Max Schmeling v Muhammad Ali

A good way to not trade juvenile insults is to not start using juvenile insults.

 

Max Baer knocked Carnera down like 11 times so idk how he got 'outboxed'. Baer is one of the top 10 punchers in HW history, so getting caught by him and getting kayoed is not all that embarrassing. Schmeling was winning the first Sharkey fight and got robbed in the rematch - Sharkey himself admitted this. Your comment on Schmeling's 'survival instincts' is laughable, Louis literally fractured his vertebrae with the first barrage, and nobody would've been able to defend themselves against a vengeful Joe Louis that night, 'survival instincts' don't do much when you get hit like that. Schmeling spent months in the hospital after that fight. You can nitpick those 2 fights but we both know that in the final analysis, those guys were not as good as Schmeling.

 

Watch the Baer fight. Schmeling gets caught repeatedly with big shots. Baer is bossing the fight. (And for what it's worth, you're wrong that Schmeling was ahead when the first fight was stopped. Sharkey was ahead.)

And, yes, Louis got to tee off on him because he neither defended, fought back or tried to hold. He didn't seem that out on his feet to me after the first KD, but offered up very little in terms of survival instinct.

But again, hard to compare Schmeling with the best counter punchers Ali fought, since they were so different style wise. Young had better defence, but not as dangerous counter, right for example, and was less aggressive and more of a spoiler type.

 

Pretty hard to defend yourself with a broken back . Do you think a seasoned professional like Schmeling just stood there and allowed Louis to beat on him, unless he was severely compromised? How would you have defended yourself under those circumstances?

I just revisited the first Schmeling v Sharkey fight and you're right, Sharkey was definitely ahead (after 3 completed rounds). There's no denying the rematch was a robbery (thats were the famous line 'we wuz robbed' comes from). As far as Baer is concerned, many of the shots he threw were blocked, slipped or ridden (rode?), Schmeling was in control of the fight up until the end of the 9th when Baer caught up to him before kayoing him in the 10th.

You're pretty blind if you think that Jimmy Young had better defense than Schmeling - Schmeling was a master at slipping punches, shoulder rolling and bobbing and weaving, he also had a great sense of distance. Young was an above-average fighter at best, he had that terrible fight with washed Ali (which a lot of people thought he won) and he beat a mentally compromised Foreman at the end of his first career. Outside of that and a other few good performances (Against Lyle and Norton), he proved to be a mediocre fighter.

 

Both Sharkey and Baer landed lots of good punches and Max vertebrae was only broken when he turned his back to Louis because he had no other means of defence.

Young had a pretty short prime, but for that time he was a very slippery customer, clearly harder to hit than Schmeling. Partly down to style, but I also think his defence was better.

But we're not going to agree on this and are only repeating ourselves, so I'll leave the discussion here.

 

Translation: No Mas

 

It is a bit tricky to compare the defence of someone who comes forward and someone that more tries to stay out of range, but for me, I like Young's slipping and blocking better, as well of course his defensive footwork.

And Young being simply negative isn't fair, I'd say, because he did some good punching in there as well, but lacked power. But he did have a defence first mindset, that's true.

 

Ali by late ko.