This is an old article. I might have posted it back in the day: If so, this is a chance for the new crowd to see it. I don't agree with a lot of Louis' conclusions, but he makes some great observations and some compelling arguments.
How I Would Have Clobbered Clay
By Joe Louis
Originally Printed In The February 1967 Issue Of The Ring ****zine
Reprinted In The February 1991 Issue Of The Ring ****zine
Cassius Clay's got lots of ability, but he's not The Greatest. He's a guy with a million dollars worth of confidence
and a dime's worth of courage. I could have whipped him. In all honesty, I feel it in my bones. Clay can be
clobbered, and if you'll pardon an old-timer talking, I am certain I know how.
These days, I get to the fights in most parts of the world, especially when Clay is defending my old heavyweight
title. We kid around in training camps a little, and Clay makes speeches and goes into his act, telling folks how he
would have fought Joe Louis. I play along. It don't harm nobody. Maybe helps with the action, puts a few dollars
on the take.
Fellows come up, asking for autographs, that kind of thing, and tell me I could have licked Clay with the Empire
State Building tied to my feet. I don't say anything.
But a man gets thoughts sitting there watching Clay. I see him fooling in the gym, and I seen nearly all his fights,
right through from Willie Besmanoff, way back in Louisville, to Cleveland Williams in Houston. Sometimes Clay
fights good and sometimes he pulls rhubarbs that should get his head knocked off if the other guy knew his trade
like they made me learn mine.
Trouble with Clay, he thinks he knows it all. Fights with his mouth. He won't listen. Me, first thing I learned in the
fight gane was to keep my trap shut and my ears wide open, especially when my wise old trainer, Chappie
Blackburn, was telling me things for my own good.
We did all right. Seems like I won a championship, so maybe I'm entitled to speak up a word or two of truth after
all these years. And the truth in my book is I'm sure I could've put Clay away, and also know how.
Clay says he's got the fastest hands and the fastest feet of any heavyweight who was ever born. That's his opinion
and he's entitled to it. The kid has speed and can surely box when he has to. There's nobody around to outbox
him, and the opponent who tries is in his grave. Especially in the middle of the ring. With room to move, Clay's a
champion, real dangerous. But he doesn't know a thing about fighting on the ropes, which is where he would be if
he were in there with me. He's all confused, his feet in knots, and his body wide open to everything.
I didn't see Henry Cooper put Clay down in their first fight in London, but I'd like to bet Clay was coming off the
ropes when he got caught with left hook.
I certainly saw that German southpaw, Mildenberger, **** him good in the corner, and that was when
Mildenberger had been battered into a hopeless, beat-up hulk in the 10th round. Clay did not appreciate that
punch one bit, but if Mildenberger had known enough to send it over when he was fresh, I figure Clay would have
appreciated it a whole lot less.
Sure, Clay's got fancy feet in the middle of the ring, faster even than Billy Conn or Bob Pastor, two of the quickest
men who ever gave me the run-around till I caught up. But Clay wastes his footwork, stumbling around like Conn
and Pastor never did, from where I was looking.
There's a couple of other things about Clay. He drops his left hand when he should be protecting that pretty face
he's always talking about. Doing a fool thing like that in a championship fight, he could end up looking like a meat
wagon, or maybe riding in one.
Dropping your left hand ain't healthy. It was a weakness of my own till Max Schmeling taught me the hard was in
our first fight.
If I were fighting Clay, I would start licking him at least five weeks before the bell, right in training camp...some
place like my old stand at Pompton Lakes.
There wouldn't be too much of the fancy fixin's and show-biz routines they give you in the gymnasiums these days,
but there sure would be some murder going on. I never fooled around in workouts.
I would pay top wages for the five fastest sparring partners I could buy. I would need quick targets to speed up my
hands for a past opponent like Clay, and I would feel real sorry for those boys by the time we were through.
Clay has his own ideas about sparring. Me, too. There would be no horsing around. I never did pull punches with
sparmates. Fighting was my business, and a man shouldn't play games in business hours. If I were training to
whip Clay, my partners would go home bruised and busted up round the body, even from big gloves. Anyone who
couldn't take it would be out, long before fight night.
And if I was boss in camp, I'd aim to be boss in the ring, where the gloves come smaller. Any man who fights
Clay's fight is crazy. With me, Clay would have to fight a Joe Louis fight, my way, all the way. Which means I
would go in to outpunch him rather than try to outbox him. I once thought I could keep up with Billy Conn, and for
a long time it didn't take.
I'd see to it that Clay did not stay in ring-center. Out there, I could be the Patsy on the wrong end of the
punishment. No, he'd be hit into those ropes as near a corner as I could get him...someplace where, from all I've
seen, he just does not know how to fight.
