Could Billy Conn have carried Roy Jones's jockstrap

He wasn't a bum; a bit small and harmless though.

 

I don't think it's fair to assume that his chin was always so suspect (and Glencoffee hit him way more than once, fwiw). I don't understand the biology behind it but his chin was the never the same after he had to lose a lot of weight later in his career. Has happened to other fighters too.

 

True. But Louie Del Valle put close to prime Roy on his ass. When the Brown Bomber hits him, the fight is over then and there.

 

Let's say, current state of affairs at heavyweight is better, much better than it had been during Joe Louis' time. And that's despite current heavyweight crop being pitiful. It's just a matter of what you are comparing them to. And if I start comparing Louis' opponents to opponents of lots and lots of champions from lower weights, they were bums, plain and simple. And that's the only reason Louis had a record of defenses, it was similar to Tommy Burns' reign, they were about equally poor, for the most part.

 

If somebody holds a top ten ranking, you don’t get to call them a bum.

Whatever you think of Louis’s era, it’s hard to fault what he did, relative to what was available.

 

Contenders should have at least some chances of beating the champion. When they are not given any at all and the only matter of discussion is what round they would be stopped in, calling them contenders is giving them too much worth. Pastor in particular was nothing more than mediocre as far as boxing skills and cleverness were concerned, and had absolutely no punching power and too small in size to be included even in say top 500 of all-time at heavyweight. Unless you are stating that they were contenders for a big purse.

 

We can virtually match Pastor up with other champions, and he wouldn't do well even against the weakest of them. It wasn't just Louis. Pastor could be a champion, at running backwards, that's the only thing he was excellent at.

 

Personally I've always been irritated by the expression "bum of the month".

 

I stated already that the usage of that word to describe Louis' opponents wasn't started by me.
But whatever, claiming a win over Pastor was something significant is silly. Thousands of fighters had had multiple wins over top-ranked opponents, that doesn't mean much, one has to review each fight individually to figure how significant it was. Certainly John Ruiz, despite his ugly style (not that Pastor's bicycle was any better), was a more proven and significant opponent to have a win over than Bob Pastor. And again, Conn lost the early rounds, and could easily have been disqualified for multiple low blows, so it's not like his win was impressive in the first place.

 

Care to post a few contemporary quotes praising Pastor as an outstanding heavyweight contender? Other than the New York Evening Post fools?