Why is Tunney a great heavyweight?

[Rusty Tromboni]

True true...You took all the midol Rusty, its no wonder none is left, you swept in like the toilet paper hoarders and here I am with just the regular stuff.

Being that much of my knowledge of NYC has been informed by Seinfeld, you were the George Constanza of your group in High School, am I right?
Assuming you had friends, of course.

[billeau2]

Being that much of my knowledge of NYC has been informed by Seinfeld, you were the George Constanza of your group in High School, am I right?
Assuming you had friends, of course.

oh dear, being accused of being a Beta among Beta's! ouch. Yeah Rusty that is me. Alex and I, we watch fried green tomatoes and have a good cry while the Alphas do their primal screams. Damn your good!!

Lol Hardly but if it makes you feel good, dream it Trombone.

[Tom Cruise]

Because Charles never fought anyone like Dempsey. Especially not a heavyweight like him.

Ok fine then.

If Dempsey fought Joe Frazier he would definitely put him 100% on the defensive. Frazier never fought like that, but he never fought anyone like Dempsey so...

You see why this doesn’t make sense?

Picking Dempsey is fine. Picking Dempsey to put Charles in survival mode? Nah not happening. We have plenty of evidence from Charles career that that isn’t how he fought, even when losing, even past prime fighting a mauling destroyer like Marciano (even if you think Dempsey is better).

[Tom Cruise]

Now it's a FLASH knockdown?

Well, werent they?

Other than? So you admit fighters as limited as those men troubled him...

So how about an old Schmeling, who stopped him.

Farr, who took him the distance.

Godoy, who almost beat him.

I don't want to overly criticize Louis, that's not the point. The point is to illustrate other times where Joe really DID struggle with an opponent. Conn was by far the greatest fighter he fought, and any trouble he experienced was simply owed to that. There was nothing about Joe's performance that looked subpar. NOT perfectly dominant, but certainly not subpar.

You are helping my point to be honest. Taking rounds off Louis was not a special achievement. It happened. Only a few lasted the distance for those won rounds to count for anything. Godoy, Walcott did in their first fights with Joe, Farr did, Conn did not. He was knocked out. Again Im not trying to take away from Conn, Ive been praising him for years to people who only know him as a Louis opponent, but lets not overrate what he did either and act like it was unachievable for someone like Charles, the greatest LHW of all time, and HW champion, to do the same thing.

Oh wow, how about that. A fighter saying something to cover his ass... something - if not completely disproved by other available facts - completely uncorroborated.

Again, look at the fight, it don't add up. I can tell you from spending years cutting weight, a guy that big shouldn't struggle to shed 5 pounds - even an hour before the fight. Joe was in top form. Billy just didn't fold like he expected, and presented problems he was completely unprepared for.

Very few Light Heavyweights could do what Billy did that night, certainly not Ezzard Charles.

Well, you said that there was no rumour of him trying to cut weight, im saying that its there from his own mouth.

Louis faded badly after 5/6 rounds (iirc), this is clear. This is why I find it believable that he had ****ed up his prep for the fight. Cutting 5lbs may be easier for a big man, but for someone like Louis who has never had to cut weight, who would be fighting someone who would be in top form, it would make a difference. Also possible imo, bearing in mind that he took Conn that lightly, is that he didnt push himself all that hard in camp thinking it would be a quick KO.

Thats exactly what it looks like to me on film. A fighter who thought it would be a quick KO, being taken to deep waters when he wasnt prepared to swim, but eventually finding the punches he needed to end the fight.

[Tom Cruise]

So there's no footage pf Ezzard Charles at light heavy?

very little, grainy footage. The good footage we have is of him as a HW.

[Tom Cruise]

They are!?

I guess that makes John Mugabi and Michael Moorer great, too.

Paulie Spadafora (I know people who've had run ins with him, he was a punk) must be top 50 ATG, too.

Yep, all those guys had exactly the same chances in boxing as guys like Bivins or Marshall

Not trying to be a ****, but I already addressed this.

Clearly Loughran wasn't being talked about in the same breath as Joe Louis, or even being compared to Tunney and Dempsey.

But his record is a lot better than the decisions rendered. And to simply dismiss his wins as coming against fighters not at their best, is pretty unfair because according to any fan ever, his best fighter never lost when at his best.

It's not hard to see that is a level of opponent and a schedule far better than Charles'. The fact that it's not perfect is obvious because no one ranks Loughran as a top-tier Heavyweight (like they do Gene, or Patterson, or even Ingo, Sharkey and Bowe). While he wasn't the force in the division those men were, he is clearly more accomplished, long-lasting and better than Charles; even though it's Charles' best weight and not his.

The fact you think HW was Charles best weight when he is almost universally praised as the GOAT LHW is pretty funny. He fought HWs weighing in at LHW because he was that good, and he couldnt get the fights he needed at LHW due to politics, only moving up properly later on.

