Joe Louis vs Ali, Liston, Frazier, and Foreman?

[billeau2]

Review this very thread:

You said, "Listen I happen to love Wikipedia. I think it is ingenious and is a fantastic resource...But I would caution you about relying upon it as a source in and of itself."

Which of course I did not do. I pointed out that the Wiki entry refers to two primary sources for the claim that Louis didn't take training seriously for the first Schmeling fight. If he trained at all.

My simple point -- which has cost you so much hot air, typing, and angry spewing to attempt to refute, though I don't know why -- was that there is good reason not to base your entire assessment of Joe Louis as a fighter solely on his first fight with Schmeling.

And how do you take that to mean "unreliable?" Lets look at the statement... first part: "Ingenius and fantastic"... Second part: "using as a source exclusively." There is nothing about being unreliable. As a secondary, tiertiary source, Wikipedia is designed for a couple of purposes:

1) To give intelligent people more basic information than a source like, "cooking for dummies" for example. Wikipedia tends to be more comprehensive and as an open source, it can be modified at all times. BUT...ALL SECONDARY SOURCES SHOULD BE VERIFIED!! Thats just the way they are used, one does not depend upon them exclusively. Do you understand?

As far as your second claim, I never made any claim about Louis. You must be confusing me with another poster. Yes I get angry when people put words in my mouth... All I did was ask you to consider using a secondary source properly. Then you made all kinds of fantastic statements attributed to me. I let it go because frankly I don't know if you even understand what you did. This fact is becoming more obvious to me!

heres an example... I trust my wife. Real story here: She actually saw the so called "men in black" while doing research. I would not believe most people, but I know my wife and what she described to me, happened. BUT I could not write this down and expect people to take it seriously... As good a source as my wife is, for a claim like this I need another source of evidence. So for example, there was one more person there I know of...Certain things were seized...If I ever write about this incident (perhaps after the kids are grown) I would need confirmation beyond what was said to me. Think of a secondary source as the same thing. Wiki is great but when citing it, one should use it in combination with at least another primary source...perhaps like the article Wiki is citing?

Make sense? either way, you either get this or you don't.

[them_apples]

Many experts still rank Joe Louis as the greatest Heavyweight of all time, so how would Joe Louis in his prime have done against Ali, Liston, Frazier, and Foreman?

First of all since people will bring up his weight of about 200 lbs (avg) I will be the first to say that his size is right on par as a good sized heavyweight. His training methods would have been different and more to do with Stamina and getting down in weight and he probably ate less then someone from the 70's (Joe Frazier always looked smooth over 200 lbs) and steroids (swollen fake mass) weren't in boxing usage yet.

some images to put a picture to it





and of course he refereed the Frazier vs Quarry matchup!


As far as a fight goes :

Ali's style would have gave him fits because he was one of the first and few heavyweights that moved around the ring a lot, playing a little mans game. Joe was Dangerous if you fought him. Most Heavyweights are either too heavy to move around like Ali or just don't have the stamina to keep it up. Ali had strong set of legs and a light upperbody so it seemed to work for him.

Given Ali is experienced enough when they meet I think he beats Joe pretty easily and the styles don't match up very well, I see Joe getting hungry as the fights goes on and becoming more reckless - potentially catching Ali with some decent shots - likely not enough to win him more than a few rounds though.

prime for prime I think he goes the distance or get's stopped later.

Joe Louis vs Foreman -

Foreman is stronger and bigger, he can push Joe around and dictate the fight better on his terms. His Jab is even better than Joes great Jab. However Foreman throws wide shots and Joe throws hard accurate inside shots. Because most of Joes oponents in his prime were facefirst scrappers I think he has a good shot at landing some pretty telling blows on Foremans dome. This would be a firefight because as Long as Foreman has stamina is hard to get rid of, and he can ruin a lot of ring st**** with his physical strength. Louis did beat down a lot of big big men though, the power is there for sure. I would probably go with Louis 7 times out of 10 coming from the depression era.

