Realistic Evaluation of HW ATG's holding up H2H over time

It's always annoyed me that, even among people who mostly accept the natural progression of the HW division and the importance of size in boxing, Muhammad Ali seems to get exempted from those rules but Joe Louis isn't. In actuality, Joe Louis would be much more likely to hold up well over time than Ali.

The HW's that would hold up the best over time had 1. Great power and 2. Didn't rely as much on their height and height in their own era.

Ali was the tallest (dominant) champ ever when he became champ, and no one clearly exceeded him on that until more than a decade after he retired. Much like Tyson Fury did against Wlad, Ali relied on his speed, reflexes, and dimensions to beat opponents in the first half of his career. When Liston tried to hit him, it was too hard because Ali's height and reflexes allowed him to get out of the way, and then land punches. That strategy is vastly more difficult to pull off if you're operating at a height deficit. In the second half of his career, he relied on experience, weight (clinching and in absorbing punishment) and chin to beat people who were either his height or smaller (he never fought a decent HW more than an inch taller than him in his second reign).

Meantime most of Louis's career (pre and first year or so of WWII) was against a slightly taller crop of contenders (took a long time for the pool of talent to catch up from the ravages of WWII). And he was an inch shorter than Ali. He was only slightly above average height and size for his time, and his fight style wasn't reliant on size. He beat top contenders in Simon, Baer, and Carnera, all much taller and bigger than him, so he was used to being outsized. Power is the great equalizer and Louis had it, Ali did not.

I know its not popular, because Ali has had a lot more movies made of him than Louis, but Ali would fare much worse over the passage of time than Louis.

ATG's that can hold their own for a long time against new era's:

Louis
Tyson
Foreman

ATG's who would have a much harder time:
Ali
Tunney
Holmes

 

Your lack of perceptiveness is always impressive, Herol. There is a solid minority who accept it fairly purely, and probably over 50% who accept it on some level, that a Gene Tunney couldn't hang with a modern champ. The big dividing line seems to be Ali, ie the point of the thread.

But you'd need actual ability to perceive and interpret, and I know you lack that ability, so I'll let you go on with your illusions.

 

Except you said no one agreed with me. Which I said was wrong, that there were a lot who agreed in full, and even more who agree in part. Then, out of curiosity, I did a poll in a different thread. Which so far indicates I'm right, and you are wrong. I guess you're getting used to that, though.

 

Holmes relied much less than Ali. But he still has some of the same basic problems. He lacks great power, so nothing he does is really dangerous to a top, much larger HW, and eventually dimensions are going to pose a problem to him. The only top contender he beat who was substantially larger than him was C ooney. A good win, true, but he struggled at times. I think, among active HW's, Holmes would have a real hard time against Wlad, Fury, Wilder, Ortiz, Joshua, Parker, maybe even Helenius depending on whether he's shot or not. All of whom are a good bit bigger than him. I'd pick him to lose 4 or 5 of those matches.

 

I don't think I ever said I'd rank him #4 if he beat Fury, he was getting around 7ish for me. I did say if he unified all the titles, lasted another 4 years as champ and broke Joe Louis's record for consecutive defenses he would definitively be top 3, above Lewis.

As I always knew, we see now just how hard it is to do that. If he had, I don't see good arguments for denying him that status. As it is, he's slipped below his brother for me and down to a fringe top 10 ATG.

 

Except quick feet and upper body movement works best when you have a size advantage or are at least equal on size. You don't see it very often against SHW's because its not an effective tactic generally when operating at a size mismatch against a quality opponent. Haye moved around a lot against Valuev (because Valuev was so unathletic), if memory serves. No reason he couldn't have tried that against Wlad, except he knew Wlad would have made him pay.

Power, on the other hand, is the great equalizer. Louis had it. I don't see him winning, at least as he was. But maybe, if he was trained under modern methods, he could pull it off.