Here is what Johnny Ray REALLY said when someone suggested Charley Burley to fight Billy Conn (he offered to let him fight Conn's stablemate, which monetarily made more sense for the paltry sum offered). Scroll down to the bold print on "sidelights on sports": http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=WbxRAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EWoDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2830,6306850
As a fan of both, I'm sorry this fight didn't come off...But I see the logistics of it not happening...The real world isn't the world of some comic book mentality of "Oh so and so was scared...so he ducked so and so"...This is a profession where at times you leave a piece of yourself in the ring everytime you fight...Ray was looking at the big picture weighing risk v reward...
Exactly. Also the fact that Burley was in no position to be challenging Billy Conn, who was at a higher weight and negotiating for a huge payday fights, not the least of which was a big money rematch with Joe Louis. Even in their hometown of Pittsburgh there was no demand for a Conn-Burley fight. Hence why this "challenge" was reduced to a few small lines tucked away in the middle of a daily blab.
I was just going to say that Im guessing Conn made significantly more than the $7,500 Burley's manager offered him just a month before by fighting Zale. Its hard to take such an offer seriously. It would be like some guy challenging Mayweather or Pacqiaou and then offering them a $100,000 purse. Its pretty hard to call them scared of the guy years later when they snear at the offer.
I always felt that Robinson didn't fight Burley (and they were ranked in the same division for a year or so) because the money just wasn't there. You always read that Burley offered Ray a career high payday but where would that money come from? Burley wasn't a draw.
This challenge was tantamount to Mike McCallum challenging Michael Spinks. Just makes no sense. Completely out of left field.
It makes sense that Ray didn't grab a Burley bout because the dough wasn't there, Ray said he didn't like boxing and that it was a business to him. He lost out of a big payday for a third Basillio bout because he held out for too much money. The little we can see of Burley is of a highly skilled boxer who was pretty boring to watch, nothing there to be a crowd draw.
Too bad we missed out on this one. A win over even an undersized Burley could have been great for Billy's resume.
I agree. Burley is no cakewalk for anyone. There was risk but no reason for Conn to even consider a fight with Burley. He wasn't a contender at light-heavy plus Billy was fighting at heavy for the most part anyway and making big money. He gets absolutely nothing out of fighting Burley at that time.
