Schmeling V. Frazier

Frazier by mid rounds ko, and this is assuming that this is on Schmeling's best night.

 

Both at their best?

Frazier catches up to him and breaks him down.

 

Max Schmeling liked swarmers. It would be a very competitive fight. Smokin`Joe in the late rounds or by decision, but there would be critical situations for him.

 

Frazier was a slow starter. Schmeling may hit him some early, but Frazier wears him down for late round stoppage.

 

Both in ther prime, Max's right hand vs Joe's hook could go either way, I give Frazier the edge here to come back with a late win but this match has danger written on it for both men

 

Schmeling was primarily an outside fighter who favored straight, arm's-length style punching. A problem for him here, as I see it, is that his jab was more in the pawing variety than the commanding one, and I don't think he would be able to use it to effect in keeping Frazier on the outside. He might be able to score with some rights as Frazier is coming in, but I don't think he can consistently keep Frazier off of him, nor can he withstand the pressure once Joe is on his chest. I like Frazier to break him down and stop him in about 10 or 11 rounds.

 

Frazier would overcome some rough moments and perhaps climb off the canvas to wear Schmeling down and take the fight late.

Schmeling was a verry dangerous fighter to use a come forward style against as Adolph Heuser found. He would dish out pleanty of hurt but loose the war of atrition.

 

On paper Frazier and Schmeling are about as diferent as you can get.

In reality they both killed by atrition. They took you apart a peice at a time. They both ruined more fighters than is normal for an all time great.

 

Frazier demonstrated against Zyglewicz and Ramos that he was capable of starting fast (although he usually needed a hard rap on the head to wake him up, as he did with Ramos and Stander). A cautious starter and deliberate counter-puncher, Max could be much surprised by Smoke immediately tearing in after him, not giving Schmeling a chance to adjust.

If Joe started slowly however, he'd need to be careful to place his right in a good defensive position. Max's devastating 15th round stoppage of Stribling was the result of a massive, short hooking right, catching Stribling moving into the corner after Schmeling, resulting in the only stoppage loss of Stribling's 290 fight career. Max tended to lean low to his right, which wouldn't give Joe much of a target for delivering his hooks downstairs.

Max had two championship round knockout wins to Joe's none. (Schmeling took out Fernand Delarge in 14. Uzcudun caught DeLarge cold in round one of their rematch for the only other stoppage loss of the rugged Belgian's 45 fight career, but that was only when Delarge had 11 bouts under his belt. He had 30 when Max nailed him.) They both had two 15 round decision wins.

For the purpose of this discussion, I'll pit the Frazier of Bonavena II and the FOTC against the Schmeling of Uzcudun I and Stribling. What Max did to Paulino at Yankee Stadium in shutting him out over 15 rounds, despite injuring his right hand in round five is especially revealing. I'll assume for the purposes of this commentary that Joe's face does not swell, and that Max finishes this one without injuring his right.

Schmeling made mincemeat of Paulino's cross-armed defense all three times they faced off, the same defensive posture Smoke used. (Keep in mind that their 1934 draw took place in Spain, with the head of the Spanish Boxing Federation officiating. That's the only way Uzcudun could ever avoid losing to Max.)

Paulino was much stronger physically than Joe, much more durable, a much dirtier brawler, and had superior endurance (as witnessed by his going 15 rounds seven times, winning thrice, and beating Max Baer over 20 rounds under the sweltering July sun in Nevada). If Schmeling had not hurt his right hand in the first Uzcudun shutout, then he, and not Joe Louis, would have been the first one to take Paulino out. (Of course Louis got him coming out of retirement at age 36. Max dismantled a peak Uzcudun who had barely turned 30.)

