Should Joe Louis Have Really Struggled With Conn?

Why not?

 

not just a Champ, but any fighter who has had a long career times dozens & dozens of fights, especially among the Top, of course a fighter could have a flat performance and/or off night. I think Conn's quick movement & stylish boxing also added to it... But Louis probable should have had an easier time of it.

Kudos to Billy 'the Kid' Conn though.

 

There was a song that came out at the time, trying to drum up stupid race sentiments for the match to make it as big as Conklin VS Roper. It went something like this:

(♩) Irish Billy Conn is so stylish,
it makes non-Irish Joe becomes childish. (♩)

(♩) Conn eats his potatoes with whitefish,
and he drinks his whiskey, grooving to Billie Eilish. (♩)

(♩) He's got a nine inch nail in each of his Irish eyelids,
So slim, so shady, a punching palm tree, with feet only a wee dryish,
To big, bronze Joezy, he is a bit smallish
but he'll eat HIS taters like a stylist
Because he's fighting and he's Irish! (♩)

(♩) Potato-doo-riddy-doo! (♩)

When asked later about this ditty, which was sung by Bing Crosby, no less, and rapped by singer Amy Lee, of Evanescence, in the part about the eyelids, oddly, Conn said he was a Buddhist and abhorred the racialized sentiments of the lyrics but was also puzzled because he was not even that Irish and he didn't know who Billie Eilish was and considered whitefish more of a Jewish thing. He didn't understand the reference to nails in his eyelids, but he respected Louis and planned to dine with him when they met Muhammad Ali in the future, whoever that was. To answer your question, yes, China's economy is a house of cards, based solely on them being too smart for their own good.

 

I don't know about that. Sure, both lost something being away that long, but Louis was still the best HW in the world after and Conn was several years younger, so no real reason to believe he lost more.

A bit hard to know in his case, though, since he did very little after that fight.

 

Yes. For once Tyson would be against someone with faster hands, and Conn wasn't easy to hit square. Tyson also wasn't a great infighter, which is another thing that would make fighting Conn tough, since like he did against Louis he would stay in close against Tyson. Conn was also a really dirty fighter. I've seen footage of most of Conn's heavyweight fights and he was very good at sneaking in low blows with his combinations, which in my opinion made him very dangerous at heavyweight.

Even the Louis management team was paranoid about Conn's sneaky low blows and put in a clause that if Conn was caught deliberately using low blows that he would forfeit his purse, so the Louis-Conn fight was Conn fighting a very clean fight, since without the clause the Louis-Conn fight might have been a repeat of Conn's fights with Barlund and Pastor where Conn took full advantage of sneaking in low blows throughout the entire fight.

As for Spinks in top form he was an amazing fighter and I think he would've also given Tyson a tough fight, but in 1988, he was far from his best. Going into the Tyson fight he was inactive, both his legs were shot, and he had no hunger to fight, since he barely even trained for the fight. Spinks basically showed up for a career high payday and immediately retired.

 

How rare is it that we even minorly disagree hahaha. It must be a full moon.

Conn was so disappointed in his effort he retired. His performance won the AP's flop of the year award. He came back 2 1/2 years later but only had two more fights. He was 72 fights deep going into the rematch. More than 4 years with no fights did him no favors.

Louis was only one fight off his close fight with Walcott, an effort he was extremely unhappy with, to put it mildly. He hung the gloves up (at the time) after an immediate rematch. Before his 4 years off (lets not count a 53 second workout) he'd defended his crown something like 21 times. He was at the end of the line, like Holmes who also defended a whole lot of times.

They were temu versions of themselves at this point. Some considered Conn shot, even.

 

He might do..
Conn was 23 year old prime active fighter.
Spinks was 32 with 50 year old knees.

 

Louis starched his next nr. 1 in the first round after Conn. Walcott was a cut above most other contenders and would likely always have been tough for a Louis nearing his mid 30's, maybe even for prime Louis. Conn was only 29 for the rematch.

But It is a bit unclear where Conn was at, yes, even though he should have quite a bit left at that age, even with the time away. Of course, Louis fought a lot of exhibitions during the war and I don't know if Conn had had that benefit. Zale, also older than Conn, just like Louis made a very decent go at it when he came back, but did have a couple of tune-ups if I'm not mistaken.

On paper I don't think it's irrelevant that the older man beats the younger more clearly in a rematch when both been off a similar time. But of course Conn retiring directly afterwards does raise questions, and it can be that he did no boxing during those years before being thrown directly back against Louis.

 

32 isn't old. A 23 year old fighter isn't automatically superior to a 32 year old fighter based on age alone. Also Spinks had a size and punching power advantage over Conn

 

Louis had problems with quite a few of his defenses who by the sight of them had no business giving him problems. So, par for the course really. Actually, Conn's record coming into the fight makes it hardly a surprise.

 

Even Archie Moore and Ezzard Charles?

 

even thripple gee??

 

No but he did and it was legendary .. one thing we are learning now is that little guys can move up and hock be it Crawford or Usyk ... Conn was a terrific fighter who fought the fight of his life and Joe may have been a bit over confident and a bit over trained coming in light and there you go ... it is a legendary fight because Conn had that sort of night and Louis had enough to come back.