Louis vs Frazier

Louis. Frazier is one of the greatest heavies ever, but Louis never showed any particular weakness to someone who comes right at you and fights (left hand dominant). Louis has a great uppercut and stamina to hang in there late. He beats Joe Frazier by dropping and hurting him too many times. Frazier never got koed so you can't say Louis sparks him, but it could happen.

[Tom Cruise]

First of all since people will bring up his weight of about 200 lbs (avg) I will be the first to say that his size is right on par as a good sized heavyweight. His training methods would have been different and more to do with Stamina and getting down in weight and he probably ate less then someone from the 70's (Joe Frazier always looked smooth over 200 lbs) and steroids (swollen fake mass) weren't in boxing usage yet.

some images to put a picture to it



and of course he refereed the Frazier vs Quarry matchup!

And next to Ali as well. Louis was a big guy.

[Tom Cruise]

First of all since people will bring up his weight of about 200 lbs (avg) I will be the first to say that his size is right on par as a good sized heavyweight. His training methods would have been different and more to do with Stamina and getting down in weight and he probably ate less then someone from the 70's (Joe Frazier always looked smooth over 200 lbs) and steroids (swollen fake mass) weren't in boxing usage yet.

some images to put a picture to it





and of course he refereed the Frazier vs Quarry matchup!


As far as a fight goes :

Ali's style would have gave him fits because he was one of the first and few heavyweights that moved around the ring a lot, playing a little mans game. Joe was Dangerous if you fought him. Most Heavyweights are either too heavy to move around like Ali or just don't have the stamina to keep it up. Ali had strong set of legs and a light upperbody so it seemed to work for him.

Given Ali is experienced enough when they meet I think he beats Joe pretty easily and the styles don't match up very well, I see Joe getting hungry as the fights goes on and becoming more reckless - potentially catching Ali with some decent shots - likely not enough to win him more than a few rounds though.

prime for prime I think he goes the distance or get's stopped later.

Joe Louis vs Foreman -

Foreman is stronger and bigger, he can push Joe around and dictate the fight better on his terms. His Jab is even better than Joes great Jab. However Foreman throws wide shots and Joe throws hard accurate inside shots. Because most of Joes oponents in his prime were facefirst scrappers I think he has a good shot at landing some pretty telling blows on Foremans dome. This would be a firefight because as Long as Foreman has stamina is hard to get rid of, and he can ruin a lot of ring st**** with his physical strength. Louis did beat down a lot of big big men though, the power is there for sure. I would probably go with Louis 7 times out of 10 coming from the depression era.

Louis vs Frazier

Louis. Frazier is one of the greatest heavies ever, but Louis never showed any particular weakness to someone who comes right at you and fights (left hand dominant). Louis has a great uppercut and stamina to hang in there late. He beats Joe Frazier by dropping and hurting him too many times. Frazier never got koed so you can't say Louis sparks him, but it could happen.

A couple of things though. Louis did struggle in Godoy 1 and Godoy was certainly a guy who came right at you. Louis took him apart in the second fight though, like he did vs a few of his opponents.

Also Frazier was KO'd twice vs Foreman

[billeau2]

And next to Ali as well. Louis was a big guy.

Thats just what I noticed. I really think its funny...We could all stop arguing (the size queens versus the old time lovers) if Louis would have just hit the buffet a few more times! He looks like he could easily have come into the ring at over 200 if it really mattered for him to do so! And of course its not the weight, Louis obviously is a relatively big man and you see it when he is next to the other guys.