In this one, Smoke would probably accumulate the early points lead. Max would be perfectly content to let Frazier wind himself down by having him do all the hard work of initiating. When Schmeling was on top of his game, nobody could wear him down in a war of attrition. This may be the real reason Joe Louis tore after him immediately in their rematch. (In a first time matchup between the Louis of the Max Baer fight, and the Schmeling of the first Uzcudun and Stribling bouts, I believe Schmeling would have decisioned Louis over 15 rounds. Louis would have failed to get off to a fast start, just as was the case in his loss to Max, then he would not have been able to solve Schmeling's counter right. While Louis was a far greater champion, I just think that Max had his number on an even, peak for peak playing field, similar to the probable situation between Frazier and Foreman. I alternate Frazier and Louis as my number four and five ATG heavyweights, but like Norton with Ali, Schmeling and Foreman were stylistic kryptonite for Louis and Frazier.)

Frazier was much faster with his hook than any punch Paulino had in his arsenal, but Louis was faster than Frazier with both hands. Yeah, yeah, I know Louis prepared poorly for Max the first time, but that does not explain away Schmeling putting him on ***** street in just the fourth round of a scheduled 15 rounder. I also realize that Louis "thought I was hot ****," but Max was coming off knockout wins over Hamas (which retired him) and Neusel, neither of whom had ever been stopped. Most recently, Max had taken the rubber match with Paulino handily, retiring him in the process (until he foolishly allowed himself to be suckered out of retirement for that disastrous last payday with Louis). The Bomber really should have known better, like Blackburn and Jack Johnson did.

Frazier could well enter the championship rounds with a points lead, but it would be all downhill for Smoke from there. If he was given the chance to come forward, Joe invariably took it. Max would give it to him, with lethal consequences. Frazier could well last long enough to touch gloves with Max at the beginning of round 15, just as Stribling did. And just like Stribling, Joe would not make it to the final bell without hitting the deck. Like Stribling, Joe would get up, as he always did. Somebody else would step in to protect this courageous warrior, and Max would still have enough energy to exhuberantly pick him completely off his feet in celebration to carry him clear across the ring, just like he did to Stribling. (Next time you see the ending of Schmeling/Stribling, take careful note of just how much of a surplus of energy Max has after 15 rounds against history's most prolific knockout artist. A far cry from Ali collapsed on the floor after Manila.)

 

This is a misleading twist of numbers- Delarge was a light heavyweight journeyman. Frazier didn't have championship-round knockouts mainly because in his title reign, his fights almost never reached the championship rounds; only two of 11 made it that far. He had a crushing 15th-round knockdown and a dynamic finish against Ali after 14 rugged rounds beforehand.

Suffice to say I think you're severely overrating Uzcudun here. I see no good justification for saying that Uzcudun was "much stronger" than Frazier. That a man went the distance a larger number of times, when he lost half of them, as compared with the other man who won his fewer full-length encounters, is rather spurious reasoning for judging one man's stamina to be superior to the other's. There is more or less no one who can be reasonably said to clearly hold an advantage in endurance over a peak Joe Frazier.

I think this is a pretty hard assertion to support. Schmeling was pretty severely broken down and beaten into submission against Max Baer, for one.

Now, you can't just sort of alternate which fighter you're making analogy to depending on the convenience of the moment. Schmeling may have fought Uzcudun, who had a similar style to Frazier with a top-drawer granite jaw, and Louis, who had faster hands and more power than Frazier, but he didn't fight a top-drawer granite-jawed Frazier-esque swarmer with faster hands and more power than Frazier.

I don't see good evidential support for this scenario. A peak Frazier was capable of fighting at a grueling clip for 14 rounds against bigger, stronger men than Schmeling and still retain enough gas in the tank to come roaring out in the 15th and put them on the deck. Frazier would be the bigger, busier, more powerful man in the ring and would likely have done more body work in the early-to-middle rounds.

Actually, the title of "history's most prolific knockout artist" belongs to Archie Moore. Ali collapsing on the floor after the Thrilla in Manilla is hardly a fair comparison, given that this was a past-prime Ali fighting in a hot, humid climate for 14 historically-high-punch-output rounds against Joe Frazier.

 

Frazier inside of 6 rounds.

 

Inside of 15 perhaps.