The Top 5 Reasons You Can't Blame Joe Louis for Losing to Max Schmeling in 1936

[butterfly1964]

I'm glad everyone liked this thread.

[Hydro]

most of these you can blame louis for. who else do you blame when a fighter gets overconfident and distracted?

[madsamurai]

schmeling V schmeling

Max was fighting against himself in this fight as much as he was fighting Louis

He had to fight against the knowledge that Louis had murdered guys who had beaten Max - also he was fighting against his instinct to say away from Joes
left hand , he knew he had to come into Joes range to land his counter right hand.

So for me reason number 1 is the only reason - Schmeling had re-invented himself,conquered his fears , formed a brilliant strategy and stuck with it.

compared to what we have in the heavyweight division today - Schmeling is a legend and rightly so - underated power, a shrewd boxing mind and for this fight all heart.

[Biffen]

Did not Schmeling get help from JAck Johnson in this fight. I think I saw a documentery in whitch Bert Sugar sad thad Jack offring hs help to Loius but he did not want it so he got to Schmeling insted. DSo anyone know anything about this?

[StarshipTrooper]

It should be bourn in mind that Louis was really still an inexperienced kid when he fought Schemling the first time. His incredible start encouraged his handlers to push too fast. Schmeling was a bad opponent for Louis at that point. Schemeling was a cagey boxer-puncher with a lot of skill and a lot of experience not to mention an underrated punch. Louis simple did not have the experience yet to deal with what Schmeling brought to the table. Like all young fighters he had some flaws that hadn't yet been ironed out; the biggest of which was his propensity for dropping his left after throwing his jab. This was the perfect opening for Schmeling's counter-right and Max made him pay. In later years Louis would comment that it was Schmeling that taught him to keep his left up. A hard lesson, but give Louis' inexperience at that point it shouldn't have been an unexpected one.

Poet