Top 35 All Time reveal - Boxing Survey Series

So what am I missing here? Why is Billy Conn not listed? What’s the technicality? Is it because some of his fights were at Middleweight? Well, so were Roy’s.

Let’s hear it.

 

Wow, George is readily admitting to leaving Foster out of his top 15 on purpose?

 

Yeah, come to think of it Conn is a rather glaring omission.

Of the lists so far this one has the biggest question marks. Which surprises me.

 

Yeah, but I hope I'm giving off the impression that I don't rate Foster himself. I do, but not his comp. It's the Best > Greatest debate. I'd only have a few men beating him at the poundage.

I can see him as high as 7, but also as low as 17.

 

Well, if it’s purely about names on paper, what’s so impressive about Michael Spinks’ opposition? One great win over Qawi, a come from behind win over a weight drained Mustafa, and wins over shopworn versions of Johnson and Lopez.

And Lewis? Wins over Gainer, Harvey, and McAvoy are better than multiple wins a piece against Yarosz, Lesnevich, Krieger, Apostoli, Bettina, and a comeback win over Tony Zale?

 

Well, I'd rate Lewis over Spinks, and the relative thinness of Spinks' resume is why I don't have him top 5. And Lewis' wins over Rosenbloom are why I have him above Conn, plus only a few of those guys are elite at 175. Although I get your point.

 

I left out several of Conn’s wins to comply with the standard. None of Lewis’s wins over Rosenbloom occurred at or below the Lt. Heavy limit. In fact, precious few of his notable wins do. Plus, Rosenbloom won their series 3-2.

Jimmy Slattery beat Maxie 4-3 and he beat your boy Delaney both times they fought while having a better wins resume than several of them guys you listed. Where‘s he? You got something against drunks?

 

You didn't leave out any major Conn wins, though. You listed almost all of his best, aside from Pastor and Corbett. And TBH, I don't find the Corbett win all-too impressive since, he was a virtually WW/MW. And c'mon it's 2/3lbs. It's hardly a crime to rate those wins at LHW, it's like ranking Duran's 2nd win vs DeJesus at lightweight. And almost all of the Lewis-Rosenbloom fights were closely contested with lots of fouls and Lewis working with the higher workrate and landing cleaner in the eyes of the press. All except for the second fight which Lewis won very clearly. Not to mention, Lewis is undefeated with 5lbs of the LHW limit. Over like, 70 something fights.

Slattery was at #24 when I last tried to do a top 50 LHWs. The reason he isn't higher is because his wins, while good, are over 6 rounds, or are closer to middleweight than light-heavyweight. Similar to Conn in that regard actually. But résumé isn't everything, just the reason why I don't have Foster as high as others.

 

I also omitted his wins over Zivic, Risko, Dundee, Dorazio, and McCoy.

Yeah, Conn was a natural Middle or Super Middle, while Lewis was a natural Cruiser. One of them couldn’t make it a single round with Joe Louis despite being a puncher. The other whooped that ass on the inside for the better part of 12 rounds and had him badly hurt despite not being a puncher. Pretty clear to me who the better fighter was.

And don’t tell me about his eyesight. Seems like every fighter I read about from that era was half blind or going blind or needed reading glasses or some ****. It didn’t bother him that much against Gainer a few months prior.

There’s a reason he was named after John Henry. They’re both myths.

 

You omitted two fights that happened middleweight, two vs guys who'd only win one more fight in their careers, and a fringe contender? Wow! Thanks for that!

How was Lewis a natural cruiserweight? He fought at and around light heavyweight. And Lewis in his final fight after being advised by doctors and those around him to retire, literally fighting for nothing but a paycheck is indicative of a prime Lewis? You're using Conn's fight with Louis to show that he's better? Y'know that Louis fought 40+ rounds in 6 months, all vs heavyweight contenders, and then purposefully drained himself below his best weight in a short space of time? You think that comparing those two fights is reasonable? Okay....

And to your point about the Gainer fight, it was a pretty poor performance from Lewis. So there's that argument out the window.

Lewis is a 'myth'.

 

You think that argument is “out the window” because he was said to have had a subpar performance against one of his divisional rivals? Nah, it’s definitely still on the table.

From the horse’s mouth:

"It is true that I had slight trouble with one eye," Lewis admitted. He said the eye was injured in a 1935 fight against Abe Feldman. "That dates four years back," he said, "but it didn't prevent me from winning the title from Bob Olin and I don't know how many other fights."

The eye clearly never bothered him that much before, but as soon as he gets in the ring with Louis he’s all of the sudden a poor, decrepit charity case. Only taking the fight for the money because times iz hard. And that Joe Louis is such a good friend to him that he takes pity. Awwww.

Never mind that he’s the current Lt. Heavyweight champion and he has no intentions of retiring. It was the boxing commission in Michigan that banned him from fighting in the state when they examined his eye before his next Lt. Heavy title bout. He even tried going overseas to defend against Len Harvey after that, but the word was out and nobody would sanction him.

The Louis story is your typical romanticized boxing myth. He just couldn’t hack it. Conn could.

 

All this does is enforce the arguement that he as blind lmao. You've just listed like 7 reasons why he was blind for Louis. Louis and Lewis were friends, I'm pretty sure if Louis was willing to give him the payday, then Lewis had told him it was pretty bad. Common sense. And it further shows that it must've been bad as he refused to be seen by officials. Lewis being modest doesn't change that.

Conn could hack what? Fighting a clearly inferior version of Louis who was clearly over worked and weight drained? Well done him.

 

I listed reasons why his eye problem didn’t effect his performance. It wasn’t until AFTER Louis that he failed a pre fight medical exam. So apparently he was good enough to go for every single fight before that. Louis repeatedly bouncing his head off the canvas like a basketball must’ve furthered the injury.

And what do you mean Louis was “willing to give him the payday”? What did he even have to do with it? The Lt. Heavyweight champion called out the Heavyweight champ. That’s always a big money maker and a fight that’s easy to make. Unfortunately the fans don’t always get their money’s worth, i.e when the Lt. Heavy moving up is John Henry Lewis instead of Billy Conn.

Everyone knows the listed weights for Conn/Louis were fudged to make it seem like the fight wasn’t a total mismatch. Conn was really about 167 or 169 and Louis was 204 or 205. Louis was just fine. His main problem was Conn’s fists pummeling his face.

 

Louis gave Lewis were friends, he gave Lewis a fight so he could get a big payday before his eye forced him to retire. I thought this was common knowledge.

 

It’s a common myth. I already explained why.