Are We Sure Ali Was Better Than Louis?

[joseph5620]

I've always said Joe Louis was a better fighter and boxer.



Okay bro, stop right there. All you said is either opinion or just plain ****ing WRONG. Ali had almost no real left hook. His combinations were nowhere near as solid or fluid as Louis' nor was his footwork any better. Ali's foot speed was his saving grace more than his tactical movement. Amazing footwork, but technically it did have its faults. He did maximize his strengths better than Louis and therefore made his weaknesses seem much less than what they were. Joe Louis is a textbook on boxing. He is as close to perfection of boxing as we can get.

Resume is whatever. It's all opinion. Impact on the sport? Again, opinion. Joe Louis' impact as tremendous. The guys he beat, the streak, the respect he gained, all ridiculous feats. As for impact on society? We're talking two entirely different era's.

Your claim that Ali had no left hook clearly shows you don't know what you're talking about. At the very least watch the last round of the Bonavena fight and learn something.

Since you're so technically astute, explain in detail how Ali's footwork was "flawed."

Resume is not "whatever." Ali beat better fighters than Louis and that's not debatable or just based on opinion.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

Your claim that Ali had no left hook clearly shows you don't know what you're talking about. At the very least watch the last round of the Bonavena fight and learn something.

Since you're so technically astute, explain in detail how Ali's footwork was "flawed."

Resume is not "whatever." Ali beat better fighters than Louis and that's not debatable or just based on opinion.

Damn,, Joseph just owned that guy

[soul_survivor]

Your claim that Ali had no left hook clearly shows you don't know what you're talking about. At the very least watch the last round of the Bonavena fight and learn something.

Since you're so technically astute, explain in detail how Ali's footwork was "flawed."

Resume is not "whatever." Ali beat better fighters than Louis and that's not debatable or just based on opinion.

Spot on, forgot to reply to his nonsensical "Ali had no left hook" LOL the guy could throw triple left hooks and used them to great advantage against a guy as good as Frazier, they say don't hook with a hooker, Ali did it 3 times and won twice.

[soul_survivor]

Damn,, Joseph just owned that guy

How did he own me? LOL are you just instigating ?

[Scott9945]

How did he own me? LOL are you just instigating ?

You weren't the person he was talking about.

[Sugar Adam Ali]

How did he own me? LOL are you just instigating ?

Wasnt talking about you, but the guy that said Ali's skills and resume, and no left hook,,
Joseph shut him down hard

[joseph5620]

Spot on, forgot to reply to his nonsensical "Ali had no left hook" LOL the guy could throw triple left hooks and used them to great advantage against a guy as good as Frazier, they say don't hook with a hooker, Ali did it 3 times and won twice.

He could have just looked at your GIf where Ali throws a double left hook.

It's irritating when clueless people like that make completely false statements with no knowledge of what they're talking about.

[phallus]

I only rate Ali a smidge ahead for three reasons.

1) The Farr, Conn and Walcott fights very much demonstrate Louis's technical trouble with movers. Ali was bigger, faster and more elusive than all three.....plus for me, his amazing punch resistance rules out Louis's tendency to score knockouts when behind on points.

2) Chappie Blackburn himself felt that Johnson would have beaten Louis. I rate his opinion. If Johnson could beat Louis, then I think Ali would be more emphatic, despite the stylistic differences.

3) I don't see any of the guys who Louis beat actually beating Ali. But I do have my doubts as to how well Louis might have coped with Liston or Foreman.

No doubt, the fight would be terrific......and both deserve respective #1 and #2 spots.

Of all the guys that Louis beat, Jersey Joe Walcott at his best would surely give even prime Ali a very tough evenings work.

i have louis at 1#, he fought the best available in his time, just like tyson when the 80's were a comparatively weak division. the 60's-70's in boxing probably had the deepest talent level ever. ali has a very unorthodox style that relies on his athletic gifts, louis was purely based on technical mastery. i have all joe louis' fights on film and i've watched them all, against the elite fighters of his time, in terms of pure skill he was on another level, easily the greatest boxer-puncher i've ever seen. some of my favorite of his fights are ones where louis struggled to get the win in the first fight, and then brutally knocked the same guy out in the rematch like he did to arturo godoy. even though louis struggled against conn, he knocked him out quicker in the 2nd fight

i agree about jack johnson, ali would give louis problems for some of the same reasons. in a fight with ali, louis is the smaller, quicker man in terms of combination speed. louis wasn't a one punch knockout finisher, he'd take guys out with suprisingly fast combinations. louis ****ed up max baer, whose style was a less skilled version of foreman's and they were very similar in terms of size and strength. i think louis would outbox liston, the worst possible match i see for joe is frazier, that swarming style would knock louis out.

walcott -ali would be a very entertaining fight to watch.

[billeau2]

He could have just looked at your GIf where Ali throws a double left hook.

It's irritating when clueless people like that make completely false statements with no knowledge of what they're talking about.

Actually its been my experience that clueless people do that a lot and frankly? I don't even like the ones that make partially false statements!

[StarshipTrooper]

Since you're so technically astute, explain in detail how Ali's footwork was "flawed."

I come from the school of "there's no right or wrong, there's only what works for you" but I know that the purists look at Ali as doing "everything wrong". Maybe from a textbook standpoint that's true but his reflexes and speed were so unworldly that it didn't matter. To my thinking, if Ali had fought "textbook" he wouldn't have been as good as was because he wouldn't have been taking advantage of his biggest strengths and all the possibilities those strengths created.

A purist looks at Ali's footwork and says "flawed".....and it WAS from a textbook standard. He'd get his legs tangled up when moving to the left for example. It's just that the purists don't understand that the textbook didn't apply to Ali.