Ranking the Great Heavyweights BY SKILL

[The Old LefHook]

At least two different metrics can be applied to the phrase "skill as a boxer." It's all in what you measure and how you measure it.

1 The boxer who is so skilled at a few aspects of boxing that no one can overcome him. On a scale of speed from 1 to 10, he gets a 13, for example.

2 The boxer whose skill set is so varied that he has an answer for everyone, and no one can overcome him.

Before we can answer, we have to choose which question we are going to answer. Do we regard one of these types as "more highly," skilled than the other?

Ali and Mayweather proved it can be done both ways. I love it in mathematics when one question can be entirely reduced to a simpler one to grasp. Who was more skilled, Clay or Mayweather? If you can answer that question clearly, you can answer any question about skill set vs skill set for any weights involved.

[QueensburyRules]

At least two different metrics can be applied to the phrase "skill as a boxer." It's all in what you measure and how you measure it.

1 The boxer who is so skilled at a few aspects of boxing that no one can overcome him. On a scale of speed from 1 to 10, he gets a 13, for example.

2 The boxer whose skill set is so varied that he has an answer for everyone, and no one can overcome him.

Before we can answer, we have to choose which question we are going to answer. Do we regard one of these types as "more highly," skilled than the other?

Ali and Mayweather proved it can be done both ways. I love it in mathematics when one question can be entirely reduced to a simpler one to grasp. Who was more skilled, Clay or Mayweather? If you can answer that question clearly, you can answer any question about skill set vs skill set for any weights involved.

- -Simples.

Tue50-0 better skills, and Ali greater talent.

[ShoulderRoll]

- -Jack Dempsey is reputed to have KOed JJ in Saskatoon in a private fight for rich miners in 1921 after he was released from prison.

Dempsey confirmed it before he died but refused to talk about it, perhaps a gentlemens agreement.

Do you have a source for Dempsey confirming it?

There are a lot of rumors thrown around in boxing. That's why I always like to get documented evidence before believing any of them.

[QueensburyRules]

Do you have a source for Dempsey confirming it?

There are a lot of rumors thrown around in boxing. That's why I always like to get documented evidence before believing any of them.

- -In fight beat mag, a now defunct rag, a big splashy article.

It was private, not public financed by the wagers of the rich gold miners of that era. Dempsey confirmed but otherwise refused to talk about and we have only that brief conversation as proof, but if you follow their timelines, JJ very active in prison released in 21 hungry for Dempsey, calling him out and with the fight supposed to have been agreed to twice but fell out much like the wills fight did.

And both had boxed exhibitions in Canada, and both their schedules appear to be open during the supposed date of the fight.

Remember, When JJ pestered Jeffries who was still champ at his favorite bar, jeff was said to have slapped down a couple thousand $ of gold on the bar to invite JJ into the locked basement for a winner take all freestyle knuckler.

Probably more $ than JJ made in his career then, but he refused then, but now had gotten used to the high life and wanted it back. He never regained it and harassed Louis so much that Blackburn had to kick him out of the Louis camp so he could properly train.

[Richard]

Joe Louis is the best heavyweight fighter to ever put on gloves.

Argue if you want

Over Muhammad Alli?

[QueensburyRules]

Over Muhammad Alli?

- -Louis easily over Ali. Time to study up kid.

[Richard]

- -Louis easily over Ali. Time to study up kid.

OK will do 😉

[The Old LefHook]

I believe Louis had one of the lightest ledgers ever for hard competition. And how was his ring generalship? Quite clever was he?

Those skills fans love to blab about and exaggerate--do not have to be from the traditional medicine bag of boxing to be counted as skills, methinks at last.

If a boxer is doing what works, and he keeps winning, that is skill and the proof of it, no? If you have a way to beat most traditional boxers and hardly get hit you would be ****** to eschew that in your search for a more traditional approach to victory.

