The chin and defensive skills of Joe Louis

Because he was in his 20's, undefeated, and continued getting world class wins.

Yes, a 1970 Frazier still loses to Foreman any day of the week. He might last a couple more rounds, but the result is the same.

 

I see why you consider my Byrd and Louis ratings to have inconsistencies. Here's how I rationalize it:

-For starters to address Louis' sheer longevity, part of that is because of Louis sheer offense combined with his relatively mediocre looking opposition. His offense was his defense most of the time. His opponents (such as Baer, Galento, etc) simply got overwhelmed by Louis piston jab, combinations, etc when he went right back at them after getting hurt. He rarely just kept his distance boxing with the intention to go the distance.

-To elaborate more on Louis competition, that wasn't a very high quality era. Yes Louis fought many #1 contenders and ranked contenders in general as you said, but this is cancelled out by the fact some of those guys looked awful. When a crude journeyman like Braddock is the champion you need to beat, and a dirty barroom brawling slob like Galento is your #1 contender, I have to take your "monumental success with 25 defenses" with a grain of salt. Yes there were some good scientific boxers such as Walcott, Schmeling, etc but this seemed to be the exception, not the norm. It's all relative when it comes to ranking and quality of opponents.

-When evaluating chin (just purely how tough a fighter is/how much force it takes to drop them), I put a lot of stock into the raw punching power of the opponent more than their "ranking". For instance, if a boxer managed to take several right hands from Wilder, I would not care if Wilder was unranked at the time when evaluating that boxers chin.

-Louis was still rocked and had way more knockdowns than Byrd, despite the fact Byrd was usually outweighed by the biggest punchers he faced. Louis also had the luxury to retaliate with ferocious power as mentioned earlier.

-In regards to defense...this shouldn't be much of a debate. I have eyes. Not only do I NOT see some sort of defensive wizard when I watch Louis, I've never seen anyone other than Janitor claim 9/10 defense for the guy. Ever. Not one trainer, fighter, article, or YouTube video ever rated him that high, nor even some of Louis' fans on this very site. 9/10 is an A- in academic terms, nearly flawless. He wasn't "easy" to hit mind you, but I certainly wouldn't give him that sort of rating. All I've seen from Janitor are excuses like "he was eager for the KO", "he was off balance", "the opponent has underrated power", etc anytime I point out the obvious. He has a history of going hard in the paint to defend old school fighters. I try to have a balanced approach regardless of era.

How someone can watch Joe Louis and Chris Byrd then conclude Louis had better defense than Byrd is mind boggling.

 

His eyesight has grown a little worse, but we know exactly how much. He was still in his physical prime and went on to have 2 grueling wars with Ali and beat Quarry, Bugner, Ellis, etc. A "shot" fighter wouldn't have those credentials.

FOTC Frazier gets decapitated by Foreman.

 

Being 10 lbs heavier doesn't mean you aren't in your physical prime, it's a certain period of time when an athlete's strength, speed, reflexes, stamina, etc are at their highest. It depends on the boxer, but it's often between the ages of 26-30 give or take. The only serious damage and wear and tear Frazier suffered before facing Foreman was the FOTC. He was still fairly young, undefeated, and still had world class strength, speed, timing, etc.

No, that's your opinion that he beat a shell of himself. A fighter who was a shell of themselves would not be able to give Ali 2 more brutal fights, beat Bugner, Quarry, etc.

Ali was in his physical prime during the FOTC (although slightly worse than his peak years in the 60's) but was past his prime around the Norton matches. There was a noticeable drop in his foot speed, reflexes, timing, endurance, etc.

Foreman decapitates FOTC. You aren't changing my mind.

 

Yes, it's "possible" to rank someone whose been stopped twice with an 18, but context matters.

It's not just about how many times they've been stopped, it also matters how they were stopped, who stopped them, their condition when they were stopped, etc. And there's other factors as well. Before you say I'm shifting the goal post, I went over all of this with Janitor multiple times. It's not just looking at the numbers, context matters.

The most important things when evaluating defense is the eye test and how difficult boxers find it to land on someone. Highlight reels can be deceptive because they may cherry pick only the best defensive moments of a fighter. My evaluation of Louis is based on watching whole rounds, whole fights, reading reports, etc. We don't have a lot of compubox data for many of these older matches so we have to be honest with ourselves and what our eyes see.

I am not in any way, shape, or form claiming to be some expert on Louis' era. There are plenty of things I do not know and I agree with you that I should research his era more. However, the points I've brought up such as the glaring 10 knockdowns Janitor keeps trying to downplay or the lower quality of skill of opponents such as Galento, Baer, Braddock, etc must be addressed without kid gloves if we're going to attempt to reach some sort of consensus.

 

You clearly have terrible reading comprehension because I never said he sucked.

Show the boxing writers, coaches, and historians of the time who thought he had a granite chin and marvelous defense. I'll wait.

 

Ali was the greatest HW of all time genius. Frazier wouldn't be able to have two grueling wars with him if he was shot.

Foreman losing to an Ali who was older than the FOTC version of Ali is irrelevant. Styles makes fights.

I'm not the one who came up with the 26-30 for a fighter's prime, plenty of people think that. Frazier was still in his prime the first time Foreman demolished him. News flash: Some people don't buy into narratives that a fighter magically stops being in their prime when they lose and only hit their peaks when they look invincible.

 

A fighter who is a shell of himself can't give Ali 2 brutal wars. That's the end of the discussion.

I'm not ignoring context. You are. The context is that Frazier was in his athletic prime according to multiple trainers, boxing historians, etc. 26-30 isn't something I came up.