If he stayed on the ropes, he'd get hurt. Sooner or later he'd try to bounce off, and when he did he would get hurt
more. That's what the fight game is all about.
I'd press him, **** him around, claw him, clobber him with all I had, cut down his speed, belt him around the ribs.
I'd punish the body, where the pain comes real bad. I know; I can still feel the trip-hammers Rocky Marciano hit
me with when he knocked me out when he was on his way up and I was on my way out.
Clay would have welts on his body like I did. He would ache, like I did. His mouth would shut tight against the
pain, and there would be tears burning his eyes. It is not very funny being under fire from bodypunches, and it
wouldn't help Clay any looking for his trainer, Angelo Dundee, to come riding into the ring with the rescue posse.
Those guys in the corner fight good during the intervals, but they can't give you any more fists or any more heart
when some guy's caving your ribs in.
"Kill the body and the head will die," Chappie used to tell me. It figures.
Sooner or later, I think Clay would get the message. Get it so good that he'd stop worrying about that face of his
and drop his left hand like he did against Mildenberger and George Chuvalo. Those fellows got their openings by
accident, and then fouled them up. I would work for it, and I wouldn't reckon to miss when it arrived.
If I goofed with a world title and a million dollars or so in the pot (plus all that television money these days), then I
would not have any right to be in there with a smart fighter like Cassius Clay.
But only smart so far. Clay coming out of a corner all confused, busted up from body punches, would be a sucker
for any opponent waiting for him with a shot in the locker. I'd be waiting, ready with something hot.
I haven't got around to figuring what kind of punch I'd send in for the payroll, but I learned several in my day. A
one-punch fighter is only half a fighter. Take away his hammer and he's nothing. You have to be properly
equipped.
When I won my title from jim Braddock, I cut Jim's lip with a left hook, but that was only by way of preparation for
the payoff. When his legs began to wobble, I put my whole body behind a right to the jaw, and Jim dropped on his
face for goodbye.
Maybe I could hit Clay with that kind of right. It takes all sorts, like in my second fight with Max Schmeling. A right
to the jaw gave Max a three-count; he took two more from a one-two combination; then I threw a straight left jab
and a right cross for keeps. But all these counts started from a right to the ribs after Max had bounced off the
ropes with his legs in a mess.
I owed Max a thing or two. After he beat me two years earlier, I spent lots of time studying his style before I
discovered he was a sucker for a left jab.
I honestly feel I could have turned the same kind of trick against Clay, but my feelings don't predict which round.
Only poets go around predicting.
I was prepared to travel all the way against Schmeling, but I got my chance to tag him in one. Contrariwise, I was
hoping for a quick kill in my first fight with Billy Conn on the New York Polo Grounds. But I came in too light, and
Billy breezed along so fast he nearly took my title. Too bad he finally decided to slug it out, like I hoped he would,
and got his face all mixed up with my right hand in the 13th.
If I was fighting Clay, I would aim to be ready with the big one any time, from round one to round 15.
In London, and in most other places I go, people always ask me how Clay would have come through against my
old opponents, and we kick the thing around, arguing this way and that.
I think Jersey Joe Walcott would have outgeneraled him. Clay is faster, but old Joe had a better style and better
brains. When he dropped the left it wasn't a mistake. It was to feint you on to a right hand that could bring the
roof down on your head.
Billy Conn was like lightning. He learned his trade in the small clubs, from welter right through to heavyweight. He
could have kept up with Clay because his legs knew where they were going. Only thing is, Clay and Conn would
have been running away from each other so fast that there would have been no fight.
Clay, I think, would have hit too fast for Jim Braddock and would have had too many moves for max baer. Maxie
packed a punch but never paid enough attention to learning his business the hard way: In camp and round the
clubs.
Schmeling could have taken Clay with his right, same way he took me when I forgot to keep my left up after I'd
jabbed with it in out first fight.
But, of all my old opponents, the one to give Clay the worst time would have been Rocky Marciano. The Rock
didn't know too much about the boxing book, but it wasn't a book he hit me with. It was a whole library of
bonecrushers.
If Marciano caught up with him, I figure Clay would get discouraged and start looking for Angelo Dundee to cut his
gloves off.
Nobody ever beat Marciano, and I was wrong when I thought I was still young enough to know how. I could be
wrong about Clay as well, but it's good to forget the calndar once in a while and dream up ways of whipping the
man who wears your old crown.
Once I happened to walk along when Clay was hollering, "I am The Greatest!" to some fellows outside the Theresa
Hotel in Harlem. When he saw me, Clay came over and shouted to the crowd, "This is Joe Louis. WE is The
Greatest!"
