Archie Moore said Conn avoided him. How true is that?

That's assuming a bit, though. How de we know even in that case there weren't other fighters trying to get a fight with someone whose best days were long behind him but still was a name? A relatively easy way to get your own name out there.

And it kind of makes a mockery of the word "avoiding", even if it would be technically correct. Avoiding usually refers to a title or elimination fight of some kind, not a a way past his best (quite possibly shot) fighter trying the waters against easy opp in a tentative and very short lived (11 days) comeback.

 

How the heck would anyone know if Conn was shot after not fighting for a while due to war? Lots of guys didn’t fight during the war and resumed their careers (Louis for instance) without massive deterioration. And losing to Louis … since when did someone have to be shot to get beat by Joe?

No one would have known, probably including Conn himself, exactly what he had left coming out of the war or how long he would have intended to fight. If he had beaten Joe, I’d assume he would have kept fighting as heavyweight champ at least as long as he held onto the belt.

Seems like you’re taking this as if Archie smeared Conn’s reputation and called him a dirty dog. I don’t read it that way. He seems to be saying he wanted to fight Conn and Conn didn’t want to fight him. In fact there’s a post ono this very thread where Conn addressed it (saying Archie wasn’t good enough) so apparently he was aware of it and thought it was worth talking about … so maybe there was something to it?

 

Conn did noticeable worse in his his rematch with Louis, in fact so much worse that he was named Flop of the Year (by The Ring, I think). When he stepped into the ring again he had had only that one fight in the last almost seven years. After the comeback fight he had one more 10 days later against another unknown and then retired for good.

That reads to me like someone who have lost his desire and probably a lot of his capacity as well. One fight in 7 years and getting on the wrong side of 30 will erode skill as it is for most, add a lack of desire to that and you have a very depleted fighter. Which was clearly hinted at in his disappointing performance against Louis two and half years before his tentative and very short comeback.

It was you, not I, that suggested that it was this version of Conn that Moore referred to. So please have the decency not try and turn that around. I personally can't say that I think it was this version of Conn and this period Moore was referring to. But if it was, like you think it was, then, yes, I don't think it's great to bandy about "avoiding" when you're talking about a guy who clearly had lost his desire and/or confidence and capability, and who made a very, very half-hearted attempt at a comeback that lasted all of the blink of an eye.

I mean sure, if he said "I offered Conn a fight when he was at the very end of his career and seemed to have at least one foot in retirement, and he turned me down", I don't see much wrong with that. But if - and I'm talking purely hypothetically here - it was a more general "he avoided me" and the specific version he referred to was a depleted and inactive Conn who made a very, very half-hearted and short comeback, yes, then I think he was omitting crucial context.

 

I think the Light heavyweight division itself was really a “catch weight division” right up until the 1970s. Almost all of the LH champions moonlighted against opponents from other divisions.

 

Whenever this happened (or didn’t, actually), Billy should have fought the Mongoose.