Louis's 'bum of the month' club...

[NChristo]

foremans wins over moorer,shavers,norton,frazier>>>>>>>>>anybody on louis resume

Foreman's win over Shavers ?

[JAB5239]

Foreman's win over Shavers ?

Lol, I didn't even catch that!

[Steak]

cause your in the top 10 means you cant be a bum??

well, its very rare to find an actual 'bum' level boxer in the top ten, but I understand your point.

like I said, I dont think Louis' reign had the toughest opposition ever. wasnt the strongest era, no. but even if only half of those wins were actually quality ones, its still a damn impressive amount of good wins.

seriously, youll be VERY hard pressed to find another fighter that consistantly beat the best the division had to offer like Joe Louis did.

I dont mean to belittle other fighters in this thread, but look at someone like Joe Calzaghe who similiarly had around 20 title defences...

Robin Reid #6, (controversial)
Richie Woodhall #8,
Charles Brewer #5,
Byron Mitchell #5,
Lacy #3,
Peter Manfredo #10, and of course
Kessler #2.
then Hopkins at LHW, Champion status(controversial)

nearly 4 times as many for Louis.

now, Im the first person to say that numbers mean nothing, and its who you beat(and how) that matters more than anything.
but even then...Louis beat multiple future or former World Champions(at a time where there was only one lineal crown, as opposed to having 4+ times the opportunity to be a world champ like nowadays), and a surprising number of the guys he beat are in the Hall of Fame(although some of them you could argue dont deserve to be there...still quality fighters).

Joe Louis, without a doubt, fought and beat the best guys available to him. I dont think many fighters can truly claim as much. I mean, he literally cleaned out the division, its not like he missed anyone along the way.

[prinzemanspopa]

Try again. Neither Foreman, Holy or Liston have better resumes and Langford was never champion. Strike one!

Except Holyfield does have the better resume between the two.Holyfield fought in a far deeper,more competitive era of heavyweight boxing and he fought them all.

[r.burgundy]

well, its very rare to find an actual 'bum' level boxer in the top ten, but I understand your point.

like I said, I dont think Louis' reign had the toughest opposition ever. wasnt the strongest era, no. but even if only half of those wins were actually quality ones, its still a damn impressive amount of good wins.

seriously, youll be VERY hard pressed to find another fighter that consistantly beat the best the division had to offer like Joe Louis did.

I dont mean to belittle other fighters in this thread, but look at someone like Joe Calzaghe who similiarly had around 20 title defences...
nearly 4 times as many for Louis.

now, Im the first person to say that numbers mean nothing, and its who you beat(and how) that matters more than anything.
but even then...Louis beat multiple future or former World Champions(at a time where there was only one lineal crown, as opposed to having 4+ times the opportunity to be a world champ like nowadays), and a surprising number of the guys he beat are in the Hall of Fame(although some of them you could argue dont deserve to be there...still quality fighters).

Joe Louis, without a doubt, fought and beat the best guys available to him. I dont think many fighters can truly claim as much. I mean, he literally cleaned out the division, its not like he missed anyone along the way.

wladimir klitscho is doing it right now.he's been stopping top 5 guys left and right for years now and all he gets is hate.its a sick double standard.people need to come to terms with the fact that in the history of heavyweights you would barely have 15 truly great fighters.the criteria for great would be to be able to dominate in any era.

people also need to accept that the heavy division has undergone the most changes because it doesnt have a size limit.so we could take ray robinson per se,and he would still be evenly matched against an ww or mw because the sizes are still 147 and 160 just like when he was fighting.

in comparison,you take louis,put him in with the guys of today and he's at a huge disadvantange.its not just 1 circus freak like canerra or fat guy like gallento to deal with.its damn near the whole division.sure he can outskill some of these guys but im pretty sure if schmelling can put him to sleep then so could alot of other guys.he's been put dowb alot of lighter hitters than fighters of today

[JAB5239]

Except Holyfield does have the better resume between the two.Holyfield fought in a far deeper,more competitive era of heavyweight boxing and he fought them all.

It is arguable who has a better resume between Holy and Louis. But let me humor you and say he does.....who are the other 4 besides Ali? If Louis was really fighting all these so called bums, this should be a very simple question to answer. But as r.burgundy found out it really isn't because of the factors BlackIrish talked about.

[Obama]

People need to put Louis' longevity into context. If Wlad's only loss was to an elite fighter like Schmeling (which many rate among the 20 greatest Heavyweights of all time), and he simply went on to retire undefeated afterwards as undisputed Champion with 58 wins, do you have any idea how many Wlad fans would be on this message board calling him the greatest of all time? And that's with the current crappy Heavyweight landscape. Louis wasn't in the best era, but he damn sure wasn't in the worst or even close to the worst.

[Obama]

As for Holyfield, I rate his level of opposition even over Ali. Problem was he lost too much. Ali and Louis didn't. L's take away from a resume, they can't be ignored.

[JAB5239]

People need to put Louis' longevity into context. If Wlad's only loss was to an elite fighter like Schmeling (which many rate among the 20 greatest Heavyweights of all time), and he simply went on to retire undefeated afterwards as undisputed Champion with 58 wins, do you have any idea how many Wlad fans would be on this message board calling him the greatest of all time? And that's with the current crappy Heavyweight landscape. Louis wasn't in the best era, but he damn sure wasn't in the worst or even close to the worst.

As for Holyfield, I rate his level of opposition even over Ali. Problem was he lost too much. Ali and Louis didn't. L's take away from a resume, they can't be ignored.

Thank you for an excellent post and perspective.

[Steak]

wladimir klitscho is doing it right now.he's been stopping top 5 guys left and right for years now and all he gets is hate.its a sick double standard.people need to come to terms with the fact that in the history of heavyweights you would barely have 15 truly great fighters.the criteria for great would be to be able to dominate in any era.

people also need to accept that the heavy division has undergone the most changes because it doesnt have a size limit.so we could take ray robinson per se,and he would still be evenly matched against an ww or mw because the sizes are still 147 and 160 just like when he was fighting.

in comparison,you take louis,put him in with the guys of today and he's at a huge disadvantange.its not just 1 circus freak like canerra or fat guy like gallento to deal with.its damn near the whole division.sure he can outskill some of these guys but im pretty sure if schmelling can put him to sleep then so could alot of other guys.he's been put dowb alot of lighter hitters than fighters of today

Wladimir has actually only beaten 10 top 10 fighters, and the only top 5 guys he beat so far are Chagaev and Byrd. not that its bad, but Louis is a little ahead.

also, a big problem with Wladimir is that he never will fight the other best fighter in his division(his brother). Louis fought the #1 contender multiple times.

there is a huge myth around this whole 'there are huge guys in todays division' thing. Other than the Klitschko brothers and Valuev(who should have lost to 45+ year old Holyfield), who exactly are these huge guys? In fact, in the top 5 there is a Cruiserweight and a Light Heavyweight.
who are the other guys? Chambers, Povetkin, and Boytsov could all be Cruiserweights if they lost weight. Especially Chambers.

whats funny is that in reality Louis beat the bigger men compared to Wladimir. when I say that I mean top guys, btw

Wlad's best wins compared to Louis'(only in size):
Byrd is smaller than Max Baer
Chagaev is smaller than Buddy Baer
Ibragimov is smaller or same size as Walcott
Chambers is smaller or same size as Schmeling
Peter is as big as Abe Simon
Carnera is bigger than anyone Wladimir beat