Who beats a Prime Joe Louis in a series of three?

I actually agree with most of this really, surprise surprise. I could also see somebody like Holyfield pulling it off. Let's not even get into JJW, who could be another name. Heck I even think Johnson would be a handful for Joe.

 

In my opinion:

Forget about depending on his chin or slow footwork to bail you out, they just won’t one way or another, especially if he knows what he is up against.

His biggest limitation was that he couldn’t think on his feet.

If somebody came up with a fight plan that threw him, he had no answer for it until he spoke to his corner.

The people who gave him trouble were either technicians, or fighters with awkward styles, and generally not very big ones.

The solution to beating Louis does not lie in trying to keep him at range, or trying to outslug him.

These are the obvious chess moves that he has obvious counters for.

The people who actually got somewhere fought him at mid-range, or even on the inside at times, and presented him with something unexpected.

 

Me 3.

 

Jersey Joe Walcott fought two fights against a geriatric Louis and lost both of them.

I don’t think we need to ask whether Louis could have won a series of three in his prime.

 

Wasn't Walcott actually older when he fought Louis? And more diminished relative to their primes? I seem to be recalling that Walcott was even more geriatric than Louis, but I am an old man with a fading memory...

Anyways, I am not sure if I agree with you wholly here.

 

Chronological age is irrelevant; the question is when the fighter’s respective primes were.

Louis’s prime at the latest possible reasonable estimate, was in 1941.

Walcott’s prime at the earliest reasonable estimate, was after the Second World War.

We have to regard this as an advantage for Walcott, whatever their respective ages.

 

Age is per se "Irrelevant"? I think that's a rather extreme - or maximalist - way of stating things. Suffice to say I cannot fully agree in principle - though I am not completely disagreeing either. Some fighters indeed burn out more quickly - or last longer - than others due to styles or life-styles, among other reasons. So "primes" differ from fighter to fighter and may not always coincide with physical prime. But also individual career circumstances may give a misleading view of actual primes as well. Some fighters, for instance, flourish when they are rather old, not because they weren't good when they were younger, but because they did not have the opportunity. Examples can be legion.

In terms of more specifics, I am not as familiar with Walcott's career as I am of Louis - or as familiar with Walcott's career as you likely are - so I am not going to make a strong claim. But the fact of the matter is that Walcott was either older or at similar age bracket as Louis and at the same stage in terms of nearing retirement. He also lost every big fight at that stage and thereafter I recall: Louis, Charles, and Marcinao, and maybe a few others. So I am not willing to so readily say a younger, physically-primed version of Walcott won't beat Louis in his physical prime. Now, if I actually studied Walcott's early-/mid-career more and had watched tapes of his fights those years, I may change my view more dramatically.

 

You are talking a lot, but you are not saying very much.

When do you think each fighters prime was, and why?

Respectfully Sir.

 

I thought my answers are contained in what I posted? I do not know enough of Walcott to say with any certainty (hence, much of what I said on him was in the form of questions); I agree with you on Louis.

Don't mistake my initial posts as necessarily a disagreement or antagonistically. I think that's where people get off on the wrong foot. That is, if people do not immediately agree in full with you, they automatically take that as a full-blown disagreement, and things degenerate from there, as people's ego often get invested in what should be an impartial discussion. So for the record: I made a lot of qualifications in my claims, and my initial posts were attempts to probe you further. If you go back, you surely sounded like you were describing the meetings between the old Louis and the equally old Walcott as a clash of grandpa and a young buck. So I was naturally piqued and asked for clarification and contextualization.

Generally-speaking, I am extremely comfortable with what I know - and admitting what I don't know - so you will not see me making confident, unqualified claims about stuff I don't know all that much about. And Walcott - especially his early career - is surely not among the stuff I know well and would love more enlightenment!

 

OK, I will explain my position:

I would say, with the expectation that most people would support me, that these two fighters peaked at very different ages.

They are both born in 1914, so let’s take that as our start point.

Joe Louis starts demolishing the best contenders of the division at the age of 21, while Walcott is a journeyman who sees boxing as an additional income.

Louis wins the title in 1937, and at this stage Walcott has beaten nobody, who is even close to a top ten ranking.

Louis concludes his title reign in 1942, having had more title defences than every previous champion in history combined, and Walcott has not beaten anybody close to a top ten ranking.

Then the war ends, and Louis starts lazily defending against the top contenders, and Walcott goes on a rampage!

This guy, who has done nothing throughout Louis’s title reign, clears out the top ten heavyweight rankings, becoming one of the most dominant contenders of all time.

Then he fights Louis, and you make of those fights what you will.

 

Yeah, this is a fine position, and a narrative that I am somewhat familiar with. I'd ask, in addition: Was Walcott not getting good fights in Louis' prime years because he wasn't good enough - or for non-ability reasons like ducking or bad management? And are there intact footage of full - or reasonably full - fights from Walcott's pre-prime years?

 

The bottom line is that Walcott couldn’t get a good manager, and his race was a key factor.

That meant that he had to work a 30-60 hour week, and boxing was his secondary job.

He could not set up a training camp like every modern world class fighter would.

So yes, there is an issue in terms of what he might have done, with earlier financial support.

But when comparing him against Louis, we have to grant that he had some advantage, if only due to ring wear.

 

So our respective positions are ultimately not that far apart?

I just have too many questions and what ifs regarding Walcott to say anything definitely though.

 

So you should!

 

i don´t know why but this answer from you did not surprised me lmao