Rocky Marciano vs. Jim Jeffries

Of course my comments are now completely irrelevent because: (multiple choice)

A) They were irrelevent to begin with;

B) It is completely impossible, with all the so-called expertise at work on this site, for any thread to stay on-topic for more than 2 pages;

or

C) SATAN! SATAN! SATAN!

 

My point was Louis power was all but gone. The above posts of mine illustrate why. One point where I disagree with big Marciano fans is, Louis did not have much power in this match, and Walcott who was a solid hitter, wasn't close to the puncher say Fitzsimmons was.

I think Louis had plenty of early stoppages. I agree Louis had some style match ups vs quick boxer types, and guys who smothered him, but the prime Louis' power eventually won the day for him in almost all cases.

Jeffries is the lone fighter that I am aware of that scored at least one knockdown in all his fights, save the 6 year come back effort. The fights in those days were different. Fighters for the most part knew they had to go 20 rounds or more, so they did not press for the early knockout. There was also more in-fighting and clinching. The gloves themselves didn't protect the hand too well either. Things like good padding and hand wraps/tape were somewhat rare at the turn of the century. Sharkey would have been Tko'd for sure in a modern era in the second fight. Reports say he was out on his feet a few times, and badly injured. Jeffries fought the second Sharkey match with an injury, otherwise he likely finishes him. As I said before, Jeffries taking Sharkey the distance twice is not so bad if you consider Marciano took Lowry the distance twice, and was reported to have been edged out on points and stunned by the Rhode Island Press vs a career journeyman.

A broken thumb and second scheduled match on the same day are reasons why Bob Armstrong went the distance with Jeffries. Marciano needed on average a shade over 9 rounds to win his title matches, and this includes the 2nd Walcott fight, which lasted one round. Marciano was not an early KO guy in his title fights either.

Interesting point. So Belshore was on his way out anyway. It doesn't matter much though as Belshore was on a 4 fight losing streak coming into the Louis match.

 

I hold Joe Louis vs Freddie Beshore on film. Louis had him out on his feet with his eye gashed up at the time of the stoppage. Beshore was a tough fighter. That is about all. Louis looked like a giant compared to Beshore in the Ring. I believe Louis could still punch when he fought Charles and Marciano. Power is the last thing to go. Louis had plenty of natural power he built up chopping wood all those years. Though his speed diminished, his power was still intact. Fighters who are blessed at birth with Natural Power do not lose it despite age.

 

You don't generate the kind of power a prime Joe Louis possessed through speed and snap. Those things can considerably enhance your effectiveness, but they don't constitute the power. You don't break people's teeth out, rip their mouthguards in half, spin 250-pound men around in a circle, etc. through speed and snap. Louis was a monstrously forceful hitter. In his prime, the addition of immense speed, snap, accuracy and timing made him an absolute destroyer, even at the top ranks of the division; but when you don't have some truly exceptional skill to augment your power, you're unlikely to score a significantly high percentage of stoppages against top opposition. In his 10 comeback fights, Louis had 3 against future Hall-of-Famers, 6 against top 10 heavyweights, and 9 against men who were top 10 within a couple years of his fights against them. Guys like Ron Lyle, Cleveland Williams, Elmer Ray, Samuel Peter, etc. who were known as immensely powerful hitters and who even had somewhat impressive skillsets didn't put together substantially higher knockout averages against the same level of opposition. As I say, this is how I view a comeback Louis; a very forceful puncher with a moderate skillset and a couple noticeable holes in his makeup. He did about how that type of fighter does against that type of opposition.

It was on severe laceration/a broken nose/Beshore was just getting the stuffing beaten out of him and would most certainly have been knocked clean out had it continued.

These are "glass-is-half-empty" arguments. Walker's record (which is likely incomplete) lists him as 17-8-7 going into the Louis fight. He had been stopped in the early rounds very early in his career, but he hadn't been stopped in his last 23 fights when he fought Louis. And I have a RING Magazine account of this fight which describes Walker as having fought timidly and run from Louis for much of the match, allowing him to survive into the 10th round (although Louis had already had him down three times in the first 9).

Savold was 35, but his last fight had been one of the biggest wins of his career over a highly-regarded and very dangerous Bruce Woodcock in what Nat Fleischer and other writers present at the fight considered a "masterful" performance that put him on a par with anyone in the division. He had only been stopped once in his last 55 fights, only once in the last decade. In his next fight, he would last six rounds on his feet against Rocky Marciano before his manager stopped the fight with him on his stool. Louis knocking him out for 10 is a highly-impressive feat.

