Heartbreaker

On the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, last week, Emperor Joe Louis met the 17th challenger for his world's heavyweight crown: 23-year-old Billy Conn of Pittsburgh.

Young Conn, a handsome Irish toughie, brought up in Pittsburgh's brawl-proud East Liberty section, had been fighting since he was 14. He got his upper schooling in the lightweight, welterweight, middleweight and light-heavyweight classes, had only recently given up his light-heavy title to take a jab at Joe Louis' diadem. The wise money said The Kid should have waited another year. He was fast and smart but he was 25 Ib. lighter than Louis, had no steam behind his punches.

But young Conn was cocky; he insisted on playing the big chips this year. Next year, he figured, he might be in the Navy. Besides, he needed the dough. His mother had been bedfast with an incurable ailment for months and he wanted to marry highfalutin Mary Louise Smith, 18-year-old daughter of onetime big-league Ballplayer Jimmy Smith, now a well-to-do Pittsburgh nightclub owner.

This sentimental hullabaloo was heavensent for a prizefight buildup, and Builder-Upper Jack Miley, sportswriter of the old school, made the most of it. On the night of the fight 55,000 fans crammed into Manhattan's Polo Grounds.

For the first two rounds, The Kid did just what the experts had said he would: he jabbed and danced away like an elusive shadow. He was so nervous he even tripped and fell. In the third round, after Louis had nailed him but failed to knock him down, Conn began to grin scornfully at the champ.

In the fourth, The Kid began to tattoo the champion with lightning-quick pokes. Oldtimers were reminded of onetime Light-Heavyweight Champion Jack Delaney, the "rapier of the north," who used to fight like a twinkle-toed fencer, but The Kid didn't taunt his opponent as much as usual (Said he afterward: "I didn't have so much time to talk. But I talked to him a couple of times. Once I says to him: 'Joe, you're in for a tough night.' And Joe, he says to me: 'Ah knows ah am.' ").

Four rounds later the rapier began to sting. Young Billy began to maul the Big Boy. He beat him to the punch, socked him as though he had a policeman's billy in his mitt.

By the end of the twelfth round, Conn's sustained attack had the crowd on its feet, yelling. It was terrific. The fleet-fisted kid had confounded, dumfounded and dazed the greatest champion since Dempsey. On most ringside cards he was leading on points. Louis was obviously worried.

Aglow with confidence, Conn came out for the 13th round. "I got you, Joe," he had taunted. But the champ was not the champ for nothing. And The Kid was still a kid. Instead of continuing to jig & jab, Conn did just what he had been warned not to do: he sailed into shufflin' Joe, began swapping punches. This was what the cool-headed champ had been waiting for. Before the swaggering youngster knew what had struck him, he was staggering under a bombardments of rights & lefts. Two seconds before the bell, he was curled up on the canvas for a count of ten.

Heartbroken, despite the $77,000 he had earned, young Conn sobbed: "I lost my head and a million bucks."

Louis' next opponent in September will be California's Lou Nova, only first-rate contender the champion has never beaten.

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