The Brown Bomber vs Big George.

I agree, apart from the chin. Which gives George a shot.

 

Foreman's skills would be too crude for Louis. Louis would probably win by KO.

But then again as My Dinner With Conteh says the chin factor could come into play as Foreman was the hardest hitting HW in history.

 

I'd actually give George a big chance in this one. Tho crude and often wide, his aggression, power and sheer strength gives him a chance of overwhelming Joe IMO. Joe had very fast hands but substancially slower feet and style wise would likely be right there. I think this is an absolutely absorbing matchup and i have no disrespect for Joe, i rate him 2.

 

Joe would be in danger for the first 5 or 6 rounds.Foreman did hit very hard and Joe was prone to right hands his entire carrer.Joe,if he is on his A game could weather the initial assault with the roundhousing Foreman and fire back with authority 3 to 1.Foreman would begin to gas around the 7th and be all done by the 10th.Thanks.

 

If I were Louis's manager and we needed a big name win then this is a fight that I would be gunning for. If Gene Tunney came knocking on my door in the mean time I would pretend I was not in.

You may form your own opinion of how good a manager I would be based on this.

 

I disagree. Foreman wasn't much of a one-punch knockout artist, while Louis recovered from better shots that Foreman's clubbing blows, and got off the canvas to win.

In terms of durability, Foreman is going down brutally. His stamina is so suspect it's untrue; he couldn't go 15 rounds with 5 no-hopers (the Toronto Five), even when he had extensive time to recover. He had to get the referee to stop some of the fights before he hyperventilated.

Foreman's poor defense and openess to counters is going to result him in visiting the canvas a lot in this one. As for Louis's footwork, I'd say it was just as good as Young's on the night when Young humiliated Foreman. Young was a mover who (unlike less skilled movers like Ali and Holmes) was great at economising on space. Louis, like Young, was very good on economising on space when on the back-foot.

I think Louis would drop Foreman in the first round, before Foreman does his "dancing elephant" impersonation of Ali for a few rounds. Since Foreman relied on planting his feet to get his power, he's not going to be able to hurt Louis while doing that. Then, as he tires after about round five, he'll start to unload on Louis. Those wild swings of Foreman were a counter-puncher's dream, as Ali, Young and Lyle all showed. Foreman would get bounced off the canvas a few times before the referee mercifully stops the pitiful slaughter.

Louis TKO6.

 

He wasn't much of a one-punch artist mainly because he hurt opponents with virtually every shot. What shots did Louis shake off that were better than ones Foreman could produce?

 

It's funny how people cannot accept how average Louis chin was. If Patterson went down it was a case of "Oh, paper chin on the deck again", "There goes old canvas back". The fact that he won means nothing, but if it's Jou Louis...."Wow what a comeback..what a man...he'd beat anyone ever".

 

The number of times Louis was on the deck has to be judged against the fact that he fought more ranked contenders than any other champion outside of Ali by a ratio of about 3/1.

Also against the fact that he was never actualy knocked out by a single punch but only by a sustained beating over a number of rounds.

 

I think if anyone is going to be landing right hands, it'll be Louis, who had the faster hands and the better counter-punching skills. Foreman's straight/overhand right, in his prime, was one of his worst punches. It was comparable to Sam Peter's today: a punch that should have been a brilliant punch, but was reduced to just a very hard punch because of lack of technique.

Foreman's best punches were his left hook and right uppercut, both of which are going to result in brutal counter-left hooks from Louis. As McGrain has already noted, Foreman was flawed on every way that Louis could possibly want.

Ridiculous. Both were hit with big punches that floored them, and both got off the canvas to win.

You don't think Louis can deal with someone throwing uppercuts from way back? I'll tell you how he'd deal with it: triple fricking left hooks, which would drop Foreman.

If Foreman tries to shove Louis, the shorter Louis will just drop under his arms (Louis has a 3 inch height advantage on the inside) and fire uppercut up the middle upon Foreman's exposed chin, just as he did against Buddy Baer. Bye-bye, Big George! :hi:

You don't think Louis trained hard? He was a much more consistent trainer than the lazier greats of the 1970s. Foreman, Frazier and Ali were all very inconsistent in their weight and conditioning. Louis only came in poor shape once, against Schmeling, and learnt his lesson well. When he can in incorrectly conditioned, as in the first Conn fight, it was due to OVERTRAINING. By the end of his career, when he was still a world-class boxer, Louis relied almost entirely on his conditioning and skill; his power had mostly gone along with his handspeed.

If anyone in boxing relied too much on his gifts, it wasn't Louis. I'd say a brawler who relied on his natural power, strength and chin to substitue for training his skill or conditioning (Foreman) or a dancer who relied on his speed and chin to get him out when he came in disgracefully bad shape (Ali) would be a better example of a Mozart-like boxer. Joe Louis was like Joe Frazier: a man of modest physical talents who, through dedication and love of the sport, became a nearly unstoppable fighting machine.

Foreman was hardly a swarmer. I'd say the more aggressive he gets against Louis, the quicker he goes. The more times he swings that right, over-extends his jab, swings that left hook with his right low or throws himself along with his rights, the more times he gives Louis an opportunity to starch him.

Remember people: Louis turned Foreman from an underdog against Frazier to a destroyer. It was Joe Louis who told him to use his uppercut, which Foreman had previously underused, to get the win at the Sunshine Showdown. Louis understood Foreman better than anyone else. With Jack Blackburn and the wealth of Foreman footage, he'd go in with a strategy to take advantage of every flaw in Foreman's technique. It'd be a bloody mess that would end with a helpless Foreman laying like a rag-doll on the ropes.