Top 10 best ever heavyweight wins

I personally don't think he hit his prime until the second Schmeling fight.

 

For me it will always be a kind of toss-up of
Ali Frazier III with its 3 great phases
Ali Foreman followed by Cossell telling Ali (after earlier saying Ali will lose and might get seriously damaged) that he was the greatest [HW] of all time.

with Douglas Tyson close behind

But the real fight of the century was
Louis Schmelling II
as much of the populations of both countries (and many others) tuned in on their radios. (Before my time.)

Roy v Ruiz was the 1st time in 100 years that a MW had moved up and won the HW championship (or a version of it).

 

Well, you are wrong then. :tong

 

So Louis getting beaten so thoroughly was down to him playing more golf than he should have? In preparation for the biggest fight of his career,when he was on the verge of receiving a title shot? Don't know,that kind of sounds like a bunch of excuses to me.

 

It´s Jones second best win but not amongst the great hw wins.

 

Like I said, it was his job to get prepared and he didn't. Thats his fault. But it is a fact that he was out messing around instead of taking his training seriously. That is a sign of immaturity a the main reason I've always said he was not prime in this fight. Look what happened to Max when Louis was focused in the rematch.

 

Yeah that just says it right there. The Ruiz win isn't even natural middleweight Jones biggest win so it shouldn't be up for discussion in this thread at all.

Great win for Jones, but not a great heavyweight win if you know what i mean.

 

Yeah, because the circumstances of the second fight clearly indicate that is a prime for prime match-up.

 

I don't claim Max was prime for fight 2. But if fight 1 was a true indication of a properly trained Louis than it should have been a much closer fight, no?

 

Why? That fight was not about Louis not beeing prepared but about Schmeling not folding like many of his opponents did, about Schmeling staying calm and executing a plan based upon one flaw in Louis´ game. That´s the story of that fight. IMO Louis wouldn´t have become Louis without someone standing up to him instead of folding after a few rounds, without someone showing him that even he is beatable. Sorry but Louis is great enough, he doesn´t need any excuses for his few losses, especially not for those the avenged in destructive fashion.

 

I think there is a little more to the story than that my friend, but I'll agree to disagree.

 

I think this is a rather simplistic view of what happened.. I agree that he doesn't need excuses for his few losses. In fact I think that he should be taken to task for them, as IMO the fact he did so well in rematches says to me that he was unable to make adjustments during a fight, and required Blackburn to re-program him in a training camp before he could overcome a difficult foe. That said though it has been well documented that Louis was more than likely not anywhere close to peak fighting shape for Schmeling I. And it wasn't just playing too much golf...

 

Joe Louis was near enough prime for Schmeling the first time.
He was rated as the number 1 fighter in the world and rated by many as the greatest fighter ever already.

 

Holmes over Norton and Cooney count?

 

Louis fought hard, took a load of punishment and lasted 12 rounds against Schmeling, and looked in fine fighting trim. So his conditioning was not bad at all.