Why did Louis do best against big men who stood in front of him?

The answer is that highly skilled mobile boxers were his kryptonite. The bigger slower moving giants with less skill and poor defense were easy targets for those fast and precise combinations.

 

I don’t think that it’s a vulnerability that was necessarily peculiar to Joe Louis.

Rather, I think it stands to reason as being a natural issue for most fighters.

Smaller, faster and more mobile guys have often given their larger counterparts a good measure of trouble.

Take Ali vs Cooper in both fights. Though Ali was clearly superior, he didn’t dominate or hurt Cooper as he did a number of his larger opposition who were of perceived greater quality (than that of Cooper).

Cooper himself said that he was never really hurt by Ali (I think the vision of their fights support this) and that it surprised him when Ali was able to roll guys much bigger than himself (bigger than Cooper, that is).

Another example of small doing well against big might be Sharkey out boxing and flooring the giant Carnera but conversely being held to a draw by natural MW Mickey Walker.

Suffice to say, deemed P4P greats are sourced far more from the lighter divisions than they are from the HWs.

There is often some degree of equalisation when smaller faces bigger, smaller being more likely (in general) to uphold greater skills to offset the size disadvantage to some extent.

Also, whatever their skill level and degree of mobility, Louis’ larger opposition couldn’t help but present as much bigger targets - even when that larger target was on the move.

So much more difficult to cleanly nail the smaller, more agile guys who might generally be eventually overcome due to the size disparity but not without them having some notably shining moments beforehand.

 

Actually, he did struggle w/ Simon in their 1st fight, whereas he dominated Pastor & Conn in their rematches.

 

He could figure out bigger, simpler, less technical men MUCH easier. He would find more places to throw that ol' fist baseball of his.

 

Hi Buddy.
This from Greb " I like fighting the bigger guys, they are slower and easier to hit " he sure did.
stay safe Jake, chat soon.

 

Uh, mad power in both fists with terrific hand speed and educated combinations meant that he destroyed whatever he hit.

 

Really this isn’t a Louis-specific issue. Bigger guys who are less mobile & present an easier target coming toward you vs smaller, quicker opposition which moves away? Why are we attributing the result of this to Louis specifically? Of course a fighter trying to escape you will give most fighters (not all, but certainly a majority) more trouble than one they can immediately find.