[Ray Corso]

I laugh when I hear fans here talk about Louis and Dempsey being small and undersized.
Look at their head size, fist size and thickness. Just because someone has 3 or 4 inches of height and 20 pounds more than another man doesn't make that person "small"!
Pound for pound both Dempsey and Louis hit as hard and harder than top tier heavies today.
In their era's they trained weight off to be able to extend their work rates over the 15 round championship bouts.
Louis from his 21st bout weighed over 200lbs 95% of the time and his highest was 218lbs.
He could have easily fought at 215+ by not training his weight down as the current era heavies do.
Dempsey was the biggest 6'1" man I ever met! His head was huge his fists were square and gigantic and his shoulders were thick as cbs blocks.
People post about fighters that they've never seen in person and no nothing about their real personalities.
They believe in the "promo" they see on a stage!
Fans what are you going to do "can't live with them, love to knock them out"! ha!

Ray

[phallus]

Listen I happen to love Wikipedia. I think it is ingenious and is a fantastic resource...But I would caution you about relying upon it as a source in and of itself. This is a perfect example, unless you know the two sources very well. There is plenty wrong with assumptions made by the entrient regarding Louis, golf and Schmeling.

It would take an hour to cite all that is contrary to assumptions here but briefly: Louis lost on a technical fax Pouix. it had nothing to do with his conditioning. Louis was still under the reigns of guys who would not let him overlook the pillsbury dough boy, much less a dangerous fighter like Schmeling. If you read most credible accounts of why Louis lost that fight they all say the same thing:

Schmeling found a bad habit...Those of us who have trained can attest to the fact that unlearning a bad habit takes a lot longer than slowly learning the correct way to do something. Louis was caught off guard because he was so technically sound, but he was dropping his hand when he came back with the right (I believe it was the right). Schmeling saw it on tape and simply followed his arm back and countered. It shut Louis down.

If Henry Cooper could drop Cassius Clay then I have no doubt that Joe Louis could do the same and more.

I laugh when I hear fans here talk about Louis and Dempsey being small and undersized.
Look at their head size, fist size and thickness. Just because someone has 3 or 4 inches of height and 20 pounds more than another man doesn't make that person "small"!
Pound for pound both Dempsey and Louis hit as hard and harder than top tier heavies today.
In their era's they trained weight off to be able to extend their work rates over the 15 round championship bouts.
Louis from his 21st bout weighed over 200lbs 95% of the time and his highest was 218lbs.
He could have easily fought at 215+ by not training his weight down as the current era heavies do.
Dempsey was the biggest 6'1" man I ever met! His head was huge his fists were square and gigantic and his shoulders were thick as cbs blocks.
People post about fighters that they've never seen in person and no nothing about their real personalities.
They believe in the "promo" they see on a stage!
Fans what are you going to do "can't live with them, love to knock them out"! ha!

Ray

I love those pics of Louis with ali, he looks huge, easily the size of a modern hw.

schmeling got lucky against Louis, he found a bad habit when joe was young and green and took advantage of it. we all saw what happened to schmeling in the rematch, he got F'ed up.
I think Louis would outbox and counterpunch foreman to death, he'd beat liston in a similar manner, the two I see Louis having trouble with would be frazier and ali. frazier's swarming style is a bad one for a boxer-puncher like Louis, and the young ali's footwork would make things tough for joe, his only chance would be to catch him by surprise like henry cooper did. if he fought the old ali who would just stand and trade, especially if he did the rope a dope like in the foreman fight I think joe knocks him out on the ropes or gets a TKO stoppage

[them_apples]

A couple of things though. Louis did struggle in Godoy 1 and Godoy was certainly a guy who came right at you. Louis took him apart in the second fight though, like he did vs a few of his opponents.

Also Frazier was KO'd twice vs Foreman

I meant he wasn't knocked out. he got up every time. Foreman just kept dropping him and Frazier said it was in his best interest to call it quits for health reasons.

[joseph5620]

If Henry Cooper could drop Cassius Clay then I have no doubt that Joe Louis could do the same and more.

If Billy Conn could hurt and oubox Louis, Ali could do the same and more.

[ShoulderRoll]

If Billy Conn could hurt and oubox Louis, Ali could do the same and more.

Billy Conn was a great fighter. Henry Cooper not so much.