Though quibbling a bit with Andrew O’Toole’s portrayal of the Joe Louis-Billy Conn rematch (was it fixed?), maxboxing.com recommends Sweet William: The Life of Billy Conn.

“O’Toole recounts Conn’s rise vividly and gives this reader real insight into Billy Conn’s fistic stature in the 1930s and early 1940s.”

“Other than Ali, there was never a fighter as handsome. Warner Brothers asked him to play the 19th-century champion Gentleman Jim Corbett in a movie; he turned them down and they settled for Errol Flynn.”

“Before Roberto Clemente, Terry Bradshaw or Mario Lemieux became household names, Billy Conn was Pittsburgh’s most famous athlete. In Andrew O’Toole’s Sweet William: The Life of Billy Conn, the East Liberty-born boxer’s career is examined, and there’s much to enjoy. O’Toole is a thorough chronicler, but the best parts of the book are the colorful backroom stories that seem to be intrinsic to boxing lore.”

Thomas Hauser, writing for the boxing site SecondsOut.com, recommends four University of Illinois Press boxing titles for your holiday gift list, including Sweet William, Andrew O’Toole’s new biography of Billy Conn.

 ”The two Louis-Conn fights are the highlight of O’Toole’s work, but he also does a nice job of recounting the endless dysfunctional family struggles that plagued Conn throughout his life and the boxer’s sad decline into pugilistic dementia.”