Word: joes
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...really, as he proclaimed from the earliest days, the greatest? Comparing fighters of different eras is a risky enterprise, flawed by changes in boxing rules, training methods, improved diet and medical care. Then there are those shifting subjectives: the accuracy of recollection and loyalty to generations. One expert favors Joe Louis, another Jack Dempsey, voting for the knockout punch that Ali admittedly never had. Rocky Marciano was inelegant, but he could hit and he never lost a fight...
Ring Announcer Don Dunphy, who has called the blow-by-blow in over 2,000 fights during a 37-year career, insists: "Certainly Ali's the fastest heavyweight champion of all time. Joe Louis had fast hands, but not fast feet. Rocky was a bit of a plodder." Joe Frazier, who ought to know, credits Ali's savvy: "He knows how to psych most of his men out." Veteran Manager Gil Clancy pays homage to the post-exile Ali's distinguishing characteristic: "He can absorb a punch better than any fighter who ever lived." Still, there is a tendency among...
...even Ali could not spend all that. Two divorces, bad investments, taxes, profligate generosity and a large, leeching entourage have made tens of millions vanish, but he has an estimated $2 million in cash and real estate. He has no need to stagger through humiliating defeats, as did Joe Louis, trading on memory and affection in order to survive...
...heavyweight champions have known some of the glory that Ali did-and for the rest of their lives they can take solace from the fact that they once held the most coveted title in boxing. Three of the ex-champs since Joe Louis are dead: Rocky Marciano was killed in a plane crash in 1969, Sonny Liston died of an overdose of drugs in 1970, and in 1975 Ezzard Charles succumbed to the lingering muscular disease that killed baseball's Lou Gehrig. Louis and the other five surviving champions have coped with life without the title in a variety...
...Joe Louis, 63, captured the heavyweight crown in 1937 by knocking out James J. Braddock, then successfully defended his title 25 times, scoring 21 K.O.s. Although Louis made nearly $5 million, ill-advised business ventures, a costly divorce and his penchant for high living led to a financial squeeze. By 1956 he owed $1.25 million in taxes, In 1970 Louis was briefly committed to a psychiatric hospital by his family. The ex-champ eventually went to work as an official greeter for Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Last November Louis had open-heart surgery in Houston, where he is still...