Joe Louis past-prime in 1941? Claims "tiredness" for Billy Conn fight

Well, what did Jack Roper offer?

 

When a champion reigns for as long as Louis, he effectively has two types of title defence.

The first type we will call premium title defences for the sake of argument. These are top contenders who have the best chance of unseating the champion, such as Billy Conn and Lou Nova.

The second type we shall call tune up fights. These are fights against second tier contenders, to prepare the champion for his premium title defences. Roper falls into this category.

I am not saying that Franklin would not have been a good challenger, but he would have had to be a premium title defence.

 

Don't like repeating myself, but Murray and Bobo were fighting 6-8 rounders until '40. Bobo had a good run in '41 with a bunch of good scalps. Murray ran into Sheppard and got a black eye.

Thompson had good scalps at MW/LHW but was unproven as a HW and when he moved up he didn't step up until '42.

Franklin had some good scalps Reddish, Simon, Savold but if his record is complete he was 18-5-1 until '41.

Ray might have been overmatched early in his career thrown to Obie Walker and John Henry Lewis right off the bat, but the fact is he had a really spotty record before the war with little to show.

Honestly I don't see what case you could make for any of them until '41 so if Louis ducked them, it was for some months at best before the war and even than you have to consider that among his second tier defenses, Bobo lost to Dorazio and Franklin lost to Musto.

Calling them "HW Murderes Row" is a misnomer IMO. Burley, Williams, Moore, Cocoa Kid, Chase, Wade, Booker were seasoned fighters by the start of the war. They had genuine records.

 

It seems to me that every credible contender that Louis failed to meet, is regarded as being wronged, provided that they were black.

Gunnar Barlund and Melio Bettina, were probably better than nearly all, if not all of the murder row crew.

So who really has a case?

Franklin up to a point.

When Loius finally fought Bivins, it was billed as "unfinished business". The rule that nobody lost their ranking due to the war, rather screwed Bivins.

Ray was heavily hyped, and Louis was accused of avoiding him, but of course Walcott beat him.

 

FH, I agree with your reasoning, that Joe Louis [my favorite
HW] was not responsible for who he did or didn't fight. That is what his braintrust decides. Louis COULD have fought some black heavyweights during his tenure, but didn't NOT because of FEAR.
The prime Louis I remember as a boy growing up had such an aura of invincibility that his opponents FEARED HIM...But at the same token Jack Dempsey at his best personally also feared no fighter as he was to his generation what Joe Louis was to his era.
Dempsey is accused mainly on ESB for ducking Harry Wills, though they signed for a match with Michigan promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons, and the promoter couldn't come up with the necessary funds cancelling the fight. Harry Greb the great MW
wanted to fight Dempsey but the Dempsey camp felt it was a no win situation. If Dempsey kod Greb as I think he would be too strong for Harry, the public would snicker, "why don't he pick on someone his own size".?My point is the management determines who their charge fights, that is what they get paid for...

 

Maybe he should've made Bivins a voluntary around 1946.

 

I understand what you guys are getting at, but, in that case, Franklin should've been made a premium title defense.It will always be an asterisk, albeit minor, on Joe.

 

Lem Franklin was going to get his title shot with Louis in the fall of 1942. The Louis camp confirmed that themselves. All he had to do was get past Bob Pastor.

Instead he got knocked-out.

 

The decision to freeze the rankings allowed a number of inactive fighters to leapfrog over Bivins's head. Even so there were people picking Conn to beat Louis in the rematch, on the assumption that Louis would have slipped further.

 

Joe Louis failing to meet Lem Franklin is a hell of a lot closer to Muhammad Ali missing out Duane Bobick, than say, Dempsey's failure to face Harry Wills.

 

I guess at the end of the day, no title reign is perfect, but this one is about as good as they get.

 

Bivins himself was slipping by '46 but he was the outstanding HW during the war, so yeah maybe he is the one missing in the picture. Maybe, and that's a big maybe, you could make a push for Murray or Ray between '47 & '48 but the division was a whole different picture by than.

 

As much as I agree with this business of two types of title defences history has not been quite so kind to Floyd Patterson for doing exactly the same thing. Radmacher and London were tune ups. Jackson #1, Harris was #3 and Ingo was #1.

Nobody fights back to back #1 contenders and when fights don't happen there's usually an explainable complication that is overlooked when reflecting in hindsight. Big fights take time to build and accidents happen whilst waiting for fights to build.

There cannot have been that many out and out ducks in history because at the very least, most times the duck itself should represent a huge financial incentive. Champions usually take what makes most financial sense. Mostly the best possible opponent makes most financial sence.

Big fights take time to build and accidents happen whilst waiting for fights to build.