That was nice. Cassius Clay is a nice boy and a smart fighter. But I'm sure Joe Louis could have licked him.
How I Would Have Clobbered Clay
By Joe Louis
Originally Printed In The February 1967 Issue Of The Ring ****zine
Reprinted In The February 1991 Issue Of The Ring ****zine
Cassius Clay's got lots of ability, but he's not The Greatest. He's a guy with a million dollars worth of confidence
and a dime's worth of courage. I could have whipped him. In all honesty, I feel it in my bones. Clay can be
clobbered, and if you'll pardon an old-timer talking, I am certain I know how.
These days, I get to the fights in most parts of the world, especially when Clay is defending my old heavyweight
title. We kid around in training camps a little, and Clay makes speeches and goes into his act, telling folks how he
would have fought Joe Louis. I play along. It don't harm nobody. Maybe helps with the action, puts a few dollars
on the take.
Fellows come up, asking for autographs, that kind of thing, and tell me I could have licked Clay with the Empire
State Building tied to my feet. I don't say anything.
But a man gets thoughts sitting there watching Clay. I see him fooling in the gym, and I seen nearly all his fights,
right through from Willie Besmanoff, way back in Louisville, to Cleveland Williams in Houston. Sometimes Clay
fights good and sometimes he pulls rhubarbs that should get his head knocked off if the other guy knew his trade
like they made me learn mine.
Trouble with Clay, he thinks he knows it all. Fights with his mouth. He won't listen. Me, first thing I learned in the
fight gane was to keep my trap shut and my ears wide open, especially when my wise old trainer, Chappie
Blackburn, was telling me things for my own good.
We did all right. Seems like I won a championship, so maybe I'm entitled to speak up a word or two of truth after
all these years. And the truth in my book is I'm sure I could've put Clay away, and also know how.
Clay says he's got the fastest hands and the fastest feet of any heavyweight who was ever born. That's his opinion
and he's entitled to it. The kid has speed and can surely box when he has to. There's nobody around to outbox
him, and the opponent who tries is in his grave. Especially in the middle of the ring. With room to move, Clay's a
champion, real dangerous. But he doesn't know a thing about fighting on the ropes, which is where he would be if
he were in there with me. He's all confused, his feet in knots, and his body wide open to everything.
I didn't see Henry Cooper put Clay down in their first fight in London, but I'd like to bet Clay was coming off the
ropes when he got caught with left hook.
I certainly saw that German southpaw, Mildenberger, **** him good in the corner, and that was when
Mildenberger had been battered into a hopeless, beat-up hulk in the 10th round. Clay did not appreciate that
punch one bit, but if Mildenberger had known enough to send it over when he was fresh, I figure Clay would have
appreciated it a whole lot less.
Sure, Clay's got fancy feet in the middle of the ring, faster even than Billy Conn or Bob Pastor, two of the quickest
men who ever gave me the run-around till I caught up. But Clay wastes his footwork, stumbling around like Conn
and Pastor never did, from where I was looking.
There's a couple of other things about Clay. He drops his left hand when he should be protecting that pretty face
he's always talking about. Doing a fool thing like that in a championship fight, he could end up looking like a meat
wagon, or maybe riding in one.
Dropping your left hand ain't healthy. It was a weakness of my own till Max Schmeling taught me the hard was in
our first fight.
If I were fighting Clay, I would start licking him at least five weeks before the bell, right in training camp...some
place like my old stand at Pompton Lakes.
There wouldn't be too much of the fancy fixin's and show-biz routines they give you in the gymnasiums these days,
but there sure would be some murder going on. I never fooled around in workouts.
I would pay top wages for the five fastest sparring partners I could buy. I would need quick targets to speed up my
hands for a past opponent like Clay, and I would feel real sorry for those boys by the time we were through.
Clay has his own ideas about sparring. Me, too. There would be no horsing around. I never did pull punches with
sparmates. Fighting was my business, and a man shouldn't play games in business hours. If I were training to
whip Clay, my partners would go home bruised and busted up round the body, even from big gloves. Anyone who
couldn't take it would be out, long before fight night.
And if I was boss in camp, I'd aim to be boss in the ring, where the gloves come smaller. Any man who fights
Clay's fight is crazy. With me, Clay would have to fight a Joe Louis fight, my way, all the way. Which means I
would go in to outpunch him rather than try to outbox him. I once thought I could keep up with Billy Conn, and for
a long time it didn't take.
I'd see to it that Clay did not stay in ring-center. Out there, I could be the Patsy on the wrong end of the
punishment. No, he'd be hit into those ropes as near a corner as I could get him...someplace where, from all I've
seen, he just does not know how to fight.
