If you really wanted it even it would have been Louis 1 year after he fought Marciano against the Ali that fought Holmes. I don't know how was Louis' condition against Marciano , the last Louis performance I watched was Charles , but if Ali was stopped by someone like Holmes and not because of cuts or a pre fight injury that worsened then probably Ali was in a worse condition . From the Cooney , Spinks 1,2 , Shavers 2 fights I concede that Holmes was crap and would probably not have stopped a prime Chad Dawson if he was put in front of him , I even think Bob Foster would have fought him on even terms , because I only watched Holmes fight one way . So if Holmes stopped Ali then Ali was probably severely handicapped which implicates on Berbick , another weak champion Holmes failed to stop ,which implicates on Holmes again ..
Louis easily. Joe wans't great anymore when he fought the Rock, but he was still one of the best in his division, and beat a contender and a couple of former contenders. Ali was shotter than shot. He was already showing signs of Parkinsons and was on some sort of thyroid medicine that completely took away his energy levels.
I gotta go louis...Ali was a bad match up for Louis..but this ali couldnt move nearly like he could in his prime...early stage parkinson and all....Ali had lost more when he fought holmes then Louis had lost when he fought Marciano...i pick Louis by UD (with a modern ref they would stop it given the beating ali would take in later rounds...but 1950's or even early 80's ref doesnt stop it)
Next tread.....Max Scheling at age 80 versus Jack dempsey at age 80...now Max lived longer..so that might make you think he is healther at 80..but dempsey had just knocked out two muggers a few years before...so.... LOL
Ali was shot to pieces and had been absent from the ring and untested against the then curent crop. Joe louis was no longer the brown bomber but he was still an active, genuinly rated world class fighter. It is a mismatch.
Louis would demolish that Ali, Joe still had something left he just ran into the Rock.. Ali was way gone at the point he fought Holmes..
:dealThis....the Holmes fight goes down as a TKO loss but a Louis fight would've been a K N O C K O U T - thank god nothing that horrific happened - but the fact is Joe Louis always had that massive power just incredibly dull reflexes by that time - but Louis was still even then only one punch away from potentially blowing away a lot of top guys - even against Ez Charles - I got the impression that that Louis was just that millisecond from pulling the trigger all the time but I was left with the impression that had he done so and got something bang on even Charles might have been blown away too - Louis beat the great Jimmy Bivins on points in 1950 didn't he? That's something right there - and he hung in there with a young slugger named Rocky Marciano for 8 of 10 rounds
The Ali of Berbick fight loses a decision. It's hard to say what the Ali of the Holmes fight was capable of, or if he was capable of anything, since he hardly fired a punch off and just took a beating all the way from a great champion in Larry Holmes. I believe that making 217 at his age simply drained him.