harder now and wear tear might happen before reaching that stage.