The chin and defensive skills of Joe Louis

What you call blame and deflecting i call context, which is everything. It's there for all to see that he got himself into a completely squared up position to the direction the blow was coming from (due to a missed right hand and the subsequent off balance follow thru) and had nowhere to go except on his ass vs Braddock. I would contend he wasn't even really hurt. It was a balance KD in all its glory.

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Anyone properly studying Buddy's KD of Louis will see it is a similar case again. An extremely close look shows Louis left foot in the process of replanting as he attempts to skip back and his right foot is actually in the air for a split second during impact. This is why he falls so hard into the ropes off balance and the loose three rope setup does the rest. It's another KD caused by getting into poor positioning with his feet. I doubt he would have went down with a modern ring setup. It looks spectacular at a loose glance but a good look shows much much more.

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Louis was also caught squared up and all out attacking in the Walcott KD.

Louis is simply guilty of getting himself into poor positions from which to take the shots. He shows he's barely hurt if at all by his effectiveness as soon as the fight resumes which is almost straight away with no 8 count.

I'm not worried about defense, i have been debating the chin aspect and rating all along.

Ever heard of Aaron Pryor? He was down 3 times in the first round in world title fights. He used to get himself into poor foot positioning attacking - just like Joe Louis. Pryor used to get up and immediately charge his opponent much to the chagrin of the ref trying to pull him back. Like Louis he was barely hurt and clear headed.

There's not a chance in the world Pryor's chin could be rated as low as 7 let alone 6. His early KD's, again, just like Joe Louis, were almost always balance related and not chin and both reacted strongly straight away.

So for me Louis going down three times in the first round doesn't mean much of anything given they were all due to poor positioning and or overcommitting, by choice, in attack.

What should be talked about is how Louis could get a little carried away attacking leading to vulnerable positioning but at the end of the day he did this by choice and prevailed in every single fight he was knocked down in the first round.

 

Excellent post JT.

If one misses a punch it can of course be argued that their balance should still be sufficient so as to be able to hold their feet.

BUT, given punchers who truly commit, particularly elite punchers like Louis - part of their equation for balance can actually include their making full contact, thereby accounting for the opposing force to maintain their equilibrium when they land on their opponent.

To sometimes miss, become off balance and be caught off balance is simply an inherent and unavoidable risk factor, whilst gunning for maximum reward of the power punch landing flush.

Louis went down at least once, if not a few times when launching and missing a killer punch - without even being touched by his opponent.

Pretty sure it happened against in the second Abe Simon match. In trying to tear Abe’s head off ASAP, Joe missed a shot wrought by extremely deadly intentions - which caused him to go over all on his own. Lol.

Tbh, Louis’ execution and balance looked fine in the launching of punch - he simply put maximum heat on it and really needed the counter balance of Abe’s rock like head to keep himself on an even keel. Haha.

At any rate, for the greater part of that fight otherwise, Joe basically did almost almost tear Abe’s head with numerous, perfectly on point punches.

Of course it’s normally preferable to be in a position to maintain your balance after a missed punch - but I think you can punch that much harder if you forgo some normally projected for balance on the follow through whilst banking on a full connection to assist in maintaining your balance after launch.

 

Tremendous post JT.

You could argue Braddock KD'ing Louis is material to an analysis of Joe's defence, but it has the square root of **** all to do with rating his chin. It was a balance oriented, flash knock down.

It's a good example why KO's/stoppages are a far better barometer of a fighters chin, than KD's, which may or may not having anything to do with being hurt.

 

Thanks Greg, totally agree with your comments as well. Tito Trinidad was another susceptible to early flask KD's but strangely in his case he liked to do it in the second round. He has three of them in that round which is interesting but far from the be all and end all per his chin. He won every one of those fights and was only ever stopped once after a beatdown from an ATG middleweight.

 

Plausible, trauma is cumulative.

 

Rankings are always kind of objective/subjective, so all is fair, but I would rate Chuvalo a notch over everybody else considering he fought during the supposed toughest HW era, with plenty of ATG and HOF in his resume, and he was never knocked out or even knocked down. The only men who ever managed to technically stop him were Foreman and Frazier, with Chuvalo still standing on his feet. That tells you a lot.

If anything, Chuvalo should be in a class of his own. Adamantium chin or something like that.

On the other end of the specter, Patterson is not even clay chin.
A guy who is bingoed by Johansson SEVEN times in a single fight is more like pudding chin...

 

When considering his style, if he didn't even have a slightly above average resistance to punches, he'd never have gotten the results that see him rated so highly, with any degree of defensive skill behind that style. It just wouldn't be possible. His defense...was great for his style. It made sure he was always there to throw combinations that could crush you into a fine powder. And not get KO'd for almost a dozen years while doing it. I guess I'm between the two of you on rating it. I'd say Louis' chin was p4p something like Cotto or Juan Manuel Marquez. 7.5, to me, is fair. If you say 8, I'm not going to call you crazy. But if you say 6, I won't laugh at you either. I will frown briefly and slightly at anything under 6.5, until you hit the fours, and then I was start clenching my jaw and piercing you with my steely, danny gaze. As long as you aren't saying it's a nine or ten, I believe we should break bread. Amen. Peace be with you. And also with you.

 

I haven't truly slept in a long time. It's very possible that I should proofread what I just typed. But I am not going to do that. I am going to trust you guys not to bother correcting me, just because that's the kind of brotherhood I feel we have after all of these years. Making me very deluded.

 

You're very insightful in your rare lucid moments, BE. This pretty much sums up how I feel.

 

Johnny Risko had 119 professional fights, and fought a ridiculous number of contenders.

He was stopped twice, once in 1929 when he was the betting favorite to succeed Gene Tunney as champion and once in his last fight in 1940.

Who do you think stopped him in 1929?

That's right Max Schmeling.

Young Stribling also fought an embarrassment of contenders, and he was only stopped once in 251 fights, when he was the #1 contender.

Do you want three guesses who was the only person to stop him?

It seems to me that Joe Louis merely succumbed to the same sort of beating as these men did, which woudl imply that his durability was comparable to theirs.

If he didn't then his defense must have been better.

Significant doubt has been cast on this in previous threads, and sometimes at my expense.

Well he hit like a truck, and Louis ate his punches all night.

If in doubt watch the fight again.

I won't respond to you observations about what number you should rate a fighters chin at, because it is a bit of a brain ache.

Suffice it to say that if we have the order basically the same, we are basically arguing about the difference between the elite and non elite fighters.

 

I do understand it was a package deal but i felt strongly about the chin rating and have argued various points for Joe Louis over the years despite having zero skin in the game. I feel, no make that i know that he is very hard done by on a number of topics in the forum.

It's good i could change your mind tho and makes discussion like this very worthwhile. Hopefully while we've been debating others have taken on some points and looked at the clips as well and maybe adjusted the same way you have.

 

What I am trying to convey to you, is that getting stopped by Schmeling after a long beatdown, is not a significant mark against your chin, or necessarily against your defense.

He was a man who had a track record of stopping the men that nobody else stopped.

I am not cherry picking, I am explaining to you that there is evidence both ways, and that the evidence against the hand problems is a bit more compelling.

Baer was working the heavy bag in the run up to the fight, which is the first thing you would cut out if you though there was a problem with your hands.

Exactly.

Size and power are not everything.

Speed and delivery kills as well.