beaten louis? how long would he have held the title and would louis be the one to take it away from him?
It would have caused such a sensation that a rematch would have been screamed for. Louis would have taken care of business,thus becoming the first man to regain the heavyweight championship of the world. Instead of Floyd Patterson.
I think that at most, Conn would have managed one title defence before public pressure and the size of the purses on offer forced a rematch.
Louis listened to advice from the sportswriters who urged him to come in light for speed, over Jack Blackburn's warnings that Joe would weaken himself by coming in at too low a weight. Louis admitted after their first bout that "Chappie was right. I wasn't strong at that weight." For a rematch, Joe would have carried out Blackburn's instructions to the letter. Billy would have taken vicious punishment to the body, and Louis was no middleweight Tony Zale. Conn himself knocked out Pastor by going downstairs, so was hardly any stranger to either taking body shots or dishing them out. He'd know full well what was in store for him. Eight of his 15 stoppage wins actually came against heavyweight competition, and he did stun Joe with a hard left hook, so his power apparently increased significantly as his body matured. Trying to knock out Louis was foolish, but he did need to be able to assert some measure of force, or else he'd simply be run over. No, Billy wouldn't have successfully defended the title in an immediate rematch, but he might have done far better than the listless running postwar flop which occurred in 1946, well enough in late 1941 or early 1942 to carry on to a rubber match.
