Who is greater P4P Joe Louis or Roberto Duran?

That's it in a nutshell

 

Duran, and pretty clearly I think.

 

Theres dozens of guys Louis could have fought but didn't due to WW2 but they mostly blend together. And its more "Louis could have had 50 title defenses" and less "darn it Louis didn't fight x and test himself".

The closest black fighter(and possibly fighter period) to being that is Lee Murray. Murray was a more troubling matchup for Louis than Bivins(who Louis later beat for the BBBC title) but he lost the duration unifiers to the best version of Bivins. Murray was a more troubling matchup than Walcott but he got DQ'd for not trying and no one asked him to throw the fight(I mean maybe the mob did but thats not Louis's fault).

Elmer Ray might have been the best black HW contender but look at his SOS before fighting Walcott in 1946. Ray had fought top opponents frequently when he was green and struggled.

Before Louis left for War Murray and Ray weren't really on the radar. There were other black contenders Louis might have gotten to if he'd fought bi monthly from 1942-1946 but none really stood out. Blunt had that great fight with Buddy Baer but was inconsistant.

 

I'm not very well versed on Arcel, I just remember reading a rant talking about how Benny Leonard and all these other fighters he mentioned wouldn't ever stoop as low as Duran's 'No Mas'.

I think there might be a case that Duran had a Tyson type of persona, that he needed everything to be perfect and dominating and if he was getting beat it kind of messed with him mentally.

 

Do you think Louis choose not to fight black fighters or do you think his manager thought it would sell more putting a 'great white hope' that the white crowd could get behind? I think accusing Louis of ducking black opponents is an extreme position. It maybe be unfair but there wasn't a top black fighter highly ranked in the HW rankings until Bivins in 1943, when Louis as largely inactive. There was something going on called WW2 where Louis would put on 96 exhibition matches for the troops, which aren't recorded on boxrec.

He ultimately faced Walcott twice, Bivins and Charles past his prime. He also had either 1 or 2 exhibitions against Elmer Ray during WW2, with Ray being 1 of the clear best black HWs. On the basis of evidence I'd say the idea Louis actively ducked black fighters doesn't stand up to reason. Black fighters not being ranked fairly in this era is part of the history though. However most of the best black fighters were competing from middleweight to light heavyweight anyway. The likes of Jersey Joe Walcott wasn't getting his shot earlier because he was racking up losses along the way.

In turn post Leonard 2, Duran was hardly taking on all comers by any stretch of the imagination. Outside of the Fab5 who generated paydays Duran was actively kept away from the best boxers. So ultimately he went 1-5 against the fab 5 while not fighting the best of the rest.

 

I read Louis and Ray had at least 2 exhibitions. I think I read Ray was sparked cold in 1 of them, with the other being a harder fight. But I might have remembered wrong with how long ago I came across the source material.