Would you place Joe Louis above any of these guys, pound for pound?

I just feel that I don't get any answers. In the future perhaps the p4p lists should come with an additional "No natural HWs allowed".:smoke

 

yeah so difficult to compare and pick who was greater. anyone who thinks it's clear cut must be seeing something i'm not... or not seeing something

 

i agree that the bias against heavyweights is frustrating. like i said, though, some people do have good reasons for their choices (the dominance vs. era thing)...different people emphasise different things i guess, and different views can be equally well argued.

 

Broken record i know. But i think one of the main reasons for this, is the Heavyweight Divisions mainstream popularity throughout time, which makes it cool to not rate it

 

yeah that's probably the main reason for the prejudice. when prejudices are so long-standing, they become infused with 'logic'!

 

If I´d rank fighters purely on achievement and dominance Louis would be Top3. But there are other factors, mostly resume, and Louis doesn´t score that high there. So, if a hypothetical hw would match Louis achievements and would have a resume comparable to Armstrong or Robinson. No doubt he would be Top10. Possibly Top5.

But as it is, there is no hw like that. Ali has the resume for it but not the achievements. Louis has the achievements but not the resume. That´s how I see it. You can disagree. Doesn´t mean much to me though.

 

Which is BS. I have 6 fighters who fought enough at hw to be considered hws in my Top8. :hi:

Fighters who fought purely at one division are have a hard time to get in there. But that´s not because they get punished for fighting only in one division. But the fighters who covered more than one division get rewarded for taking the risk of trying deeper water. Hws are a bit unlucky because there is no toher division they can cover. Sh*t happens.

 

Langford-no
Robinson-no
Armstrong- no
Greb-no
Charles-have to say no
Walker-possibly not
Pep-this is close imo, i'd likely lean towards Pep though
Moore-yes, this is Joe's best bet if you make the case based purely on his better success rate
Duran-no
Fitzsimmons-close, not sure
Ali-no
Burley-yes
Benny Leonard-close, probably lean towards Leonard but it needs an analysis which i haven't had a go at yet
Sugar Ray Leonard-it's too much of a pain in the arse judging Sugar Ray Leonard-i guess i'd possibly lean towards him
Barney Ross-yes
Gene Tunney-yes, close.

 

Ok. We'll agree to disagree.


I don't really understand your distinction between achievements and record, though.

I make such a one for Foreman. Him regaining the HW title 21 years after first winning it, is a fantastic achievement. But his record isn't that great imo since he's little better than 50-50 with the ranked opponents he fought.

For Louis, I make no such distinctions. Him making 25 defenses, being 26-1 in title fights, beating 30+ top ranked fighters, etc, etc is his record as far as I'm concerned. And it's quite an outstanding one.

 

Well, achievements is what you did and resume is against who you did it.

 

For me, "record" is a combination of the two. But fair enough.