The chin and defensive skills of Joe Louis

Nobody stopped him outside of Schmeling or Marciano, and then only after a sustained beatdown.

That puts teh bar for stopping him fairly high in my opinion.

It was a beat down, but Baer got trough with a lot.

Watch the fight again, specifically looking out for what Baer lands with.

That it what tends to happen, when you keep fighting every kind of opponent at world level, again and again and again.

 

GCC is fun as he doubles and triples down on bullet points without examination and qualification of actual details, where all the differences lie .. so much so I find myself in the unusual position of siding w Janitor ... a true irresistible force going up against an immovable object here ...

 

I do question how Louis was hurt by Billy Conn who was a smaller sized light heavyweight borderline super middle weight. And Conn wasn't exactly a devastating puncher at light heavyweight. Not like he was a Bob Foster or Michael Spinks.

That said, I think Louis had excellent powers of recovery. You would think that if Conn could hurt Louis, Buddy Baer should have knocked him cold. But Louis dismantled Buddy Baer even after being knocked through the ropes. And the rematch? He annihilated Buddy Baer in a one sided destruction.

 

That you were there during Ali's rise gives you credibility, but I think you overestimate Ali and underestimate Joe.

Ali would punish Joe badly? Louis lacked the physical tools to deal with Ali? I think Ali has gotten a tad overrated in the last 20 years - strange in itself, as old-time athletes tend to diminish in stature, and I think one big reason is embellishment of Ali on the internet, so I'm responding - mind you, as a lifelong Ali fan.

But I'm also a boxing fan, and in awe of Joe Louis: to me, the greatest of the heavyweight champions.

Ali was not a deity. Chuvalo and Mildenberger hit him well and often. They should not even be mentioned in the same sentence as Joe Louis, who was a large, powerful man in his own right, with the most polished of heavyweight offensive skills. Ali might decision him, but he'd be in peril all night.

Technically, it'd be Joe's great jab seeking to offset Ali's lateral movement and own lightning left jab. It'd be Ali's speed against Joe's technical precision. Neither would give in mentally. Either could win a decision: Ali could remain one step ahead of Joe all night, or Ali could be forced to clinch even more than customarily, and Joe could be found to have landed the better punches overall.

But I don't see the plodding dinosaur some want to see in Louis - mostly the reason why I respond to you. These are the two greatest heavyweights ever, and you can take your pick of either one.

In conclusion, it will forever be close between Joe Louis and Ali, and I think a fair assessment should emphasize this so.

 

The guys who stopped Louis were the size of today's light heavyweights. I should think that detracts from Louis chin vis a vis guys like Holyfield Lewis etc.

 

You can name the heavyweights with Max Schmeling's mix of power and precision on one hand.
Louis was beyond washed for the Marciano fight.

 

That I would definitely have to question.

If you are fighting multiple times as many contenders as other champions, you are going to be exposing your chin to more men with good delivery, and more men who know how to close the show.

Of course we can debate those things, but the film shows Baer really going to town on Louis, and Louis just shrugging it off.

For the 5t time, there probably are plenty of boxers at HW who did not have 10 knockdowns and 2 KO losses against their 10 best opponents, but they only fought a fraction of the number of contenders that Louis did.

That is the elephant in the room in my eyes.

 

Maybe those light heavyweight sized fighters hit harder than you think

 

how about perspective ? Louis was 22 when he lost to a physically prime, exceptionally experienced Schmeling and the defeat was a thrashing where he was pummeled over many rounds and showed a terrific ability to absorb a huge beating. Louis was a shot old man , a shell of his prime when he lost to Marciano, one of the strongest, toughest, hardest hitting men to ever fight under 200 pounds.

 

Louis fought in an era when there wee far more professional boxers globally ,than in any era since, and there was an embarrassment of boxers of every style.

That is not a small pond.

No fighter with Baer's style, ever beats to the highest level, without god given reflexes.

If he didn't land anything on Louis you woudl say that it didn't prove his chin, and if he landed a fair bit on Louis, you would say that it just proved that he lacked defense.

I kind of get the idea that this is the game that we are playing here.

Let me explain.

If you compare Louis's ten best wins, to Ns ten best wins, then N might have a chance.

However if you go past that, and look at their twenty best wins, then you quickly find yourself trading ranked contenders for club fighters.

 

If Galento landed for sure .. Tony could crack .. Young dropped Foreman,. Issacs and Snipes dropped Holmes, Holyfield almost got decapitated by Cooper ... I am not a Louis is 9 on defense guy but for sure he was an 8 which is very good for an aggressor ....

 

For the record, grading anything out of ten is a totally useless exercise.

A paramedic once asked me "how would you rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10."

How would you even begin to answer that in a logical manner?