Would Michael Dokes clear Joe Louis entire resume

That's one way to look at it. There are so many variables and it's no longer Michael Dokes, under that scenario.

If we properly invoke the 30's/40's scene Dokes probably wouldn't have been the size he is. But that's getting deep into the nitty gritty.

My thoughts are that if he's susceptible to addiction/loose living/lack of dedication in the 80's, he's weak in that department in any era. It'd probably be the booze if he didn't have access to coke. The training and dedication would suffer. I rate some of those guys a little bit higher than you do I'd say.

For me there's virtually zero chance Dokes could knuckle down over that many years and fights. If it was all coming too easy he'd get even more complacent. That seems to be the way he rolled.

I think he'd disappoint and underperform in any era.

 

I guess I can't really make too strong an argument against what you or dmt said. Take him out of the 80s, and put him in any other era, and he'd probably be just as undisciplined, and underachieve one way or another. Each individual matchup looks favorable for Dokes IMO, but in a string of 26 fights, perhaps he finds a way to booger it up somewhere along the way. I still think he'd do very well against that group. Just curious, who do you see as the most likely to knock him off?

 

Dokes is no different than a fair amount of guys; they can win the title on a given night with an a+ performance. What they cannot do is sustain it & defend the title. But they are certainly capable of a terrific performance on that one night.

 

You made decent points of your own.

Laugh if you may but i think Walcott on a good night would be tricky, especially if Dokes dogged it in camp.

 

Walcott could definitely make it difficult, especially in that scenario. Depends on which version of each shows up.

I'm wondering though how much trouble he'd have with Conn, considering how much trouble JL had. Dokes doesn't have the type of power that JL had to bail himself out if he finds himself behind on points late as JL did vs. Conn. Kind of hard to visualize what that fight might look like.

 

If Coetzee could take Dokes out I'm sure quite a few of Louis' opponents could.. Dokes did nothing of real note TBH..

 

I can't see Dokes struggling with someone weighing 169 pounds under any scenario. I think a collection of things happened that night and it's akin to Tyson - Douglas via slightly different reasons. Conn won't keep resetting Dokes as he did Louis. When looking at Joe's opponents who might be a banana peel for Dokes i perused straight past Conn.

 

Dokes wouldn't be disciplined and consistent enough for 5 title defenses, let alone 25. A leopard doesn't change it's spots. He would either underachieve via not giving it 100% in camp, slacking off outside of camp due to girls and booze, or both at some point. Larry Holmes was the only guy in the entirety of the 80's who was built for such a career mentally. They all sorely lacked the character to emulate Joe Louis even if they all had varying degrees of exceptional talent.

On an off-night, I wouldn't be confident betting a dime on Dokes against a motivated Schmeling, Walcott, or even Baer. So many variables and anything could happen. Dokes was tall, skilled, and very fast, but he had lapses in judgement, wasn't the most durable guy in the world, and had trouble with shorter heavies such as Weaver and Ocasio. As such, I don't see him just having an easy time on cruise control taking advantage of his height/reach. Not to mention, people forget this isn't going to just be a prime Dokes refreshed and refurbished before every title defense, he will carry the same wear and tear aging before every title defense.

It's simply not happening.

 

Supposedly there was a lot of cocaine and Jack Daniels for Dokes leading up to the Coetzee fight. That, and probably just about only that, would cause him to lose to "quite a few" Louis opponents. Without the outside the ring problems, he do very well in that era.

 

Are you forgetting about Tony Galento

 

No sir. Galento maybe was legit top 10 during his own era, but this dude stinks in a h2h sense IMO, especially when he's grouped with some of the better fighters from the 70s forward. Same goes for most Louis era contenders. There are several 80s contenders who were less than ATGs...Witherspoon, Thomas, Tucker to name a few, who would clean house back then. I think even a guy like Chris Byrd possibly could have run the table vs. the guys Louis defended against.