No. Dempsey was far more adept at chasing men down. Louis would plod at you and hunt you down, Dempsey would book after you and decapitate you.
Prime Dempsey (not of the Tunney fights) would win. If Conn fought a safe defensive fight the whole way he might last just as Gibbons did, but lose a decision.
Dempsey managed to get to Tunney while old and past his best, who had better footwork and equal speed to Conn in my opinion. Conn is no Tunney...
Conn gets caught out badly against Dempsey. Dempsey is a different animal to Louis. Conn spends to much time in and around the pocket, and Dempsey has really good feet. Of course, Conn's plan against Joe was so perfect you just wonder if he might find a way to make this competitive too...but I don't think so. Jack, early.
Your right, Conn is better than Tunney. Conn's boxing funadmentals, technique, footwork were far more modernized and IMO polished than gene tunney. I favor conn as the better boxer than Gene. Conn threw wonderful combinations. I like Dempsey over Conn by close decision
O ya that easy huh? Cause I mean Dempsey certaintly didnt hunt down and punch out a healthy billy miske, tommy gibbons, or gene tunney. Billy Conn outboxed for 12 rounds a better puncher, better boxer and bigger heavyweight than dempsey in joe louis. it wont be easy as you think.
I think Billy was a master boxer with serious enough power to keep you at bay...but he was not going to win a title against Louis,Dempsey,Marciano and the other elite but could win against the lesser Champs but like Louis said" he could not keep the title for 13 rds" Conn was no Tunney or Charles but he was one of the best @175 and over the 12 rd route he would beat a few of the men who held the throne
Whilst I agree with a lot of what you are saying concerning Conn (though not that he was better than Tunney), don't you think he is different to these animals? Hitting Conn clean is hard, but he's in and around. He's not a runner like Tunney, he's a very aggressive back foot fighter. I think he would run afoul of Dempsey's best punches.
What I mean is that Conn would have the ability to last the fight if all he was worried about was lasting, though that wouldn't be Conn's style at all.
I think Jack Dempsey at his peak was a animal. He was the first modernized boxing style with his hands high, head movement bob and weave style, and his punching technique was very modern. People say gene tunney modernized boxing, I disagree. It was Jack Dempsey. Tunney did not have the punching technique, high hands, upperbody movement, chin tucked boxing fundamentals like dempsey had. Conn had amazing blocking techniques, he was way ahead of his time when it came to blocking punches..... Dempsey would be hitting alot of elbows and gloves........also while conn didnt run in and out like tunney.....conn had very fluid footwork that would allow him to be very unpredictable at times, because of his fluid footwork he would mix up shuffling laterally side to side backward forward......you didnt know where conn was going. Gene Tunney's footwork was the same thing everytime circling and circling circling it was more shuffling than footwork. I hate to keep bringing up tunney since Demsey was far past his prime and rusted when he took on Gene. You don't need to be a runner to do well vs dempsey. the first billy miske fight shows that Conn was very durable, but i agree dempsey could get to him. I think jack would outpoint conn .
Wasn't the knock on Dempsey was that he had trouble with slick boxers? Or was that just because of the Tunney fights?
Well, he also had trouble with Gibbons, but mostly in the sense that he didn't knock him out, other than that he won the fight pretty handily. Miske also gave him problems in their first couple of fights.
Conn better than Tunney? Few would agree. Demspey would eat Conn alive.The fight might look a bit like Dempsey vs Carpientier.
