Bob Pastor eliminated Lem Franklin from contention for a crack at Louis

I think this post was eminently predictable.

 

I would suggest that this result puts Franklin in proper perspective vis a vis his being ducked by Louis.Thanks to all who put up the info.

 

Franklin fought Musto and Simon after Louis had already stopped them. 4 months later he was KO'd by Pastor. He wasn't exactly a Harry Wills looming around the title picture for a decade. He had one great year in 1941, a year when Louis had already defended his title against 7 men, and that was it.

 

Musto and Simon I intended to say. Especially in the case of Simon who had received a monumental beating and was only given another title shot later because he was willing to fight for free in a charity bout. Taking them out was impressive but let's not forget that Louis had already done a job on them earlier and few boxers were ever the same after a bout with Louis.

 

This was an era of spoilers.

Whenever a contender apeared to be getting a bit of momentum behind them, and it started to look like they might be able to pose a serious challenge to Louis, somebody upset them.

 

Pastor needed to hit the canvas sometimes to get going:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DH5KYZ94V8w[/ame]


He was down 6 times against Turkey Thompson and twice against Bivins in the first round and went onto win against both. He did not repeat the feat here though.

 

Yeah, no kidding. Simon, Sheppard, Musto, Reddish... gah it was like hurdling.

 

Good question MC...First of all I thought Burley came from Bessemer Pa.?
That is where he was born ?
On a P4p basis Burley ranks with anyone not named Harry Greb...But the Billy Conn at his middleweight peak who incidentally never fought one amateur bout, beat such top fighters as Teddy Yarosz, Young Corbett2,
Solly Krieger, Fred Apostoli, Babe Risko, Vince Dundee, Oscar Rankin etc,all
of these guys Conn beat when he was 18-20 years old...Billy had a "brave"
manager johnny Ray who was once a stablemate of Harry Greb, and literally threw young Billy to the wolves to sink or swim...And Billy Conn swam...
Then as a LH Conn beat Gus Dorazio, Gus Lesnevich, Melio Bettina the
tough awkward southpaw who I once saw fight jimmy Bivins to a draw...,
Conn then beat a tough young left-hooker Lee Savold and then kod the
terrific boxer Bob Pastor,and the Finn Gunnar Barlund a tough HW.
Then on June 18, 1941 Billy Conn almost beat the immortal Joe Louis
weighing but 169 pounds for that bout...This Billy Conn I rank with Gene Tunney and Ezzard Charles as the best LHs ever...
So I rank Conn over Burley cause Billy was BORN in Pittsburgh...
P.S. My dad saw Charley Burley ko a guy in NY in 1942...Burley was so good that he was never invited back to New York...My dad was very impressed...Cheers...

 

Yeah, Conn's victories over Teddy Yarosz, as close as they were, considering how green he was, were pretty damn impressive. His manager was almost as crazy as Charles's. That ultimately worked more then well for Conn though. There's no way he could have did as well as he did against Louis if he didn't have balls.