Later in the career when the reflexes have slowed and the natural athletic grace diminishes, that is when immensely gifted fighters could use a little tradition in their medicine bags, but usually find they do not have it, or enough of it. This is what happened to Clay. But it did not happen to Mayweather because his medicine bag was full of traditional skills.

Louis kept on winning, but who in the Moslem was he beating in order to keep winning? Conn had him plain beat but gave the title back on pure, unnecessary bravado.

Give him more runners to fight and Louis's early record would be littered with simple losses. Louis was helpless against Conn until Conn got ******.

That is why I do not rate Louis as highly as many others do. Louis with his stone feet would look a complete fool in against Cassius Clay, when you consider how helpless he was against little Conn. I admit the skills of Louis are practiced on a high level, as far as they go, that is. And I have heard that he actually had some moveable legs on him early on, but I have seen no evidence of this, only heard the vacuous claims left dangling with no visible support.

The skills Louis had he practiced to a high level. He needed a few more to actually be the fighter people consider him

[billeau2]

I believe Louis had one of the lightest ledgers ever for hard competition. And how was his ring generalship? Quite clever was he?

Those skills fans love to blab about and exaggerate--do not have to be from the traditional medicine bag of boxing to be counted as skills, methinks at last.

If a boxer is doing what works, and he keeps winning, that is skill and the proof of it, no? If you have a way to beat most traditional boxers and hardly get hit you would be ****** to eschew that in your search for a more traditional approach to victory.

Later in the career when the reflexes have slowed and the natural athletic grace diminishes, that is when immensely gifted fighters could use a little tradition in their medicine bags, but usually find they do not have it, or enough of it. This is what happened to Clay. But it did not happen to Mayweather because his medicine bag was full of traditional skills.

Louis kept on winning, but who in the Moslem was he beating in order to keep winning? Conn had him plain beat but gave the title back on pure, unnecessary bravado.

Give him more runners to fight and Louis's early record would be littered with simple losses. Louis was helpless against Conn until Conn got ******.

That is why I do not rate Louis as highly as many others do. Louis with his stone feet would look a complete fool in against Cassius Clay, when you consider how helpless he was against little Conn. I admit the skills of Louis are practiced on a high level, as far as they go, that is. And I have heard that he actually had some moveable legs on him early on, but I have seen no evidence of this, only heard the vacuous claims left dangling with no visible support.

The skills Louis had he practiced to a high level. He needed a few more to actually be the fighter people consider him

Well Louis was a puncher and a stalker. And one way to look at things is when fighter has a 15 round fight, he has exactly that amount of time to work. A good puncher knows he will get a certain amount of shots... Per round, per fight, etc.

Lefty when we look at football we had Bill Walsh... a genius, a man who developed a sophisticated system for running an offense, that brought a new era of precision to the game... Not Joe Louis like though. But what about Bill Parcels? A man from the Vince Lombardi school. K.I.S.S KEEP IT SIMPLE ******. Parcel's idea of football was not the elegant game where men ran patterns practiced according to a grand design where the quarter back had more options than a Day Trader on Monday...

Parcels was boring and wanted to control just one thing....The clock. And to that end Parcels figured out a way to make sure the other team got that football for only a little bit, and that when he had that football it was always about holding on to it for as long as he could...He designed plays, he designed every aspect to fit that mode...Not pretty at all... But effective indeed.

Back to Boxing. Punchers are all about the numbers. It does not matter that Wilder took until the last round to uncork on McFury!!! Wilder's understanding was always that he would get 10 shots at Fury in a 12 round fight. If those shots came in 6 rounds, or 12 was inconclusive. And that was Louis. He knew that he would get his opportunity in 15 rounds and Conn would have to take that shot.

[QueensburyRules]

- -Tue 50-0 medicine bag was filled with the MGM venue, Vegas commish, USADA, TUEs, and refs and judges of his selection.

Not traditional boxing skills that Louis had in overflowing abundance.

And NO! In Joes day a runner like Clay woulda been run outta the game. Fighters tailored their styles to attract fight fans, not coifed and perfumed metromen