He was only down twice, but it's quality and not quantity. Louis at his best was never KTFO with a single shot. Louis' chin could be qualified as "average". It's not china, as nobody can be elite with a china chin, it's also not even really glass. I'd call it "shaky", which is workable but can be annihilated easily. China is like Fraudley Harrison and Amir Khan.
Just a simple question here, if his chin was easy to break down, why couldn't so many hard hitters do it? How about that fantastic punch on the jaw from Klitschko - A man witha 97% knockout ratio? Joe Louis would have been KOed from that punch, no doubt about it. I doubt he could take the punche Tua landed on Louis and survive either.
The one punch thing isnt completley accurate. Rahman actually landed that flush right several times in the fight, obviously it must have hurt Lewis but he didnt go down, by the point in the 5th when he went down he was clearly tired and with the accumulation of effect from those earlier shots [one earlier in that round] he was was then caught while off balance, bouncing off the ropes without his legs being set beneath him.
It has to be said, Lewis fundamentals need to be criticised every bit as much as his chin for that KO.
Joe Louis was also essentially a Cruiserweight though and you share many of my sentiments on modern vs. classic, that's not even a comparison. Had Tua followed up, he'd have floored Lewis and would have ended the fight, a guy like Tua is massively overrated in the sense that he has the power but lacks the ability to put a guy away and that punch he landed on Lewis was extended, when a small powerhouse like him generates more power from a shorter compact punch. Plus, Lewis had a great defence, he never ate shots like Holyfield did for example. Lessening the impact of punches is apart of an expanded defence, Lewis was great at this. Let's bring another point up about Vit Klitschko, this guy had a KO percentage that is impressive, but what's really impressive is that he doesn't have 1 punch KO power in the least bit, what is impressive is that he broke those fighters down to stop them. Vit Klit had to significantly break someone down to TKO them, it's impressive that he had the skill to do it 34 times, look at the Danny Williams fight, a fighter who's been stopped on multiple occasions, it took Vitali 8 rounds, took Fraudley 3.
When one guy is using Foreman as a heavybag for 10 rounds and then gets caught and is out cold, as well as against any other puncher he faced, i think the common factor is chin. It's not like he lacked the boxing skill not the go the distance with Holyfield, Tua or Foreman. He just couldn't take the punches. Like it or not, but Tua, Morrison, Grant, Klitschko, Briggs, Tyson, Bruno, Mason and Tucker DID land their sunday punches and Lewis didn't go anywhere. Lewis had excellent defense but everyone gets tagged a couple of times and with Moorers chin he wouldn't have made it to the finish in half of those fights or more.
A fair point on Louis being a cruiser, but there has been a lot of small heavies who took a great punch. I don't think he was that was either. Despite being smaller, Marciano had a much better chin than Louis did. Plus the people who dropped him weren't huge either. Tua landed quite a few good shots, and a guyw ith his natural power, technique isn't essential. Look at Max Baer, George Foreman or right now, Sam Peter. All are really poor technicians, yet all have a good KO ratio. They could have been better punches, but lets not act like they were weak because of the way he through them. He had so much raw power, those were KO punches regardless of whether he was off balance. Danny Williams was shot by the time Harrison beat him. Williams beat Harrison over 12 rounds, before their second fight. And Vitali is still a ridiculously hard puncher. Whether he breaks the down or not, that was a seriously hard punch. Fighters breaking people down isn't to do with how hard they hit, but their style anyway.
