The Best of the Rest: 160lbs Tier II Tournie - Last 16 Fight 8 -Ken Overlin SD15 Billy Conn

What i've done is i've lifted top tiers out of my top fifty at the poundage and organised them into a seeded tournament to uncover "the best of the rest" at the poundage, with you, the denizens of the world's greatest boxing history forum, casting the deciding vote. The difference between this middleweight tournament and the equivalent at 175lbs is that I've left ALL the guys with no footage in this time. I understand that makes things difficult and for some, frustrating but there are just far too many excellent and intriguing fighters from middleweight history. I understand this makes making a pick very hard, but i hope you'll still place a vote and make a post because obviously without your input the whole thing becomes meaningless.

Pick your man! Write however many details you like or don't in a post below. But maybe try to post, to keep things moving a little bit. You have three days.

And let's be nice. No reason for disagreeing over total fantasies after all!

15 Rounds, 1950s rules and ref. 10 points must. I'll only vote where there's a tie.

KEN OVERLIN (135-19-9)
If Ken Overlin could punch he wouldn't have made this tournament. A veteran of more than 160 contests he lost just nineteen, but even more astonishing is that he won 135 while scoring just twenty-three knockouts. This is a KO percentage rather less than that of Paul Malignaggi.

Despite this enormous handicap, Overlin defeated #2 contender Paul Pirrone, the coming George Black, ranked men Ben Brown and Al Quaill, Nate Bolden, strap-holder Ceferino Garcia, top five contender Steve Belloise, Al Hostak, the all-time great Ezzard Charles and the all-time great Fred Apostoli. Charles and Apostoli would both go on to get considerably better than they were when Overlin toyed with them, but the way he inflicted his left hand on two of the great boxers of that era was a fantastic endorsement for Overlin’s jab, which rarely let him down.

A strapholder rather than a defining champion, Overlin had his belt taken from him in preposterous circumstances, dropping a home-state decision to Billy Soose in a non-title fight in 1940; this positioned Soose for a 1941 shot at Overlin, who was robbed for a second time in a fight that so defied expectations that it led The New York Times to label Soose as appearing “******ed.” The political incorrectness of this remark aside, it was clear to most ringsiders that Overlin deserved the decision. The fact that many of his finest victories, including that schooling of Ezzard Charles, came after these apparent twin-robberies it is fair to speculate as to what sort of champion Overlin might have become if he had been allowed to obtain the type of seniority that comes with championship longevity; that it was not to be is perhaps one of middleweight history’s greatest injustices.

BILLY CONN (63-11-1)
Billy Conn did his best work above the MW limit and his MW resume has some depth: Young Corbett III, Teddy Yarosz, Oscar Rankin, Vince Dundee, Babe Risko and Frtizie Zivic all feel to him at the weight, all fighters who were either too good for this tournament, are in it, or were close to being in it.

Conn was fast-handed and streetwise beyond his experience when still relatively green and built significant advantages based upon experience, it's clear that his physical gifts and ability to learn quickly ("this is easy, Moonie") makes Conn a legitimate contender

He last made the middleweight limit in 1937 but in what must have ranked among his best performances. Just 29-6-1 at the time, he was certainly as brilliant against Risko as he was in any of his other un-filmed fights.

 

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Ken Overlin won from Billy Conn to become the final member of a storied last eight, but by the barest of margins. An inexplicably sparsely attended contest saw Conn take an early lead although Overlin was never hurt by Conn's washing attack and in fact he seemed to have Conn's number in defence but unable to get his own offense going. That all changed in the ninth when a right hand to the body seemed to trouble Conn badly enough to make him back off through the tenth and despite a late surge that saw him buy up the 14th and arguably the 15th he was seen a loser by two of the three judges in a fight that could have gone any one of three ways.