By John F. McKenna (McJack): It is fairly typical for boxing fans of any generation to favor the fighters of their own generation. The great Jack Johnson, AKA “Lil Artha’”, AKA “The Galveston Giant” was not only the first African American heavyweight champion, but clearly the best heavyweight of his era.

The same was true of John L. Sullivan. “The Great John L” as Sullivan was referred to was boxing’s first world heavyweight champion, and is also referred to even today as America’s first superstar. Jack Dempsey’s popularity back in the 1920’s surpassed even that of baseball icon Babe Ruth. And so it goes. You will never convince boxing fans that the fighters they idolized and grew up with were not indeed the greatest fighters of all time.

Heavyweights have always been the favorites of boxing fans. That abruptly changed when the best heavyweights in the world started coming from Eastern Europe after the fall of the iron curtain. It was a rude awakening for the boxing fans of America who had dominated boxing for so long when they were exposed to fighters whose names they could not pronounce and whose styles they could not identify with. In addition the new breed of heavyweights were bigger and stronger than what we were used to seeing. And even with their awkward styles they managed to defeat fighters who appeared to be more agile and fluid.

Let’s go back in time to review some of the all time great heavyweight champions. It is easy to build a case for Joe Louis as being the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. As a famous jockey once said when looking at the times the greatest racehorse of all time Secretariat was posting in his time trials, “His statistics jump off the page at you!” The same could be said of Joe Louis. It has been over sixty years since “Bomber Joe” retired and his stats still jump off the page at you when you look at them.

The one thing a truly great fighter is measured by in future generations is his consistency. Consistency over a long period of time is the key to greatness in any weight class. As good as Sonny Liston was he was only able to hold on to his title for a period of 18 months, not long enough to be considered one of the elite heavyweight champions. And during the 18 months Liston held on to the title he defended it only one time against the fighter he took it from, Floyd Patterson.

Joe Louis, by contrast held the heavyweight crown for nearly twelve years, from June 20, 1937 when he KO’d “The Cinderella Man” Jimmy Braddock until he retired for the 1st time on March 1, 1949. He defended his title a record 25 times, knocking out 21 of his challengers.

Both the length of time Louis held the heavyweight title and the number of times he defended it are records not only for the heavyweight division, but for any division in the history of boxing. “The Brown Bomber” also scored five one round KO’s during his title reign, which is also a record. Those records still stand over sixty years after Louis’ retirement and may never be broken.

In 2005 the International Boxing Research Organization (IBRO) selected Joe Louis as the greatest heavyweight champion of all time. Louis is also ranked number one in “The Ring Magazine” list of top 100 punchers of all time.