No, I don't think a prime Louis would have 8-9 stoppages against that group at all. I think Charles would likely last the distance, something like the Tommy Farr fight, Brion (who was a very durable Argentine known for his awkward, crowding style- not without a lot of similarities to Godoy) would probably go the distance once in two 10-rounders, Marciano would be likely to last the distance in a 10-round fight, and a shifty little boxer like Bivins wouldn't be unlikely to go the full 10 round route either. I would expect about 6-7 stoppages from a peak Louis against that same schedule of opposition, maybe 8 if he had an exceptional run. I think you're sorely underestimating the caliber of opposition he was fighting at this time.

 

One of boxings old adages - the power is always last to go.

Joe Louis could still hit very very hard, it's that simple. His delivery and timing may have been greatly diminished but the man could still whack.

 

For some reason, Joe Louis had no real power in his right hand at the time he fought Marciano, but his left was still genuinely power-packed.

Quotes from Rocky later on expressed this, Rocky was surprised at how weak Louis's right felt.
Also, the account in A.J.Leibling's "The Sweet Science" recounts conversations in Louis's training camp among writer and trainer discussing what Louis had left was his left hand, but his right was no longer the deadly weapon it had been.

(These days they'd send a guy like that to a series of physios and specialists and get a suregeon to correct whatever's happened to his right. Probably some minor damage restricting his range of motion. IMO)

 

And yet he described the left as having been "like a sledgehammer."

Seems logical.

 

There we have it. Not only did Louis fail to score TKO's/KO's in 7 of his last 10 fights, but we have testimonials as to his power being greatly diminished.

 

Yes.
The Marciano quote can be found (I think) within the relatively recent biography by Sullivan.

The rest is, as I said, from A.J.Leibling's collection of essays entitled "The Sweet Science".

 

I agree with this here. Did you Happen to catch the Louis-Savold knockout? Quite the devastating knockout. Savold was plenty durable.

 

I happened to be searching around youtube and caught glimpse of Joe Louis vs Pat Valentino which happened in january 1950, about 7 months before the Ezzard fight, and 1 year 6 months before the marciano fight. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3gEciMGusA. From what I see, Louis still appears to have plenty of power in his right hand. He looks awful big and strong too. So do you believe in a matter of 1 year, Joe suddenly lost all his power in his right hand? That doesn't seem very logical.

 

This would be a terrific battle, similar to the Sharkey fight, only Marciano being bigger and hitting harder would do more damage. Both men go down in this fight, but Marciano's shorter punching would be the difference. Marciano wins a UD.:good

 

Let me give an example here, to illustrate what I'm saying about Louis' run before fighting Marciano:

Samuel Peter is widely regarded as one of the hardest hitters, if not the hardest hitter, in the heavyweight division right now. However, in his last six fights, he has had only one stoppage win, and that was against a sub-top-50 journeyman. He has utterly failed in all four of his attempts to stop a top 20 heavyweight, in spite of the fact that the ones he faced were Wladimir Klitschko, a fighter with a reputation for a shaky chin who had been down six times and stopped twice during his last five fights, James Toney, a short, squat, blubbery ex-middleweight in his late 30s (twice!), and Jameel McCline, a sluggish, 37-year-old veteran who hadn't won a big fight in years. I would say this is much worse than the run Louis was on when he fought Marciano. Does Peter not count as a puncher, then? If Maskaev beats Peter, will you say, "Bah! Peter had lost all his power- you can tell by the way he only stopped one of his last six opponents"?

 

I would counter and say Peter has 5 Ko's in his last ten fights. Peter has 22 Ko's in 30's fights, or a KO% of 75.86. This is a puncher on print, and we've all seen Peter in the ring.

The guys Peter fought were harder to KO. Toney has never been Ko'd in 80 fights! Peter fought him twice. Wlad only has been stopped 3 times in 52 matches. Peter had both fighters down. McCline was only stopped 3 times in 49 matches. Hawkins has only been stopped 2 times in 33 matches. These are the fighters Peter failed to stop. In a combined 294 total matches, these Peter opponents have only been stopped 8 times. This is an extremely low 2.72% or the above fighters have only been stopped 2.72% of the time as a group.

By contrast Louis opponent’s last ten opponents were stopped with far greater frequency. Belshore and Agramonte alone were stopped a combined 14 times in 116 fights. 14 Knockouts against trumps the entire lot of guys Peter failed to put away by a good margin. Louis failed to put Agarmonte away. I suppose Louis did Ko Savold who came out of retirement to stop Woodcock, but then again, Savold himself was older/shot as well, and stopped a total of 10 times in 137 fights. Andy Walker was stopped 10 times in 44 fights, and it took Louis the full ten rounds to end it. Many fighters put Walker way much sooner.

So you see, Louis failed to stop much easier guys to TKO statically speaking. His old form and power were greatly diminished.

 

Yeah mate, he still looked rather power potent to me.