Marion Conner
Name: Marion Conner
Alias: Conner Thunderbolt
Birth Name: Marion Conner Brown
Hometown: Canton, Ohio, USA
Birthplace: Canton, Ohio, USA
Died: 2022-01-12 (Age:81)
Height: 178cm
Pro Boxer: Record
Amateur Boxer: Record
Division: Light Heavyweight
Photo #2, Conner in 2012
Marion Conner was an 11-time Golden Gloves champion boxer and world-ranked professional fighter.
He played football and ran track at McKinney High School. He fought as a southpaw while an amateur, but converted to orthodox when he turned pro. He was an "aggressive body puncher with a very strong good left hook to the head, who wore his opponents down." IBRO Journal #114 (2012), p. 14.
Born in Canton in 1940, Conner was Stark County's first Golden Gloves champion. A one-time Ohio heavyweight champion, Conner retired from the sport in 1976, the year he fought Ronnie Harris in the "Bicentennial Battle of 1976" which Harris won. (Both fighters had come up through the Police Boys Club boxing program run by J. Babe Stearn, who knew Jack Dempsey.)
He is enshrined in the Stark County Amateur Sports Hall of Fame and the Canton Negro Old-timers Athletic Association Hall of Fame.
Career Highlights
- 1959: Won Steubenville Golden Gloves
- 1960: Won Steubenville Golden Gloves
- Feb. 1961: Won Pittsburgh Golden Gloves
- Mar 21, 1961: Won the New York Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions at light heavyweight vs. Simon Ramos
- Mar. 29 1961: Won Intercity Golden Gloves championship, at light heavyweight, at 2:43 of the 3rd round vs. Charles Williams.
- Jan. 24, 1962: Won the "overweight" title at Canton Golden Gloves
- Feb 9, 1962: Cleveland Golden Gloves, L 3 in final to James Kitchen
- Apr. 27, 1962: Freeport Ohio: sch am bout vs. Don Grant
- Jan. 1964: The Ring magazine's Light-Heavyweight "Prospect for the Month"
| Preceded by: Robert Rutherford |
New York Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions Light Heavyweight Champion 1961 |
Succeeded by: Tournament ends |
| Preceded by: Jeff Davis |
Intercity Golden Gloves Light Heavyweight Champion 1961 |
Succeeded by: Tournament ends |