Breaking down Joe Louis

[McGrain]

http://www.boxing.com/how_to_box_by_..._of_skill.html

“You must be able to move the body easily at all time so that balance will not be disturbed.”

On film, Louis dips as he moves onto Ramage, jabbing and even when he flashes forwards driving his opponent to the ropes for the first time, Louis is not compromised. He facilitates brutal blows with his studied mobility and is within hitting distance again only seconds later. The second time Ramage comes crashing off the ropes, Louis rotates his torso as he punches, the foundations are so solid that he is able to utilize a plane of movement not seen again in the heavyweight division until Mike Tyson, at least not by a killing puncher. Tiny adjustments with the backfoot are enough to transfer his weight around his body to wherever it needs to be for the punches he is using to douse Ramage’s enthusiasm.

[impitpatpuncher]

Nice read, thanks for finding it man.
Joe Louis was awesome.

[McGrain]

Part 2 The Jab & Left Hook:

http://www.boxing.com/how_to_box_by_...left_hook.html

In the build-up to Rocky Marciano’s first confrontation with Ezzard Charles, The Miami Herald cast an eye back to The Rock’s heartbreaking 1951 destruction of Joe Louis. In an article entitled “Louis Jab Hurt Rock, Boxing Bothers Him,” the newspaper recalled the testimony of Arthur Donovan, who refereed some twenty Joe Louis fights in his storied career. Donovan talked “half fearfully” of the Joe Louis jab and his concern that the Bomber would one day catch someone moving in, chin up and that the Champ would “break his neck.”

Everyone knows that Joe Louis is one of the greatest punchers of all time, that the unparalleled mixture of speed, power and accuracy combined to create one of the most devastating offensive machines in history, but his jab is now somewhat forgotten. Whilst YouTube and similar sights bless us with hours of boxing footage and allow a new generation to discover the ruination Louis wrought upon his opposition, these highlight packages often stress power punches and knockouts at the expensive of the techniques that buy these scintillating moments—not least the jab.

Well, Louis did hurt Rocky Marciano with the jab. He hurt everyone he ever fought with the jab. Although, at 76 inches, Joe’s reach is two inches shorter than perennial peer Muhammad Ali and three inches shorter than a modern giant like Vitali Klitschko, I think it rests comfortably amongst some of the best jabs in heavyweight history. This was certainly not in question in his own time, the press labeling it “a piston of a punch,” “a brutal blow,” “Joe’s best punch” and according to the same Miami Herald article that recalled the discomfort it aroused in the era’s most preeminent referee (not to mention Rocky Marciano), “a punch that could rock a man back on his heels.”

And his left hook wasn’t bad either.

[Capaedia]

'Film makes these punches appear extended or glancing, but these are the same punches that James J. Braddock described as a series of “light bulbs exploding in your face.'

That's probably the best thing I've ever heard

[McGrain]

hahahaha yeah Braddock speaks well about the dudes that hit him.

[U_TALKING_2_ME?]

Thanks for that Louis, Hagler and Holyfield are my favorite fighters

[McGrain]

Part III: The Right Hand
http://www.boxing.com/how_to_box_by_...ight_hand.html


The Afro American was in Johnny Paycheck’s dressing room only minutes after his devastating knockout loss to Joe Louis in the second round of their March 1940 heavyweight title fight. Louis had been champion for three years and Johnny was his ninth successful defense. No press ever had access to a Louis knockout victim so soon after the offending punch and the sight made quite an impression.

His legs “still quivering” as his brain continued to try to absorb the catastrophic messages of disaster Louis had inflicted upon it, “still fear-stricken, in a state of wonderment” Paycheck spoke with Art Carter, The Afro’s sports editor, “slowly and softly.”

“God, how that man can hit. I don’t remember anything after the first knockdown.”

The Afro American did not go easy on Paycheck in thanks for this easy access. Under a banner headline naming him “A Pathetic Figure” they went on to describe him as “a pathetic loser.” If Paycheck was pathetic he was no more or less so than the Titanic right after it was ripped in two by the iceberg. There are forces of nature that neither man nor steamship can survive. Paycheck reacted courageously in my opinion, campaigning briefly and redundantly for a rematch.

