Fight 2: Joe Frazier vs Mike Tyson-------------------Frazier TKO 13 Tyson
Fight 3: Jack Dempsey vs Jack Johnson------------Johnson UD Dempsey
Fight 4: Rocky Marciano vs George Foreman------Foreman KO6 Marciano
Ali vs. Foreman----------------------------Ali UD Foreman
Johnson vs. Frazier----------------------Johnson UD Frazier
Ali vs. Johnson---------------------Ali MD Johnson
Fight 1: Muhammad Ali vs Joe Louis
Fight 2: Joe Frazier vs Mike Tyson
Fight 3: Jack Dempsey vs Jack Johnson
Fight 4: Rocky Marciano vs George Foreman
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Fight 1: I've probably studied this fight more than any other. ALI is everything that is wrong with Joe Louis. Louis would beat anyone else and most easier than ALI would. But he'd have hell on his hands against ALI. It's just styles.
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ALI wins nearly every round here and possibly runs into a left or solid right in round 13, hitting the canvas. However, Louis likely hits the canvas earlier in the fight.
ALI W 15 UD
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Fight 2: Frazier visits the canvas twice before round 4. Don't mistake this with Foreman. George had more leverage and he fought a washed up Frazier. Tyson shoots his load by round 5, when Joe is getting started.
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Seeing Frazier bully Tyson to the ropes round after round becomes the norm until round 12, with Joe winning most of the rounds, due to Tyson's reduced punch output. Tyson opens up in round 12 but pays a price as Frazier applies more pressure.
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Tyson is hammered into a corner by a series of left hooks. Frazier opens up in round 13 as the referee steps in to stop it. Tyson never visits the canvas but takes a thorough beating for his efforts.
Frazier by TKO in 13.
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Fight 3: Johnson was a master boxer, for his time. Dempsey was very protected during his reign. Give me the raw animal of the pre-title days. He was a cold-blooded racist, rapist, opportunist and a list of other really nasty things. That doesn't bode well for Johnson who survives but wonders what demons possessed that caged animal in the ring with him.
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Even by more modern rules, given the fights at their respective best, I think Dempsey would have been something Johnson just isn't used to dealing with. He would break every possible rule.
Dempsey W 15 SD.
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Fight 4: Due respect to Marciano. Here is where he tends to be just a bit overrated. If Anyone thinks 5'11/188 is enough to beat Foreman, who is the beginning of the generation of Mammoth heavyweights, You're just not being realistic. Heart and will can get you only so far when you're at such a Huge physical disadvantage.
Foreman by KO in 2
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Semi Final: ALI vs Frazier: We saw this three times. Know what's amazing? ALI was prime in None of them and Frazier was Prime in only the first.
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Give me the same Frazier who faced ALI in 71, who was at his best but never the same after that fight. Give me ALI just before the exile, who was mature but still improving.
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Frazier would have been trouble for even the lightning quick Cassius Clay. But I've always believe that both he and Ken Norton benefited from the fact that they faced a post-prime ALI. They never had to deal with the headache that Sonny Liston (who would have destroyed both of them) had to deal with.
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ALI 67 Stops Frazier 71 in 14.
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Semi Final: Dempsey vs Foreman. Dempsey is harder to hit than Marciano but still undersized for Foreman. I know Jess Willard was bigger but he was Nowhere Near as athletic as Foreman.
Foreman by KO in 4
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FINAL: ALI vs FOREMAN: Well, whadda ya know. We've seen this one too. However, again, Foreman primed against ALI in 74, while ALI primed when Foreman was still an amateur.
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None of the rope-a-dope, which would never have worked had Foreman's camp EVER taught him to USE his vast power.
See how easily ALI was able to throw Sonny off his game? Well a mature ALI did the same to Foreman 10 years later. The difference is that ALI would do just as much talk out of the ring but more inside.
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While the elder ALI actually had some fear of Foreman, his younger counterpart was fearless. Clay feared Liston too. ALI 66 would have scoffed at him and at Foreman too with his rather primitive skills. Both would have been much too easy to hit for the bigger, stronger but still just as fast version of ALI.
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It would take bigger guys like Lewis or Klitschko to trouble that version of ALI. He was too fast for Foreman 74. Oddly enough, the better version of ALI would still have taken a bit longer to finish Big George.
ALI by TKO in 10.
Muhammad Ali vs. Jack Johnson in the finals. Ali wins.
Tyson vs Foreman.Foreman wins by 8 rd ko
All in their prime, Ali or foreman would win. Tyson and Marciano are hugely overrated and Lewis or klitschko beat any of them.
You have many great fighters in that list, but even if all of them were in their prime i simply don't think anyone could have beaten the Joe Louis who showed up in the second Schmeling fight.
Great fighters fighting great fighters usually end in decisions, and if one of the fighters makes a stupid mistake there can be a rare tko/ko loss, but that was not the case in Schmeling vs Louis 2.
Louis simply made a former undisputed heavyweight champion who was still arguably in his prime look like an amateur. Schmeling made no mistake besides fighting a man with conviction & arguably the most pressure in boxing HISTORY on his shoulders.
And it's easy for those who don't know boxing history to dismiss Schmeling but the truth is he was 1 of the most technically sound heavyweights ever. Watch his fight with Sharkey to see his ring generalship, or his fight with 6'7'' giant Jose Santa to see how Schmeling swarmed big bums.
Yet Louis made Schmeling look bad in a fight for the world title.
And while some of the guys on your list were tougher, faster or harder punchers than Schmeling, the undeniable truth is that none of them, except for Johnson, had better defense than Schmeling, including Ali who got hit WAY too much.
And statistics do not lie. NO ONE in your list or in boxing history had as many title defenses [as undisputed], or was as accurate a puncher, as Joe Louis.
Compubox has Joe Louis as being a bit more accurate a puncher than Floyd Mayweather in welterweight. The truly scary thing is that in his division, heavyweight, Joe Louis was considered a powerpuncher.
Marciano KO's them all, no problem.
Okay, here's the deal. I'm gonna show you a bracket I put together with 8 of the best heavyweights of all time and all you have to do is say who you think would've won and why. 10 points to the best answer! All fighters are presumed to be in their prime and looking as good as they did in the best fight of their actual career.
Quarter Final Round
Fight 1: Muhammad Ali vs Joe Louis
Fight 2: Joe Frazier vs Mike Tyson
Fight 3: Jack Dempsey vs Jack Johnson
Fight 4: Rocky Marciano vs George Foreman
The winners of fights 1&2 go on to fight each other as well as the winners of fights 3&4 in the semi finals. The winners of those two fights fight in the finale. The deeper the analysis and more thorough, the better!
