Armstrong-Cerdan was nearly a done deal in '39?

In '39, a young ww Cerdan twice beat ranked contender Saverio Turiello to annex the European ww title & also beat sometime contender Cleto Locatelli. According to this excerpt from Paris Match magazine in Nov 39 (assuming my efforts to translate French are correct), a world title match between Armstrong & Cerdan was in the works, perhaps even had a projected date, but was scrapped when Cerdan either enlisted or was conscripted into the French military, presumably due to rising tensions w/ Germany.

I'm surprised this doesn't get talked about more when the topic of "great fights that could've been" comes up. idk how great (or not) Cerdan was yet @ this stage of his career, but I've always felt the war sidelined him during what should've been his peak yrs & prevented him from reaching his full potential. here's footage of Cerdan as a ww, albeit a couple years older & more experienced (& maybe even hitting harder?) than when the Armstrong fight was on the table.

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