Marciano gets KTFO by Tua as well, but again, he was a cruiserweight and from an era not even comparable to the 90's, or even the 30's for that matter. Marciano would have been KOed by Liston, he came in and did his run at the right time. I never said he didn't have the power mate, but Tua is even more lacking in his skill to set up his gigantic blows than a Foreman type, this is why it took him 10 rounds to get a lucky shot in on glass Rahman and why he couldn't follow up when he had Lewis buzzed. He has tremendous power, the shot he landed on Lewis was decent, I am not saying Lewis is glass or china, but imagine if he followed up with a short right hand on the button after that shot that is circulating on the internet... Lewis would have been KTFO, where as I promise you that a guy like Holyfield would have eaten it. The call on Tua is only on the fact that I am tired of people saying "Lewis or Rahman ate Tua's shots" when it's known he has awesome power, but when it's also known that he lacks even a proper SLUGGERS skill to really deliver them there and that's why he couldn't put a dent in some really average fighters on top of not following it up on Lewis. Foreman at his peak would have immediatley followed through with one of his powerful clubbing rights and would have finished the job, even though Foreman looks sloppy at times, there is more skill in there than David Tua. Well, all I was getting at was that Tua's best shots were short punches because he's a compact powerhouse that uses no levarage like a longer fighter. They were decent shots, I'll give him that. Yes, but Harrison didn't open up on Williams in their first, he was fighting scared to protect that china chin. Williams has a shaky chin regardless, about like Lennox to be exact, only Lennox has ATG skills and ATG athletic ability, where as Danny is a plodding, overweight fighter. He's a decent puncher and having to break somebody down while landing your best shots round after round shows that you are an accumulation hitter, not a 1 punch hitter. Vitali has an impressive stoppage ratio because he was highly proficient at his style, the guy is really underrated at that and he could stick to a gameplan like any of the best. But a ridiculously hard puncher? Not at all, he doesn't even have Rahman's power, imagine if he did with his workrate... he'd have a ton of KO's, not TKO's and they'd be early, including something like a KO 1 or KO 2 on Danny Williams. A single shot from Vit Klit means little, because he did his damage through accumulation of punishment, ask any deep Klitschko fan.
This part I'm not so sure about. They all landed decent punches sure, but although Tua caught Lennox a few good ones, Lewis was usually on the retreat when he was hit. It does lessen the impact to a degree. Tyson landed some okay shots, but non were really timed that well. Certainly nothing as clean as the shots he hit Tubbs, Berbick or Holmes with. To me, Vitali Klitschko doesn't really belong in a list of huge punchers. He didn't possess one-punch KO power at an elite level. A solid, thudding puncher yes, but not really a KO artist, despite his record. I think the same can be said for Gary Mason. They didn't hit Lewis consistently enough to wear him down, which was their modus operandi. Not denying he faced big hitters - only a fool could deny that - but to say he fought them and took their best punches is incorrect, imo. To say he fought them and took some solid shots is more accurate.
While his chin was certainly a point of weakness it was generaly not bad enough to save you if you did not have the tools to beat him anyway, however hard you hit. A lot of big punchers landed their Sunday best and had nothing to show for it. After that they almost seem to be thinking- "Er right. What exactly am I surposed to do now"?
Since Joe Louis was never KOd by a single punch in his entire career I think there is a great deal of doubt about it.
I disagree. Although Lewis was on the retreat a couple of times, Tua also nailed Lewis flush other times. Just watch the video Barneyrub posted or watch the fight itself, i believe some landed in rounds 3 & 4. If Lewis would've been knocked out or down by the shots they landed you would've classified them as the shots that knocked down Tubbs, Berbick and Holmes. They were snappy, quick and hard punches that looked less hard because Lewis took them. Agreed to a certain degree in that they weren't one-punch KO artists, but their KO % doesn't lie and if Lewis had such a glass or average chin, he would've at least been out of the fight or survival mode after taking those shots. But he wasn't. I think a key factor here is that the effect of the punch usually makes the punch. Watch the punch with which Tyson knocks Berbick down three times - if you see the fight for the first time and you'd pause the tape right before Berbick falls, you'd say "hmm, that was a decent shot". Only when you see the replay, different angle and the effect of the punch you recognise what a great punch it was, when it could well have been interpreted as an average one had there been no reaction or replay. The most effective KO punches are the quick, hard to see ones. When they don't knock down a fighter or stagger him then they are easily overlooked. If you watch the slow-motion replay you'll see that they are power shots with full leverage on them from proven punchers. The only exception here is that left hook from Briggs which made Lewis stagger into the ropes, but Lewis did exactly what he had to do: go on defense, keep his hands up and make Briggs shoot his load.