The chin and defensive skills of Joe Louis

This discussion can be very discouraging if you do not address the ideas I've laid out in my post.

To answer your question, Louis may have gotten tagged less with a more mobile style. He shuffled his feet and his lower body moved at a pretty slow pace. I understand there are pros and cons that came with that. He knew how to set his feet and use gravity and weight shifting to generate power behind each of his shots while having good balance. However, the weakness of that is that he is both unable to get out of the way of incoming attacks outside of upper body defense, and that if they opponent retreats or uses lateral movement he may not be able to follow up or pursue them quickly. The biggest examples of this weakness are the Walcott and especially the first Conn fight. Both opponents frustrated Louis and nearly won due to their tricky legwork.

I am not saying Louis should completely change his style to become a stick and move fighter, but being a little lighter on his feet, being willing to charge in and out skin to how a prime Pacquiao could have improved both his offense and defense.

Now please answer this: with a rating of 9/10 for defense, this implies he almost never gets hit. The punch star disparity would mean his opponents connect percentage is very low. Likewise, he wouldn't have so many knockdowns regardless of the quality of his opposition. Explain how louis got tagged, rocked, and dropped so many times with a 9/10 defense? That is literally 1 point away from having a PERFECT defensive ability on the level of Mayweather, Pep, etc.

They all faces murderous punchers. You are putting way too much stock in the "ranking" of Louis opponents. I already explained the huge flaw in your rank-centric defense because you yourself admitted Galento shouldn't have even been ranked #1 in the first place technically as there were 5 men who were superior to him.

Lewis faced Briggs, Morrison, Vitali, Tua, etc. All very big hitters who frequently make top punchers lists. Lewis didn't have a granite chin by any stretch of the imagination, yet he beat all of them. This implies vert good defensive skill, otherwise there is no way he could've survived these fights with his not so great chin.

Holmes beat Shavers, Cooney, Mercer, etc. all big hitters. Again, without good defense, how on Earth would Holmes pull this off?

I could go on but you get the point.

Were all these big hitters ranked or beat holders when Holmes, Lewis, Holyfield, etc beat them? No.

Would it make any difference?

If Tua were ranked 12th in the world for instance, would his punching power go from a 9 to a 6? Would his punches be slower, have worse timing, etc? Not at all. Tua would still be a dangerous slugger no matter what his ranking. It takes nerves if steel, good defense, and a good game plan to beat a big hitter like him.

Do you see where I'm going with this?

My statement is factual: Lewis, Holmes, Usyk, Holyfield, etc did not look "horrible" defensively against their best opponents. You are flat out wrong. They have less knockdowns than Joe Louis. Some weren't even rocked as many times as Louis.

It is incredibly fallacious and unsound to claim the only reason they have less knockdowns is because they "faced less contenders". You do not know that, and based on the data if anything the trend would continue with them looking sturdy had they faced more contenders in their careers.

We can take Holmes for instance. 5 knockdowns, only 1 KO loss in over 60 fights. In 2 of those fights, he heroically got off the floor to win. His sole KO loss was to Tyson (a prime murderous puncher) when he was older, inactive, coming off a loss, and it still took 3 knockdowns to put his lights out. What's even more astonishing is an even older and more shopworn Holmes had several fights beyond Tyson facing several world class fighters such as Mercer, Holyfield, McCall, etc, yet was never floored again. Based on this data, it would be illogical to assume Holmes would just get bounced off the canvas just as many times as Joe Louis had he fought more ranked opponents. That's beyond silly.

 

The same way you rate a puncher higher if they KO better opponents (as opposed to bums and journeymen)

You rate a fighter's defensive skills higher did they are able to block and evade even when they step up in class against better opponents.

Not sure why you think I should be merciful to Louis if his defense is less effective when he steps up in class? A local YMCA boxing instructor can look like Pernell Whitaker against s vastly inferior opponent.

Walcott, Schmeling, Sharkey and maybe Conn, sure.

Baer is a little questionable because he lost to Braddock, but he had way less losses and best better opponents overall.

Carnera's entire career is questionable, so him and Braddock are in good company.

Either way...there is no escaping Braddock being one of Louis' 10 best opponents.

 

A 6 and a 7 is not a massive difference. That is hyperbole.

Roy Jones chin is below 6.

You do realize there is more to winning a fight than being able to survive getting hit in the face? There is power, which Louis had plenty of. Timing, accuracy, ring IQ, hand speed, etc. all things Lois excelled at. Louis' offense was his defense and was good at dictating the pace and keeping guys at the end of his piston jab and killing field combinations. He made it hard for them to hit him in the first place, and he sometimes showed good recovery and heart to bounce back even when he did get hurt.

You insist on separating chin from heart/recovery and that's why there's such a big disconnect in the discussion. You can look at Juan Manuel Marquez who has some similarities to Louis. Dropped a lot, but he also got up a lot and finished the fight on his feet. He had good heart and recovery, which is more about mental toughness and how in shape you are. Chin is purely biological/physical.

If Louis is faster, more technically skilled, and hits harder than so many opponents, it doesn't surprise me that he can rip back in when still hurt. He didn't have a retreat and stall mindset, which worked out for him because of his superb intangibles.

But they don't have an explicitly similar pattern. Holmes went down and was wobbled less despite facing better competition overall.

4 knockdowns to 10, 1 KO loss vs 2 KO losses. How are they almost the same?

7.5 is certainly more reasonable than Janitor's outrageous 9/10. I would say a solid 7, but no point in going back and forth to nitpick.

I agree with the double edged sword analogy.

 

He took a lot less damage in the Rocky fight than you think. I did an elaborate time stamp break down of the fight and was surprised how many times Rocky completely missed or just barely grazed him. Louis had very good ring generalship and defense for much of the match until Rocky finally started to land his big bombs upstairs and Louis crumbled.

Louis wasn't just getting hammered for 8 rounds in a row.

 

I am not obsessed with tearing down Joe Louis, I just don't think his chin was that great.

I rate Louis as the #2 HW of all time and I actually have him in my top 10 h2h. I even wrote a paper in college about Louis.