Should Louis Have Gotten Conn Out Of There Sooner?

Nevertheless, Joe did what lots of guys cannot do---get the late ko. How many times have we seen guys struggle and the bout makes it to the scorecards? Getting the late stoppage in a tough bout with the heavies in title bouts does not happen every year.

 

Its not like Conn was some glass chinned bum or easy to hit. The guy was tough, slippery, and fought back like a terrier when stung. He tough competitor who had shown he knew how to deal with bigger, slower men. I'm not surprised it took Louis a while to get him out of there. Conn couldn't make many mistakes in that fight whereas Louis could and still could win. Conn expended a lot of energy fighting Louis off of him which made him vulnerable in 13th allowing Louis to break through.

 

Before the Conn fight Louis defended. the title 6 times in 6 months in addition to. being dehydrated. It likely was a case of burnout

 

hard to ko someone when their running for their life in the ring.
but Joe KHTFO .

 

Conn ran for his life? Thats news to me considering he had hurt Louis 2 or 3 times by the stoppage, was ahead on points, and Louis said in the ring immediately after the fight that he had been hurt and worriedwhen 13th rolled around.

 

JOE Louis KHTFO thats all that matter.You right he wasent running he was on his roller skates skating for his life.

 

Louis should probably have caught up with Conn earlier (and probably thought he would). For whatever reasons, of which I suspect there are a few, Louis seemed to have difficulties that night. However, I've never subscribed to the idea that this fight demonstrated a Louis, who had obvious flaws. It wasn't as though Joe was being totally shut out until the 13th or anything like that.

And, while a good deal of emphasis is placed on Conn's demise in the 13th being due to his decision to stand toe-to-toe with Louis (an overplayed idea I have come to consider a little dubious), this was made all the more devastating an error, by the fact Louis himself had realized that he needed to get to Conn urgently and, in turn, upped his game, which had been sorely in remission, during the previous rounds.

So, in my opinion, it was as much to do with Joe pouring it on in the 13th as it was Conn's detrimental tactical 'decision'. I am, thus, one of those who think Joe would have beaten Conn, in the end, either way.

 

Every fighter has their stylistic nemises. Ali's were swarming fighters who could take his punches. One could ask, shouldn't Ali have gotten Fraizer out of there sooner given the amount of shots he landed, after all, one can point to modern super heavyweight X or even Joe Louis, who if they landed the same amount on Fraizer would've ended the fight much sooner, let alone taken a trilogy to do so. But you can't say "Therefore Ali must've sucked".

Slick boxers were the style that presented the worst stylistic matchup for Louis. One may say "Well Conn wouldn't have gave Lennox Lewis so much trouble" which he probably wouldn't, but Louis didn't have range that Lennox had and Conn would find it very difficult to get close enough to even land. Not to mention the height difference which puts Lennox's chin conveniently out of range.

So I don't think Louis was any less of a ATG heavy because he may have struggled with Conn, even if you can point to other ATG heavies that wouldn't have.

 

Back in those days, you didn't always have film to study an opponent prior to the fight. Which I think was the case in the first Godoy fight. So Louis had to show up and wing it. But in the 2nd fight when Louis knew what to expect, we saw what happened.

Imagine if Holyfield had never seen Tyson fight nor had any film of Tyson fighting and had just word of mouth stories of how Tyson fought and had to base a fight plan on that?

 

I know he couldn't, that was my point. I'm saying that because Louis struggled with movers like Conn doesn't mean he's any less than anymore than it would imply that Ali struggling with swarmers means he's any less than. It's just an issue of styles. And I'm not accusing you of saying that.