Ahead on the cards and closing in on a historic upset, Conn abandoned his strategy before Joe Louis rallied to score a 13th-round stoppage
Eighty-five years ago today, Billy Conn came within two rounds of one of the biggest upsets in heavyweight championship history before Joe Louis rallied to stop him in the 13th round at New York’s Polo Grounds.
Conn entered the bout as the reigning light heavyweight champion and a significant underdog against Louis, who had already established himself as one of the sport’s dominant heavyweight champions. Rather than bulk up, Conn relied on speed, movement, and boxing skill, implementing a “hit-and-run” strategy that frustrated Louis for much of the fight.
Before a crowd of 54,487, Conn steadily built a lead on the scorecards. Louis looked unusually sluggish as Conn repeatedly beat him to the punch and controlled the tempo. The challenger may have produced the fight’s biggest moment in the 12th round when he staggered Louis with a pair of left hooks, sending the crowd into a frenzy.
At the time of the stoppage, Conn led on two official scorecards, 7-5 and 7-4-1, while the third judge had the fight even at 6-6. The Associated Press scored it 8-4 for Conn.
Then came the 13th round.
Instead of continuing to box his way toward a decision, Conn went looking for a knockout. Louis, who had been told by trainer Jack Blackburn that he needed a stoppage to win, seized the opportunity. The heavyweight champion caught Conn with a counterattack and knocked him out at 2:58 of the round.
In the dressing room afterward, Conn blamed nobody but himself.
“I lost my head and a million bucks,” he famously said. When asked why he abandoned the strategy that had put him ahead, Conn offered another memorable line: “What’s the use of being Irish if you can’t be thick?”
The regret stayed with him for the rest of his life.
Years later, Conn admitted he had the fight won before chasing the knockout. “I was a wise guy. I had him, and I let him get away,” Conn recalled. “If I hadn’t hurt him in the twelfth and tried to knock him out in the thirteenth, I’d have beat him.”
Near the end of his life, Conn suggested he wasn’t certain the judges would have awarded him the decision against a champion as popular as Louis. Still, the fighter’s own reflections focused less on the scorecards and more on his decision to abandon a winning game plan.
Eighty-five years later, the lasting image remains the same: Billy Conn outboxing the great Joe Louis, only to let victory slip away while trying to finish the job too soon.
