The chin and defensive skills of Joe Louis

Even though Louis wasn't packing china like a David Price he was known to go down to a good shot. He had great durability but not the sturdiest of whiskers I would probably say between 7-8 out of 10 is fair

In his prime his only loss was to Schmeling and even though a very bad defeat he came back and finished him in style in the rematch, another TKO loss to Marciano right at the end of his career and the other knockdowns don't really change things as he still won the fights.

 

Also re>the Braddock knockdown. If you really look closely at the film, at least to my eyes Louis had just plastered Braddock who looked like he was about to go down himself but sort of lashed out and caught Louis with a punch that surprised him and caught him off balance more than hurt him.

 

Remember...when Louis went down against Braddock...Galento...he got up...and then came back to win those fights....When Tyson went down...you had him!

 

I think just by virtue of the length of time he stayed at the top, I'd be uncomfortable rating either his defense or chin anything less than 7.

 

But we're not debating Tyson. And yes Louis did get up , and usually won .
But that's not the question.
There's no question Louis handled adversity better than Mike Tyson.
But I would question could Louis get him to that point. Could Louis's dynamic offensive abilities
get to Tyson Before his defensive liabilities and average chin were exposed by him?
That would be my biggest concern in that hypothetical match up.

 

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This will make it easy to see. One of these guys had a good defence - why?

 

Let's look at some important facts here.

Every single one of Joe Louis's career knockdowns, came against an opponent currently ranked in teh top ten.

Joe Louis fought 34 men who were currently ranked in teh top ten.

To put that number in perspective, it is more than twice as many as any heavyweight champion, excluding Ali and Holmes.

It is also as near as damn it half his professional fights.

It seems inescapable to me, that if Louis had been fighting the same number of contenders as other great heavyweight of history, his number of knockdowns would have fallen dramatically.

If you don't know the rankings of the era, then try removing say half or more of his title defenses, and then see where he stands?

The bottom line, is that he got knocked down a lot, because he pushed his luck a lot.

 

Perhaps the problem here might reside in the isolation of just Joe Louis from the rest of the field when comparing him to deemed 10/10 (= perfect) guys like Chuvalo and McCall.

Sometimes, now matter how close to perfect something might be interpreted to be, it can still be viewed as somewhat removed from and well below perfect.

Exactly how good does any fighter’s chin really have to be to warrant being rated just 1 point below perfect?

I mean, the spectrum for imperfect applies to all ratings from 1-9.

After 9/10, the next and final increment takes and leaves us at 10/10 - which, strictly speaking, is infinite.

Infinite can be seen as extremely well removed from, and well above, the highest imperfect rating of 9/10...the difference between the two ratings in fact being infinite...

 

So, LPR rules? I like it. But remember guys, no hair pulling, gouging or kicks to the groin.

To be historically worthy, I expect this debate to go at least 76 pages before either man surrenders or fails to toe the mark.

May the best SOB win.

 

According to experts of this forum the guy who blocks, slips, parries and moves has worse defense than the guy who leans back with his chin in the air and gallops out of harms way.

 

That's exactly what ole-time boxing people were saying again and again about Ali in the 1960s and he just kept on winning anyway, and usually by a knockout. The old-line boxing writers were in awe of Joe and couldn't face the fact that the brash Ali, who was doing all sorts of "unAmerican" things, was a great fighter who could defeat their idol. I was following boxing pretty closely at that time, and I wasn't a fan of Ali. I kept hoping that he would lose to the next challenger, but nobody came close. Joe Louis had all-time great technique both offensively and defensively, way better than Ali in the traditional sense, but I really don't think he had the physical tools to defeat Ali. If they had fought during their primes, the result would be the same as all of Ali's title fights in the 1960s. Louis' superiority in the technical aspects of boxing wouldn't be enough. I think Ali would punish Joe badly.

And personally, I'm glad that they fought in different eras, so that we can fully enjoy both of their accomplishments without having to arrive at a final conclusion that one was better than the other.

 

That is a very good post.
It is worth remembering that the exact same people that disparaged Ali said the same things about Ray Robinson early in his career- the 'science of wasted motion' comment, for example. What a lot of those comments ignore is the value of personal commitment to being successful in boxing- that the determination to be really good at something can redefine the parameters of tradition. That is where the 'eye test' fails, if you cannot distinguish between is visually pleasing and what is effective. A lot of old time fighters are victimized by that same bias, and it is the same.
Personally I think that Louis would beat Ali, primarily because he would keep Ali in front of him and take his jab by jabbing with him. Ken Norton nullified Ali's jab in that way and, yes, Billy Conn and his movement troubled Louis but you would have to work hard to persuade me that Ali is in any way as good as Billy Conn. But those are merely my opinions and, after 50 years in gyms, I am wrong all the time.
That said, the last line of the post by @KasimirKid is what it is all about- the debate, the speculation, and nobody will ever really know.

 

Wake up and apologize.