Perhaps he believed lightning couldn’t strike in the same place twice.

For it was indeed thunder and lightning that laid him low in the shape of two of the most devastatingly effective punches in boxing history, two blows tipped by the same spear; the Joe Louis right hand.

[McGrain]

Part Four: The Uppercut; Bodywork

http://www.boxing.com/how_to_box_by_..._bodywork.html

At the end of the fifth, Louis told Blackburn that his stubborn opponent was “getting soft” and was “ready to go.” Blackburn hesitated then told Louis to keep boxing for one more round. The frustration in Joe’s work in those three minutes is there to see; it is, I believe, his worst round of the fight. He’s a shark that came to fight but is now ready to feed. Blackburn saw the redundancy of holding him back any longer, and in the seventh, Louis came to kill. The weapon of choice, of course, was the uppercut.

By the beginning of that seventh, Joe had already inflicted upon Godoy the wounds, predominantly to his left eye and his lips, that would lead The Afro American to describe him as “the worst battered piece of meat ever to walk from the Yankee Stadium,” easy to write off as hyperbole were it not for The Calgary Herald describing him one week later as “still looking like he had been hit with a meat-clever.”

Louis landed more than a dozen flush uppercuts of the perfected variety in that seventh round and to appreciate their power is to watch Godoy lose touch with his own boxing as the round ticks down. No longer fighting to contain his man he now makes half steps, turning Godoy as he goes, opening doors for one or other of those cleaving punches that cost him so little in terms of balance. The knockdown, which comes right at the end of the round, is a sight to see, as Godoy bobs twice below waist height, a bemused Louis looking on, missing with his first punch, but then straightening Godoy to almost his full height against his will on the end of first a left-handed, and then a right-handed uppercut. This is the Louis solution to the Godoy crouch in a nutshell: punch him underneath his chin until he stands up straight.

[McGrain]

Part 5—On Defense & The Shadow of Jersey Joe Walcott

http://www.boxing.com/how_to_box_by_...oe_walcot.html





Speaking in 1941 of the then absolutely primed version of Joe Louis, Billy Conn’s trainer Johnny Ray said before Louis-Conn I:

“You guys have got it all wrong. You don’t box Joe Louis. You can put all the boxers you like in front of him and he’ll find them. No, you need to fight Joe Louis. You need to fight Louis every minute of every round, you need someone who can take his punches and give him some back. That’s how you beat him.”

The great Conn came within touching distance of doing just that before succumbing to the inevitable. Now Walcott set out to find a combination of the two strategies described in Ray’s informed outburst that would be the past-prime Champion’s undoing. His mission statement was nothing less than the literal perfection of boxing’s defining mission statement, one that will be repeated a thousand times in gyms all across the world this very day in one form or another: hit and don’t be hit. Walcott spent fleeting, desperate moments in the pocket always looking for the exit just before Louis hit his stride, exchanged with him at distance but always trying to force Louis to lead in unfavorable moments, then vanishing in a series of sudden, unpredictable moves that left a fuming Louis resetting his stance over and over again. Louis does not land a single straight right hand of real import in the twenty-six rounds spent in Walcott’s company. Readers of Part Three—The Right Hand will understand the significance of this.

Jersey Joe stretched Louis to the absolute limit on offense but also on defense and in all likelihood it is amongst his worst performances in this regard, but this is a fight I wanted to take a closer look at before this series was concluded —and we’re perilously close to the end now. So I’m breaking one of my own rules and examining a fight of which apparently only highlights have survived—Louis-Walcott I.

[danthepoetman]

Whenever I see those Louis movies, what impresses me the most is how short and compact his punches could be with still devastating effects. Some of the knock out blows are sometimes not much more than 12 to 18 inches. It’s just amazing. I can’t think of having seen that from any other fighter.
Great stuff, McGrain. Thank you very much!