Under 185lb Tournament, Round 3: # 2 Jack Dempsey vs # 10 Billy Conn

I suppose Burt will be in here in a minute to tell me i'm some sort of criminal, but I too think Conn has a very good chance here.

I'd like to point out that I picked Dempsey to beat Marciano and Foreman just lately!

 

Any particular reason?

 

Previous to meeting Louis, Conn publicly spoke of Louis's inability to fight outside of his immediate circle of influence. He implied that he was going to box and move in a sense, then he spent huge chunks of that fight smothering the champion right inside that circle. In terms of a con, pardon the pun, it's up there with Foreman-Ali.

The point is, Louis's methodical approach is pretty much irrelevant. Conn's strategy played right into Louis's hands on paper, not the other way around, and he was pretty powerless for long stretches. Louis is more economical than Dempsey, and he carried almost all of his power into the later rounds. There is less proof that this was the case with Dempsey, and I think I am right in saying that he never won a meaningful fight after 7 rounds in his entire career?

That tells me two things. Firstly, that it's possible to box Dempsey safely once you have his details and you have established your pace. Conn is a graduate of one of the most intense finishing schools in boxing history in this department, cutting his teeth upon Apostolini, Yarosz, Krieger, Corbett III, Dundee, Zivic, a veritable who's who for ring genius of the time, and for all time. Secondly, that Dempsey never showed the type of explosive KO power Louis did later in a fight.

The combination of these two factors married to his boxing domination of Louis, who I consider technically superior, who was only saved by his later round explosiveness and power, makes me wonder.

I don't consider Louis's methodical approach inferior to Dempsey's wilder early approach. In fact, I think Louis's approach is the superior of the two in terms of style. Dempsey isn't landing a lucky punch on a fighter like the primed Conn and he isn't manufacturing one either in my opinion, not the majority of the time anyway. Dempsey didn't have anything like, nothing like, the type of schooling in this type of fighting that Conn did.

There are unanswered questions about Dempsey's willingness to "settle down and box" against an opponent who is beating him, so maybe he would remain wild and excessively aggressive enough to wear Conn down before he over-reaches himself in terms of stamina and gets picked out, but that's a very dangerous strategy against a technically superior ring tactician with a granite chin...overall, I favour Conn to live for a points win. Blasphemy, but I also don't consider a Dempsey KO win that much more likely than a Conn KO win, for reasons mentioned above. This being the case, I'd have to bet on Conn.

 

I do too - if I didn't, I would be questioning why on earth anyone would ever pick Dempsey here.

In as much as it protected his punching power and sharpness in a losing effort as completely as it is possible to do so, it was the entire reason he won the fight, arguably.

This is where Dempsey's chances lie, but it's a high-risk strategy against an opponent who only proved catchable after some of the most consistent stalking pressure anywhere on film, married to arguably one of the most complete offensive arsenals in all of history...engineering a chance against Conn proved almost impossible for Louis, so I think for Dempsey he does indeed need to get this done a little earlier.

Meehan absolutely negated Dempsey over very short spells in their fights, and scored enough to win. Conn, I believe, is better than Meehan in almost every regard. I've no real proof of this of course. But Conn, to me, is the sharpest slippery type we've seen and amongst the most talented. Unless Meehan is just as good, I think it's reasonable to label Conn superior by the time he'd peaked. Tunney, Gibson and Brennan, all of whom (With the exception of Tunney, possibly) weren't as good as Conn and were able to negate the opening salvo of the Dempsey attack with boxing and toughness. I can't see the case for Dempsey blowing Conn out early as screwed on, or even likely, for this reason - I think Conn was a better fighter, better tactician and better schooled survivor type than all, again, with the arguable exception of Tunney.

If Conn can get out of these early rounds, I believe he will begin to collect points, and win.

 

On the contrary, I'd say it's a disaster for Dempsey to box to preserve power.

He's similar in the sense that he's an incredibly clever, difficult to pin down, and proven at taking the sting out of the early part of an ATG offensive. Dempsey, in a four round fight, was not doubt as intent on taking out Meehan as you feel he would be at taking out Conn. The most important differences - Conn is proven at a higher class with a better resume and a more proven chin.

nicely put