I've always felt there were some definite similarities. I think Conn's style had a touch more rawness to it & he was more ready/willing to mix it up, both to his credit & detriment. This content is protected This content is protected
There's slim to none chance Bivol beats him indeed, Conn is a birth child of Marvin Johnson and John Conteh.
Conn looks as good as Bivol against Louis but really nowhere else. The snatches of Conn we have on film have always underwhelmed me outside of that single fight. Of course, it's hardly a suite of film and he has the resume to back the Louis footage. It's not really a fair or sensible comparison (although I understand wanting to ask the question) because for Bivol there are hundreds of rounds in 4k/slow motion/deeply analysed for data. For Conn there is black and white footage of a handful of fights. If I had to give an answer I suppose I would claim that if you were to take the best ten minutes of Bivol footage against Beterbiev and the best ten minutes of footage of Conn against Louis, Conn would look even more well-rounded than Bivol. But I don't really think that's a fair way to compare fighters. I do think that Bivol looks better on film than Conn does against Melio. I've always felt underwhelmed by Conn in the Melio film.
Well and I don’t want to be the “old timers >” guy in every match up, but boxing in Conn’s day was pretty much as good as it got he had a near perfect environment for building fighters. BILLY CONN does everything, everything better than Bivol he’d treat DB like a cat pawing around with a mouse BIVOL is an Olympian who makes cash in the pros, Conn laughed at Gold watches and was a PRO to his marrow.
The source is my eyes and it looks obvious, Bivol would be slapped around by Bivins, Charles, Conn and Moore NO DOUBT.
And you think 10-15 minutes of footage total is enough to say for sure Conn was better then Bivol? Unless you have some footage hidden away in that case I and most of the people here would love to see it!
To actually answer the thread and not just poke fun at old timers; I would say Bivol is much better fighting on the outside much better jab, much better footwork, much better at keeping distance etc. What Conn is better at I would say is fighting on the inside he is much more vicious and was even giving Louis trouble there (before getting caught and knocked out) and much better at typing up and using the clinch which Bivol admittedly is not very good at. Also in terms of defense Conn tends to use footwork and head movement to avoid punches while Bivol uses distance control and his high guard to do that so hard to say what's better I think that's up to personal taste.