where would joe louis figure in todays heavyweight division ?

Because boxing is sport based on a very wide variety of attributes and primarily skill and Louis is one of the most skilled heavyweights ever.

 

Guys like Arreola, Chambers, Brock, Sanders and Chagaev don't carry their extra weight well (they are flabby) and if they were in top shape would be no heavier than Louis. Infact Chambers wouldn't even be a heavyweight, he is still fat at under 210lbs.

 

They fought twice. The second time around, both were past it but Conn moreso.

The point is that Conn gave Louis more trouble than almost any of the fighters who were his own size. Based on what happened in the first fight, Conn would enter a prime-for-prime rematch as a very solid underdog. 170-180 pound guys aren't usually that highly rated against heavyweights who dominated a decade.

Such an opinion poll took place. Marciano won, but did not "destroy" Fitzsimmons.

Anyway, I'm not going to argue Fitzsimmons over Marciano. I just mentioned it.

Marshall also wasn't that good.

That, and he (unlike Byrd against Vitali) injured Liston with a punch that was intended to produce something like the effect that it actually produced.

Foreman could easily carry more than 220 pounds in his prime -- he wasn't fat against Young. For all the excuses that Foreman made after the fight, he should have been able to beat Young (who was kinda chunky himself...). Foreman was only removed by a short amount of time from his victories over Frazier and Norton.

Walk-around weight isn't the same as weight when you're in shape, though. Considering that Mayweather weighed in at 150 against De La Hoya, I doubt that he would weigh much more than this if he was in good condition.

Re: Shaq...good point, but handspeed decreases relative to mass faster than footspeed -- hence the massive linemen in American football and the large players in modern basketball. (My source for this is a sports science book I read a while ago, but I'm afraid I don't have it with me to dig up for you).

Also, height is a bigger advantage (in and of itself) in basketball than boxing. I'd be willing to bet that smaller, equally athletic basketball players are in fact more coordinated than Shaq, but they don't have the height.

It's hard to tell from the tale of the tape, since Brock and Povetkin are fat whereas Louis wasn't, but they all have the same height and reach. If you look at pictures of Louis, he was fairly skinny. He could have packed on more weight without much trouble, in contrast to a human tank like Qawi who'd already reached his frame's limits at cruiserweight.

Heck, Toney was a 5'9" former middleweight and well over 200 lbs. He still did pretty well against "superheavyweights" like Rahman and Peter despite the fact that his gut upset his balance. Even with that level of disadvantage, he still did OK. I fail to see how Louis adding 20 pounds of lard would suddenly make him an invalid.

 

This is the bottom line, really.

We can debate details endlessly, but if Chambers, Brock, Chagaev, and Povetkin trained like Louis (or Ali), they'd come in at 210 or under. If they had comparable body fat percentages, they'd also come in at 210 or under. I don't think you can argue otherwise.

The entire point of calling someone a "blown up cruiserweight" is that he's naturally smaller than "natural" heavyweights. And if we're distinguishing "natural" heavyweights, shouldn't we assume equivalent training to make all other things equal?

For example, it doesn't make much sense to ask whether Rahman was a "naturally" bigger man than Foreman if you allow Rahman to use weights and insist that Foreman use 1970's style training. Of course Rahman will end up bigger. Doesn't that defeat the entire point of talking about Foreman's "natural" weight?

 

True. Which is why I don't even try to imagine what a fight between Louis & Wladimir or Vitali would look like. Joe Louis had a great jab and great infighting ability to go with his huge power. Wlad has huge power and an ATG jab of his own to go with the big size difference. Vitali has a decent jab, good power and pretty good indside fighting but his real strengths are his granite chin, unbelievable workrate & unorthodox fighting style that relies on countering.

 

I have been full circle on Louis in todays division 2 or 3 times already. And I don't have much new to say. Its not so much Chambers, Chagaev and Arreola That would be Louis problem in the division the Klitschko's are his main problem imo.

The great heavyweights have been big for their time and not often outweighed do you think that is just a coincidence?

 

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Why didn't they add weight? Probably because they didn't have the means to pack on muscle mass while training people's endurance and other skills efficiently. Stupid training techniques also played a role, since at least until the late 80's, boxing trainers believed that weight training slows fighters down. Some still do.

Consequently, fighters didn't get much above 215 pounds until the very late 20th century. If the Klitschos had fought in the 1970's with old-school trainers, they'd probably end up slightly heavier than Ernie Terrell -- 215-220 lb. string beans.

With Foreman specifically, his trainers wanted to whittle him down as close to 220 as possible.

Most shot-putters generate their power from their legs and torso more than their arms. They rely on a combination of strength and speed to generate power, whereas I'm talking purely about handspeed declining as a fighter gets heavier -- a phenomenon that you can confirm by watching bantamweights followed by watching heavyweights.

Actually, though, shot-putters and similar athletes illustrate my point rather well. Shot-putters, weight-lifters, etc. etc. are all looking for absolute gains. Throwing the shot an extra foot or lifting an extra pound of weight is a victory. I'm merely saying that they become relatively less efficient as they get bigger, which is true. Once you get to guys like Rezazadeh (sp?), you see 300+ pound guys lifting only fractionally more than 200 pound guys.

Well, considering that Louis was a natural heavyweight while Toney was a natural supermiddle (at best), I would certainly hope so.

I'm having difficulty figuring out exactly where you fall on Louis. If you think he'd end up #3 behind the Klitschkos because he'd face the same size disadvantages that Chambers, Chagaev, etc. did, then your position is logically consistent, and it has a decent amount of evidence to support it.

The above quote, though, suggests that you think Louis was barely better than a blown-up supermiddle himself, which doesn't make much sense.

 

As I mentioned above, this seems like a reasonable conclusion if you believe that none of the lighter heavyweights (Chambers, Chagaev, Boytsov, Povetkin) stands a chance against either Klitschko primarily because of their size.

 

he was roughly 195 lbs so he would be a cruserweight.....knocking the **** outta todays cruiserweights

 

Wrong, Schemling and Marciano are both better technicians than Vitali.

 

None of them have a chance imo.

The guys that I think have a chance are Fury, Helenius and Price. Big guys and if they learn the skills they could be very hard to beat.

I was a wrestler and I could take on guys 50 pounds heavier then me no problem if they were not skilled. But if someone 50 pounds heavier has learned some of the skills he is damb near imposible to out wrestle.

 

James Toney if he was not making weight might have been about 180 pounds in shape he was pretty skilled himself. He might have given Louis a good fight much like a 180 pound Conn did unless you think Conn was that much more skilled then Toney. I don't know that much about Conn. But I think being 20 pounds lighter I would have to favour Louis.

 

He'd probably be about 2 or 3 inches taller just as most folk on average are today...