Who do you consider the best heavyweight of all-time?

Louis, by a hairs breadth IMO.

 

1. Louis
2. Ali
3. Holmes
4. Lewis
5. Marciano or Liston

 

Nothing more to add there.

 

Louis
Marciano
Ali

 

For me it's Louis, although like most I'd say there's not much in it.

Records and quality of opposition aside for a minute, I don't think anyone has had a bigger infulence on heavyweight boxing as has Joe Louis.
Without Louis, black heavyweights would have been set back another 20 or 30 years. They all (all black fighters) owe Louis a huge debt of gratitude for the way he set the foundations for blacks in boxing to flourish.

Let's not forget that in the 30's and 40's, there was also probably nobody alive who was more famous. These things have tended to diminish in the memory as the years have rolled on, but Louis for me did far more than Ali outside the ring, and arguably more inside it too.

 

Muhammed Ali of the mid to late 60's was the best fighter I've ever seen at any weight. He was destroying guys. The argument against is that he wasn't well rounded and not a great in-fighter. He didn't have to be because his skills were so overwhelming at the time.

 

atsch

 

Ali is slightly favored here due to quality of conquests...

However, Louis was more skilled than Ali -and not by a little. Louis's reportoire included pivots and subtle shifts and short combinations that are hard to appreciate on grainy old films.

Ali had a flashier style and great gams but Futch was not off when he saw numerous technical shortcomings in Ali or when he asserted that Ali "does the same thing over and over" -he was spectacular at it, but let's not call it skill. It was speed and flashiness. It was talent.

Think about how suggestive it is that Futch, who served his apprenticeship with Louis, and was a contemporary of Louis, so easily devised strategies to defeat Ali and did so with otherwise flawed fighters in Frazier and Norton.

 

cassius for me

 

Ali is the GOAT, but he would finish second in a H2H tournament.

I like Louis, and he is a Top 3 on resume, but I think he would struggle in the 70's and 90's against the top tier.

 

Ali UD15.

Flat-footed Louis wouldn't be able to handle Ali's boxing ability if he was getting schooled by Conn.

Regardless of how skilled Louis was, his resume doesn't back it up to the extent of Ali's, and in a h2h matchup, I favor Ali.

 

Who wouldnt?

 

True, but I feel he would be on the lower end of the spectrum of the elites. Below the third tier of Frazier and Tyson.

 

I find that verry unlikley.

He had more tools on paper than either of them and more importantly he did not loose his focus once the title was in his hands like they did.

I dont know if anybody in the 70s or 90s would have beaten him at their best and even if they could he would have had a much longer prime which which would have overlaped with a point when they were not at their best.

 

Just agree to disagree. I think Louis' athleticism and footwork is highly overrated and like you said, his mental toughness is highly underrated. Of course the latter is kryptonite to Tyson. So I guess you never know.

But I definitely would not bet on Louis beating the first and second tier of those eras.