If he stayed on the ropes, he'd get hurt. Sooner or later he'd try to bounce off, and when he did he would get hurt
more. That's what the fight game is all about.
I'd press him, **** him around, claw him, clobber him with all I had, cut down his speed, belt him around the ribs.
I'd punish the body, where the pain comes real bad. I know; I can still feel the trip-hammers Rocky Marciano hit
me with when he knocked me out when he was on his way up and I was on my way out.
Clay would have welts on his body like I did. He would ache, like I did. His mouth would shut tight against the
pain, and there would be tears burning his eyes. It is not very funny being under fire from bodypunches, and it
wouldn't help Clay any looking for his trainer, Angelo Dundee, to come riding into the ring with the rescue posse.
Those guys in the corner fight good during the intervals, but they can't give you any more fists or any more heart
when some guy's caving your ribs in.
"Kill the body and the head will die," Chappie used to tell me. It figures.
Sooner or later, I think Clay would get the message. Get it so good that he'd stop worrying about that face of his
and drop his left hand like he did against Mildenberger and George Chuvalo. Those fellows got their openings by
accident, and then fouled them up. I would work for it, and I wouldn't reckon to miss when it arrived.
If I goofed with a world title and a million dollars or so in the pot (plus all that television money these days), then I
would not have any right to be in there with a smart fighter like Cassius Clay.
But only smart so far. Clay coming out of a corner all confused, busted up from body punches, would be a sucker
for any opponent waiting for him with a shot in the locker. I'd be waiting, ready with something hot.
I haven't got around to figuring what kind of punch I'd send in for the payroll, but I learned several in my day. A
one-punch fighter is only half a fighter. Take away his hammer and he's nothing. You have to be properly
equipped.
When I won my title from jim Braddock, I cut Jim's lip with a left hook, but that was only by way of preparation for
the payoff. When his legs began to wobble, I put my whole body behind a right to the jaw, and Jim dropped on his
face for goodbye.
Maybe I could hit Clay with that kind of right. It takes all sorts, like in my second fight with Max Schmeling. A right
to the jaw gave Max a three-count; he took two more from a one-two combination; then I threw a straight left jab
and a right cross for keeps. But all these counts started from a right to the ribs after Max had bounced off the
ropes with his legs in a mess.
I owed Max a thing or two. After he beat me two years earlier, I spent lots of time studying his style before I
discovered he was a sucker for a left jab.
I honestly feel I could have turned the same kind of trick against Clay, but my feelings don't predict which round.
Only poets go around predicting.
I was prepared to travel all the way against Schmeling, but I got my chance to tag him in one. Contrariwise, I was
hoping for a quick kill in my first fight with Billy Conn on the New York Polo Grounds. But I came in too light, and
Billy breezed along so fast he nearly took my title. Too bad he finally decided to slug it out, like I hoped he would,
and got his face all mixed up with my right hand in the 13th.
If I was fighting Clay, I would aim to be ready with the big one any time, from round one to round 15.
In London, and in most other places I go, people always ask me how Clay would have come through against my
old opponents, and we kick the thing around, arguing this way and that.
I think Jersey Joe Walcott would have outgeneraled him. Clay is faster, but old Joe had a better style and better
brains. When he dropped the left it wasn't a mistake. It was to feint you on to a right hand that could bring the
roof down on your head.
Billy Conn was like lightning. He learned his trade in the small clubs, from welter right through to heavyweight. He
could have kept up with Clay because his legs knew where they were going. Only thing is, Clay and Conn would
have been running away from each other so fast that there would have been no fight.
Clay, I think, would have hit too fast for Jim Braddock and would have had too many moves for max baer. Maxie
packed a punch but never paid enough attention to learning his business the hard way: In camp and round the
clubs.
Schmeling could have taken Clay with his right, same way he took me when I forgot to keep my left up after I'd
jabbed with it in out first fight.
But, of all my old opponents, the one to give Clay the worst time would have been Rocky Marciano. The Rock
didn't know too much about the boxing book, but it wasn't a book he hit me with. It was a whole library of
bonecrushers.
If Marciano caught up with him, I figure Clay would get discouraged and start looking for Angelo Dundee to cut his
gloves off.
Nobody ever beat Marciano, and I was wrong when I thought I was still young enough to know how. I could be
wrong about Clay as well, but it's good to forget the calndar once in a while and dream up ways of whipping the
man who wears your old crown.
Once I happened to walk along when Clay was hollering, "I am The Greatest!" to some fellows outside the Theresa
Hotel in Harlem. When he saw me, Clay came over and shouted to the crowd, "This is Joe Louis. WE is The
Greatest!"
That was nice. Cassius Clay is a nice boy and a smart fighter. But I'm sure Joe Louis could have licked him.
The Old LefHook
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