Says the guy who named Joe Baksi and Elmer Ray.

Ray Imp and those of his ilk perfectly illustrate how much more difficult the 30's were. Their careers fell off before ever getting a Pat Valentino-title shot.




Uh.. are you arging for Charles, or against him?

Those guys would've been riding freight cars in Loughran's era.

When Loughran was at HW, a ho hum LHW contender won the HW title, so forgive me if I think Charles may have had some success

[Tom Cruise]

So why'd he lose to Marciano and wait until Louis was half dead before fighting him?

Neither of those guys had Dempsey's offense.

If you look at the conversation, Im not saying you have to pick Charles to beat Dempsey, im saying there isnt any evidence in Charles career that he would be put on the defensive to the point he wouldnt try to win, like what happened to Gibbons.

Marciano was plenty good enough to show that even late in his career, fighting a mauling heavy handed killer like Rocky, he still fought his arse off and wasnt put into his shell.

[Tom Cruise]

I never aid that. Maybe Billeau did?



Conn was only 23.

Where were Louis, Charles, Marciano, Moore and Walcott at 23? How about Liston? Ali? Holmes? If you want to keep it to Light Heavyweights, Foster was still getting KO'd at 26. Qawi wasn't even a professional at 23. Spinks was 29, and had 10 title defenses, before moving up to beat a FADED Larry Holmes.

And this is Boxing, where fighters are rushed along. When little Modric broke the Messi-Ronaldo monopoly on the Ballon D'Or he was 33! An age when men aren't supposed to still be playing Soccer. You can't play in the NFL without completing college. And Brees, Brady, Rogers - these are all elite QB's now hovering around 40. Some Baseball Pitchers don't really hit their stride until deep in their 30's. Just because a lot of Boxers burn out before legally old enough to rent a car doesn't mean that is how it HAS to happen or is supposed to happen.

Conn clearly had a lot of filling out to do. Although he was usually fighting under the Light Heavyweight limit, he was KO'ing Heavyweights in his build up to the Louis fight. There's a big jump in the performance against Louis from what we saw against Apostoli.

Louis won. Emphatically. No one is dis*****g that. But watching Louis at his best look very human is a remarkable thing. Especially when you're much smaller and not at your best. Charles wouldn't have fared much better than Braddock, if substituted for Conn. Put Conn in there, instead of Charles, and he scores that KO he was after in '41. He certainly doesn't run around with his tail between his legs.

That is really the crux of it. You all but explicitly admit Conn is clearly better than Charles, but try to create an angle for Charles based on his flopping-around there at Heavyweight for such an extended period of time.

I don't deny that the Conn we saw was a true Light Heavyweight, and Charles, at his best, a true Heavyweight. I don't deny that Charles had a longer tenure. But me running further than Usain Bolt doesn't make me FASTER than Usain Bolt, no matter how far I run. Like I asked, are Holyfield, Lewis and Wlad better than Foreman of the 70's? Not according to any Top 10 List I've seen.

I understand what you are saying, we likely didnt see the best of Conn. I get that. But its pure conjecture to say Louis didnt fight Conn at his best, when he literally fought Conn at the best he ever was in the ring. Conn's size is a legit argument, the stage he was in his career, is not.

If we are talking Conn the actual historical fighter, then we can only look at the guy who actually fought in the ring, we cant just make up the fighter he might have been had he not had to stop for the war.

[ShoulderRoll]

Ok fine then.

If Dempsey fought Joe Frazier he would definitely put him 100% on the defensive. Frazier never fought like that, but he never fought anyone like Dempsey so...

You see why this doesn’t make sense?

Picking Dempsey is fine. Picking Dempsey to put Charles in survival mode? Nah not happening. We have plenty of evidence from Charles career that that isn’t how he fought, even when losing, even past prime fighting a mauling destroyer like Marciano (even if you think Dempsey is better).

It's all just opinion in the end. There is no right or wrong answer.

I think Dempsey would absolutely put any light heavyweight on the defensive, except for maybe Harry Greb. And if they don't go on the defensive he would put a hurting on them.

[billeau2]

It's all just opinion in the end. There is no right or wrong answer.

I think Dempsey would absolutely put any light heavyweight on the defensive, except for maybe Harry Greb. And if they don't go on the defensive he would put a hurting on them.

Its funny about Dempsey. If you took all the boxing prophets, the trainers, the analysts...and saw which fighter was considered unparalleled as a heavy weight, I suspect Dempsey would be the winner. I say this because many of these guys thought Dempsey better than Louis when Louis was beating everyone.

Yet there are those now who say his career was built on marketing and looking like he wanted to fight guys while finding a way out...

How could these two camps be so polarized?