Ingemar Johansson, 1958 vs Frank Bruno, 1986, who wins and why?

Anyone who's interested in Franco Cavicchi, (who Johansson won the European title from in 1956) :

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It's literally one the scariest KOs in HW history. Popular speculation it might have caused damage or at least set him back as a fighter is not unreasonable. I find the London knock down rather alarming and so did Ingo himself.

These guys that bash choklab, I'm not sure they realize how deranged they themselves are sounding with this stuff.

Ingo being bashed and called names for retiring after a scary moment and bad performance in his final fight while on a comeback from two brutal KO losses. Sometimes dudes just lose their punch resistance and given he still suffered from early cognitive loss...this all just seems gross to me.

 

18 Pages...who woulda thought?

 

Very confused young men.

 

Frank Bruno beat Gerrie Coetzee who beat Leon Spinks who beat Muhammad Ali who beat Sonny Liston who beat Floyd Patterson who beat Ingemar Johansson.

Bruno wins!!!

 

I'm convinced. The "crew" need to take pointers from this post.

This also feeds into my Maxim GOAT theory.

 

How about the truth .. Ingo was not washed up as if he fell from some great heights .. Ingo was like a Mike Rossman .. he had a few good wins but in reality he was never that good plus lacked the focus and discipline to maximize what he had .. in addition to being limited in skill and essentially being a one trick pony, Ingo lacked focus, commitment and drive .. he was not a hard trainer, never the most dedicated guy and essentially a playboy .. this is the same guy that was disqualified out of the olympics for not fighting .. again, no need to romanticize him .. he had his moment in the sun and brought some fun to the sport for a couple of years but he was never, ever close to being a great fighter.

 

I don't rate Ingo as a "great fighter" either...

So what exactly was the point of all this?

Just because I have pretty good reason to conclude Ingo was in a physical decline in his final performance....doesn't mean I'm ranking him as a great. I would say this was a strawman but I think you just confuse yourself.

Seriously, hegrant, I would advise you take a break from message forums.

 

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make either. You seem to almost contradict yourself.

"lacked the focus and discipline to maximize what he had" ......
"Ingo lacked focus, commitment and drive" ....
"he was not a hard trainer, never the most dedicated guy and essentially a playboy".....

and yet you're complaining that people believe he was washed-up or well sub-par in his final fight with Brian London ?
Don't you think his lack of focus, discipline, commitment, drive, dedication etc. might have resulted in him declining badly and being pretty much washed-up at age 30 when he faced London ?
especially considering his chose to walk away from the sport completely after struggling badly to the win.

 

Sorry, Just arrived from a road trip hence the late response.

I did read your answer properly. You said while you didn't agree with any of his opinions, you don't think any were unreasonable. I reject that premise. For example their's absolutely nothing to substantiate Ingo potentially being Liston's worst nightmare as even remotely reasonable even using Choklab's laughable methods by judging two fighters on the sole basis of their performances against common opponents (except when it doesn't suit his agenda, like Williams and Quarry vs Machen, in which case it's thrown away swiftly). Ingo lost 2 out of 3 to Patterson, and Liston knocked Patterson out twice in the first. He just picks and chooses his arguments to where it suits him,

All due respect Unforgiven, I have a very hard time wrapping my head around the fact you haven't seen any of his blatant agenda, or dishonest tactics in play seeing as you've been here 15 years. Complaints from other posters are beyond well documented, and I actually seem to remember you having a go at him when he laughably tried to defend Klompton's claim, that Cleveland Williams was no different post-shooting.

Their are hundreds, literally hundreds of posts like these, from at least 20+ posters that I could easily pull up. If you think they're all incorrect, and we just have Chok pegged wrong, have I got a bridge to sell you.

 

Well, that might be so but Johansson would have been a serious opponent for Liston, which means he might have caused problems. We just don't know, really. Johansson hit as hard or harder than anyone Liston fought, and Liston was hittable, and was hit with right hands from lesser guys, so we can't say for sure how much a problem Johansson would or wouldn't be for Liston.
There's really no need to overcomplicate it. If Choklab overcomplicates it and using roundabout reasoning, that doesn't mean we have to too. Like I said, I don't think it's unreasonable to regard Johansson 1958-'59 as a formidable obstacle for any version of Liston. I suspect Liston would have weathered any storm and taken Johansson out withing 3 or 4 rounds, like he did with Cleveland Williams and Zora Folley, which were short but tough fights. That's my personal opinion.

Sure, but in this thread I've seen most of the nonsense coming from people on the other side of the debate, to be fair. Then again that's just my opinion.
I think we all agree Liston beats Johansson, with the possible exception of choklab (and even choklab seems to recognize that the best version of Liston should be favourite), so it's not even something to argue about.
The fact is, there's been a lot of downplaying of Ingemar Johansson's achievements and fighting prowess.
Maybe some of us are too harsh on Bruno (who I actually give a GOOD CHANCE against Johansson) but I think the thing has been skewed against Johansson a bit. But everyone is entitled to their opinion, I suppose.

 

Fair enough mate. Perhaps I was being a bit harsh on Ingo in the thread. However, I do think Ingo is generally being a bit overrated here and Bruno underrated. For example, people are mentioning Bruno wasn't good enough to become lineal while Ingo was, but nobody is mentioning, to get to the top, Ingo had to beat Patterson, Bruno on the other hand would've had to beat Tyson and/or Lewis. Two H2H monsters. I think it's unfair to not account for the vast difference in quality of opponents when assessing their success.
One other thing that irked me, is Chok (and to a lesser extent Bah Lance) making out Machen to be the best in the world at one point, and praising him but suddenly when assessing Williams record, all of that goes out the window and Machen is suddenly this glorified Journeyman. Double standards, of astronomical proportions.

 

Here we go again, a young confused guy, already made a fool of himself on this thread, using a load of inconsequential quotes Going years back, where I have exasperated those who have struggled to disagree with a mere opinion I might have used long ago.. in order to discredit me... pretty bad show. Raking up old stuff. Just silly.

 

Furthermore, this debate is constructed like Liston had his debut in 01/1958. He still had 15 bouts, beat his rival Marshall before layoff and wasn´t overweight or anything in January, 1958.

Lets say we take the Liston from the end of 58, he still re-acclimated with six or seven bouts! Its again more than farfetched to favor any Johansson over that version of Sonny Liston.
If Liston was champ in 58 and he´d take Johansson in June 1959, Liston stops him. Three fights? He beats him three times. Earlier for both Johansson (Machen) and Liston? He gets beat again.
Srsly, if this isn´t the 56-version of Liston, I have no clue how a young upcoming fighter, who wasn´t that hard to hurt, should be in debate for a case against a Liston calibre of fighter. Even if it was the younger one.

Its like picking Mike Weaver or Adilson Rodrigues over 86 Mike Tyson of the Mitch Green / Reggie Gross bout.
Or unbeaten Ron Stander / Ernie Shavers over George Foreman in 71/72.

 

Why take that version though? 1958 starts in January doesn’t it? If a guy needs fights to get into his stride he clearly isn’t as good at the start of the year.

why would Liston be champ in 1958?

it’s more like picking Tyson to lose to a more active future champion who had already beaten rated fighters. Mike Weaver was on his way down and Aldison Rodriguez barely beat rated fighters until Tyson was already close to his prime. I don’t think these are the right comparison. Holyfield, Tucker or Douglas would be better placed.

again, these were not future champions were they? Ingo was a future champion. A fair comparison would be taking Frazier to beat Ellis before Eliss win that WBA tournament. Something like that. Or jack Johnson or Larry Holmes to beat Somebody before they became champion.