[8.6] BILLY CONN 77-64(15)-12-1: Sports Pundit online - Boxing News online -
Unlike most boxers, Conn skipped being an amateur fighter, entering the boxing arena as a welterweight fighter at age 16, trained by Johnny Ray, the same man who trained boxing icon Harry Greb. His first welterweight fight was unsuccessful, as he lost a decision to Dick Woodward, a fighter who was then 5 years older than him. From that point on, Conn would maintain such particular trend; fighting against older and heavier boxers. From the welterweight division he moved up to the heavyweight category, blazing a trail so impressive that five years after his professional debut, at the age of 21 years old, he had defeated 9 world champions.
Conn’s strengths as a fighter included the capability to deliver powerful blows, the skill to move around the ring with exceptional foot speed, the intellectual capacity to plan a defence, and the advantage of having an iron chin. His best form emerges in the later rounds, a great advantage over most opponents whose energy wound down as the fight would progress. Sports Pundit online article (edited)
Billy Conn, a clever light-heavyweight champion, is best known for a fight he lost … his challenge to Joe Louis for the heavyweight championship at the New York Polo Grounds in June 1941.
Through 12 rounds Conn boxed beautifully, jabbing, punching cleanly, moving, keeping Louis twisting, turning and chasing … three rounds to go and the 23-year-old from Pittsburgh had overhauled the champion’s early lead and was in front. One judge had it level at six rounds each, but the other two had Conn ahead.
There was still work to do but Conn was the man in the ascendancy, Louis the one with something to find. And then in the 13th the crowd of 54,487 saw Louis draw Conn into trading punches. Briefly Conn outfought him, but then held on as a series of right hands hurt him – and then more rights sent him crashing to the canvas. He was counted out with two seconds left in the round.
Conn’s grandfathers were immigrants from Derry and Cork and the beaten challenger took a pragmatic view of his tactical switch in that fateful 13th: ‘What’s the point in being Irish if you can’t be thick?’
Six months later the attack on Pearl Harbor brought the USA into World War II and immediate plans for a return were shelved. Conn did have three fights in 1942, but then was out for four years before, in the first big fight after the war, and without a warm-up, he met Louis again in June 1946 at Yankee Stadium, New York.
Neither man was as good as he had been five years before, but Conn’s deterioration was greater. He was knocked out in the eighth round. He boxed only twice more, in a 10-day spell in 1948, then had an exhibition with Louis in Chicago and retired.
In his prime Conn had won the world light-heavyweight title at the age of 21 with a 15-round decision over Melio Bettina in New York. He had defended it three times, twice against Gus Lesnevich before relinquishing it to concentrate on his first fight with Louis. He had also beaten top heavyweight contenders in Lee Savold, Bob Pastor and Al McCoy as well as middleweights like Fred Apostoli and Teddy Yarosz.
Conn invested his money in oil wells, was paid by a car dealership and for three years in the 1960s interrupted the quiet life he led with his family in Pittsburgh to manage the Mob-owned Stardust in Las Vegas. He occasionally refereed bouts, including a lightweight title fight between Carlos Ortiz and Sugar Ramos in Mexico City in 1966. His decision to rule Ramos out because of a cut eye sparked a riot with fans throwing rocks and bottles – and he had to fight his way to the dressing room.
In 1990 he made the headlines when he floored an armed robber in a store with a left hook out of the memory bank.
