Obviously with Conn it was 'on the job' training, in the beginning...How great do you think he became at middleweight? He is capable of giving any middleweight a very hard go...On a H2H basis, is he top ten?
He'd outgrown middleweight by the time he fought Fred Apostoli. Otherwise I guess it would have been fighting for Apostoli's title.
Fred Apostoli was a menacing middlweight from what I've read - and I cant find out much about him. Sadly most people have forgotten the middleweights of the 1930s (those who reigned between Mickey Walker and Tony Zale). There's a picture somewhere of Billy Conn after one of those fights with Fred, his whole head wrapped in bandages like an Egyptian Mummy. Those were brutal bloody fights. Apostoli and Conn must have been some special types of fighters, a lot of pride at stake in those days when an Italian fought an Irish in New York City.
