WHO do you rank higher, liston or schmeling in legacy?

Valdez was past it when they fought and outside of the Ezzard upset his resume is pretty pedestrian and Cleveland Williams also only has one big victory of note against Terrell. I believe both guys get overrated today. Machen and Foley are good wins and of course the Pattterson undressings. It is close but Schmelimg has the better quality names on his list.

 

If Louis had not trained for Schmeling he would of came in over his normal fighting weight he did not he actually came in under it. There is very little evidence on film of Joe Louis losing this fight because of training. It's more of a stylistic flaw and brilliant game plan by Schmeling if anything. In the rematch it was Schmeling who was past it. Equating Trevor Berbick's win over Ali to Schmeling's over Louis is simply stupid. There is no comparison. Schmeling was the only man to beat Louis in a 16 year run. Ali was a shell of himself and likely suffering from Parkinson's in the final fight of his career.
Schmeling defeated Sharkey who has wins over Wills, Godfrey, Loughran, Delaney, Stribling and Carnera. Sharkey is better than anyone on Liston's win ledger other than Patterson. And it's close between them.

 

Never thought about this before...it has to be Max Schmeling.

 

Good point, Ingo took care of Patterson and Satterfield Williams. Schmeling was only man to stop Stribling in over 200 fights. The first to stop Risko in rings's fight of the year (check the names on Risko's ledger) only man to stop Hamas a #1 contender and the only man to stop Louis until his ghost showed up in his final fight against Marciano.

 

good points Max goes up Sonny goes down

 

Liston haters are on the force on this thread, i see.

 

I'd have to say Liston, I think. Max swapped wins and losses with the best of his era during his prime while Liston was a totally dominant force until running into arguably the best HW ever.

Max's win over Louis gives him a case, though.

 

It isn't even close at all. Max isn't even higher than Liston h2h.

 

It's also a bit interesting to compare to Schemling's record to Douglas's actually. Scmeling comes out better in all probability, but there are similarities.

 

Resume is definitely debatable. If we're taking about legacy, it's definitely Liston as long as we aren't in Germany.

 

"many boxing fans considered Schmeling, 30 years old by the time of his first match with Louis, to be on the decline and not a serious challenge for the Brown Bomber.

Perhaps as a result, Louis took training for the Schmeling fight none too seriously. Louis' training retreat was at Lakewood, New Jersey, where Louis was introduced to the game of golf – later to become a lifelong passion. Louis spent significant time on the golf course rather than training."

 

I don't know a single word about boxing? :huh At least I have Liston in my top 20. You're the first person I've ever heard say Liston's not in the top 20. What does yours look like?

 

Then how do you explain Willi Besmanoff?
There's also Wayne Bethea who not only has never been knocked out prior to fighting Liston, He's NEVER been ko'd by anybody AFTER fighting Liston. Liston was the only man to stop him. And he did it in 1 round.
Billy Hunter was never knocked out prior to fighting Liston.
Also Emil Brtko was never knocked out prior to fighting Liston.
Martin Lee was also only stopped one time, and it was also by Sonny boy.

 

"Many Fans" that doesn't apply to Louis or anyone in his camp.
"Perhaps" is an adverb that means something is a possibility.
I don't want to eviscerate the paragraph on grammar, it is well known that a narrative came out shortly after the fight that Louis had not taken the opponent seriously to explain away the loss. He was not the first boxer nor the last to have such an explainantion. However he weighed 196 for the match two pounds lighter than he would weigh in the rematch and there is no evidence on film whatsoever to suggest he was out of shape or under trained. Quite simply it is an amazing win on Schmeling's behalf, one of if not thee best win in the division's history.