Max Schmeling vs Joe Louis

[VirusTI]

I was thinking about these fights.
And something occurred to me. Max Schmeling was past it in the second one.
After analyzing their records, ages and competition I've come to the conclusion that when they first met, it was a 22 year old Joe louis and a 31 year old Max Schmeling.

That sounds like Prime for prime to me, given that Louis had KOed Primo Carnera and Max Baer in previous fights.
Also given that Mike Tyson still had not lost at age 22, and beat both Spinks and Holmes.

It looks to me like Schmeling is or was the better for the two until he got old.


So what is it, why do people forgo their first fight? On a political their second fight is everything, but it does not mean much on a boxing level.
But, given the pedestal Louis is held on today, their first fight is a Buster Douglas type. Except that would be injustice to Schemling who is a great Heavy.

So what is the reason the first fight is forgotten? Max Schmeling underrated, Joe Louis overrated, their second fight highly overrated, Max was German so that made him evil???

Discuss I'll post in history section too, but no one goes there.

[TheGreatA]

Can't say I agree.

Schmeling was considered past it even coming into the first Louis fight. He proved doubters wrong and came up with what was in my opinion the best performance of his whole career.

Louis was young and did not take the match-up Schmeling very seriously, partly because he had destroyed Max Baer who in turn had destroyed Schmeling. He did not take into account that their styles were entirely different and that Schmeling was more motivated for this fight than for any other fight of his career. Rumour has it that Louis did very little training for this bout.

After the big win over Louis, Schmeling was pretty much considered the best heavyweight in the world but Braddock ducked him to fight Louis instead. Louis promised to give Schmeling a shot in case he were to win the title.

In between Schmeling made easy work of three contenders Harry Thomas, Ben Foord and Steve Dudas.

After being demolished in one round by Louis, Schmeling was to be "fed" to the next great German heavyweight, Adolf Heuser. Schmeling exposed the pretender and KO'd him in the very first round, showing that he could still be a force in the division. After this fight he was drafted into the army and served as a paratrooper. He tried to resume his boxing career after the war but he was far too old by then.

[DeepSleep]

Louis only lost 3 times and all three were to some of the best Heavyweight's of all time. Scmelling lost 10 times, 3 of those were when he was well past his prime so let's drop those, but he still has 7 other losses. Of those losses some was against solid competition (Baer,Sharkey,*****) and some was not. The losses against subpar competition is what really drops his reputation in my opinion and seperates him from some of the other well known Heavyweights.

BTW: Nice Post GreatA

[VirusTI]

But non the less, Joe did lose. It seem very Buster douglas like, but i think we all need to give Schemling his due. Max was a great heavy, would have given top heavies in any era a fight.

[TheGreatA]

But non the less, Joe did lose. It seem very Buster douglas like, but i think we all need to give Schemling his due. Max was a great heavy, would have given top heavies in any era a fight.

I think Schmeling is given his due by most boxing historians. He might be mostly forgotten by the general population but then again that is the case for most old time fighters.

The Klitschko brothers both think of Schmeling as their all-time favorite fighter. He is frequently rated in the top 20-25 greatest heavyweights of all time.

I still think that the first Louis-Schmeling is one of the best performances I've ever seen from any fighter. Unfortunately Schmeling did not always perform as well as he did in that fight.

[VirusTI]

Thanks GreatA

You know alot more than me, but I just wanted to understand the history if better.

[Friedie]

Louis only lost 3 times and all three were to some of the best Heavyweight's of all time. Scmelling lost 10 times, 3 of those were when he was well past his prime so let's drop those, but he still has 7 other losses. Of those losses some was against solid competition (Baer,Sharkey,*****) and some was not. The losses against subpar competition is what really drops his reputation in my opinion and seperates him from some of the other well known Heavyweights.

BTW: Nice Post GreatA

4 of Schmelings defeats were in the early career of Max when he still perforemed as light-heavyweight, 2 more defeats after WWII when Max was way past his prime.

that leaves us 4 defeats in his prime wich were against Steve ***** (Max won the rematch) and 3 Heavyweight Champs: Sharkey (wich was an unfair descision, Schmeling deserved winning their rematch), Max Baer and Joe Louis.

[knn]

After analyzing their records, ages and competition I've come to the conclusion that when they first met, it was a 22 year old Joe louis and a 31 year old Max Schmeling.

Fight #1: 30.72 vs 22.10 years of age
Fight #2: 32.73 vs 24.11 years of age

The biggest age difference was to Paulino Uzcudun (15 years) who was also Louis' oldest opponent.

Schmeling vs Louis were interesting cruiser fights indeed...

[ßringer]

D00D, WTF?!?!

Joe Louis and Max Smelling?

'Dose 2 freekin' bums fought like, what? a thousand years ago?

How old is you anyways!?

Lemme' tell 'ya somethin, pops.....

Guys like Louis and Smelling couldn't last 5 seconds with boxers of today, 'dey was all a bunch of bummy nobodies who traded losses with each other.

Look at Floyd Mayweather.

No losses there.

Floyd >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Louis and Smelling.

HAHAHA!!! lamo pwn!