Conn died of pneumonia in a Pittsburgh hospital in 1993, aged 75. Boxing News online article Bob Mee 8 October 2018, ‘On This Day: Stylish Light Heavyweight Billy Conn was born’
Joe Louis I Lost KO13: US Fight Commentary TV - Billy Conn - Daily Mirror - Bert Randolph Sugar -
v Joe Louis I 18th June 1941 Polo Grounds New York 1941 [r13] ... Louis so phlegmatic in the ring. No sign of emotion on his face. Oh! Good right hand from Conn – and following up with a good left hook ... Joe Louis is hanging on in desperation ... The smaller man senses victory ... Joe Louis maybe, maybe, has to find a knockout to turn this round. Dramatic fight here ... Conn flat-footed now ... That left hook – and there it goes again ... Good right hand though from Louis ... It’s toe to toe war in there ... Another right hand, and a left hook, and he’s gone down. All those rounds of superiority to no avail. UK modern fight commentary
What’s the sense of being Irish if you can’t be stupid? Billy Conn, after fight in dressing room
Conn KO’d In 13th With Victory Near. Daily Mirror headline
Nothing like the first fight. Bert Randolph Sugar
Joe Louis II Lost KO8: Joe Louis -
I told Marshall Miles and Mannie Seamon before the eighth round started that I was going to go out and punch to see if Billy could take it. I got in three hard and opened up a cut under his left eye with a right-hand shot. His knees buckled with a right to the chin. Then I gave him a left hook and a right cross, and he was flat on his back. The referee counted him out 2:19 of round eight. Joe Louis with Edna and Art Rust, A Hell of a Way to End the Year
[8.6] HAROLD JOHNSON 88-76(32)-11-0-1: The Ring online -
Some fighters seize the public’s imagination with awe-inspiring one-punch knockouts. Others bedazzle with bursts of supersonic speed. A few grab headlines with their retina-burning attire, their inspirational life stories or their inflammatory trash talk.
Onetime light heavyweight champion Harold Johnson, who died Thursday morning at 86, didn’t take any shortcuts to earn his greatness. He was a solid citizen in a sport saturated by crazies, criminals and characters. He was the guy who clocked in every day and did his job in such a classy, dignified manner that one couldn’t help but admire his excellence. Johnson was a beautifully proportioned 5-foot-11 specimen who used a picture-perfect stance, a textbook high guard, compactly crisp punches and uncommon patience. He struck only when the openings presented themselves and not a moment sooner. That’s how confident he was within his technical envelope.
Had Johnson been a basketball player he would’ve been like Tim Duncan, whose command of details is such that he is nicknamed ‘The Big Fundamental’. Had he been a pitcher, he would’ve plied his trade like Greg Maddux, who won 355 games with superb control and exquisite craft yet struck out 3,371 batters without the benefit of overwhelming speed. They, like Johnson, won as much with their brain as they did with their athleticism and that enviable combination allowed them to enjoy long and distinguished careers.
While Duncan is in his 18th NBA season and Maddux played for 22 years, Johnson’s boxing career lasted a quarter century. From 1946 to 1971 Johnson went 76-11 (32) and beat the likes of Ezzard Charles, Archie Moore, Arturo Godoy, Jimmy Bivins, Bob Satterfield (twice), Nino Valdes, Marty Marshall, Von Clay, Eddie Machen, Eddie Cotton, Doug Jones, Gustav Scholz and Henry Hank. His highly technical and unrushed approach was deemed boring by some but to the cognoscenti, like Hall of Fame matchmaker Teddy Brenner, he was ‘perfection’.
Johnson may be best remembered for his five-fight series with Moore, of which he won only once – a 10-round decision in their third fight, the middle bout of a back-to-back-to-back gauntlet between September 1951 and January 1952. Their final meeting in August 1954, the only one involving a championship, was their most exciting. Johnson, in his first title fight, broke open a close contest with a knockdown in the 10th. Leading on two scorecards and even on the third Johnson appeared on his way to immortality but the ‘Old Mongoose’ rallied to score a 14th-round TKO.
After the NBA stripped Moore, Johnson won the vacant belt in February 1961 by stopping Jesse Bowdry and notched a defense against Cotton before out-pointing Jones to gain undisputed recognition. After beating Scholz on points in Germany, Johnson lost a heart-breaking split decision to Willie Pastrano. Johnson fought on for another decade, going 7-2 before retiring at 42.
Johnson was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1993 and his class included Hagler, Elorde, Zivic and Giardello. His surname may have been ordinary in comparison to his peers but his game was anything but. The Ring online article, ‘Harold Johnson: 1928-2015’