Billy Conn quotes on Joe Louis I

"I'm going to box him. I'll feint with my left, for every time I've seen Joe a left makes him step back and blink his eyes before he can get set again...if I can hit him I think I can knock him out. Anyway, he marks up easy. Didn't he get a bad eye from Abe Simon? And the guys who hit him - Galento and Braddock - showed he knocks down pretty easy. Trouble is, most of the guys he fought were scared stiff. They thought just because it was Louis who hit them, they had to go down. If that guy Simon could get up to the thirteenth round, I'm a cinch."

"Maybe it sounds crazy to you, but I'm a few days away from the greatest dream i've ever known. I mean the chance to meet Joe Louis. I've been dreaming of this chance ever since I was a middleweight and whatever happens I'm ready for it. I know it may sound ****eyed, but i've got the answer. In the first place I'm moving up and Louis is moving back. In the second place I know I can outspeed and outbox, I believe I can outthink him. I know this too. I can take a harder punch than you fellows think I can take. And I can also punch harder. I may not knock Louis's brains out but when I tag him he'll know it."

"Joe doesn't like the things i've been saying about him? What am I supposed to do, ask the great Joe Louis for permission to talk? My answer to Joe is "nuts". Say, you don't suppose the Brown Bomber could be getting cold feet and start to crack up already, do you?"

"He can't think under pressure and he knows it. He showed this every time he met a man who wasn't a rulebook fighter. Schmeling started hitting him with right hands in the second round of their first fight, and kept hitting hi with those sucker punches until Louis was out. In twelve rounds Louis lacked the savvy to put his left hand up and block those punches."

"I got him." - To his corner, after the eighth.

"You're in a fight tonight, Joe." - To Joe Louis at the beginning of the ninth.

"I'm going to knock that sonofa***** out." - To his corner at the end of the twelfth.

"I let you down. I let you all down." To his corner after the knockout loss.

"I'll bet this is the first time a fella ever lost a fight because he had too much guts. After the twelfth, I thought I had him and I simply couldn't do anything else but go out after him. Then it happened...what's the sense in being Irish if you can't be dumb? I have no alibis. He beat me. He's a great fighter."

"All they say about his hitting is true. His punches feel like a kick mule, and they really hurt when they land."

"Hello mother. I hope you're alright. I'm okay." Into the radio mic after the fight.




The chat Billy and Joe had it at the signing for the fight:

"Hello Joe, how are you?"
"Hello Billy, how do you feel? You look like you're gaining weight?"
"I am Joe, weigh about 180. I saw your pictures the other day of the Baer fight."
"You did? You training at Pompton?"
"Yes."
"You don't trian much in the country, do you?"
"No, not very often, I always trained at Pioneer for my fights around New York."
"Pompton is okay. Everything is together."
"I hear you got quite the farm."
"Yes. Nice place."

 

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