Ingemar Johansson vs Sonny Liston

Why are you acting all butt hurt?
I favor Liston, but I acknowledge the fact that Ingemar is dangerous in the early goings, and everyone is acting as though Liston was this monster whom you could not hurt, when the records shows otherwise.

Liston is human, he can be hurt, and right hand was his weakness stylistically, so Ingemar has a remote, but still quite a good shot of knocking him down or out in the early going.

I would still favor Sonny Liston, but Liston is by no means a superhuman beast. Squeeking by cab drivers and getting his nose broken early against no-namers tells you he can be hit and he can be hurt, and Ingemar had a very nice right hand.

Historically, Sonny Liston is vastly overrated, I don't rate Ingemar highly, around 25-30 on the heavyweight ATG lists, but Sonny fails to enter top10 for obvious reasons.

 

one other thing great A...

Listons perhaps one weakness was his trouble with mobility. Johansson was not mobile, he was stationary. He would be right in liston's target range. Johansson was not even slick defensively. He would literally be standing right in front of liston ready to get assaulted. patterson at least had the handspeed and technique to "possibly" give sonny problems.

 

I disagree. He was very mobile, to the point of almost running.

Look at his defining performance:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReNxJnrvig4[/ame]

 

johannson had to make do with what could be imported to europe to fight him there. that he shone against an unexposed machen and unexosed patterson in the light that he had less opertunitys within the hotbed of american talent and U.S gyms is testament to his talent. but archie mcbride beat valdes so he was good value. i understand ingo had a tougher than expected fight with bygraves first time around simular to liston with whitehurst and summerlin. by the second time ingo delt with bygraves however.
I just think liston and ingo were not that far apart. neither dominated an era. there was no "sonny liston era". it was the "patterson/ingo/liston era". history remebers them with equal billing on era's.

 

Boxed like a chicken in the olympic final against Ed Sanders, I thought highly of you Suzie atsch

He was moving around, trying to be smart and not engage early with a 220lbs man, being 40lbs lighter and at a tender young age himself. Obviously his tactics were to exploit Eds stamina that had been in question prior to their fight.

And if you watch the tapes, you would know better than to call him a chicken. What he did then is far acceptable by todays standards, he was being smart.

 

You call that Mobile? If so, probably the most predictable plodding footwork i have ever seen in my life. :barf

Johansson loved to fight flatfooted and paw his jab out there, and circle once in a while. very predictable, very boring. Once Floyd knew his ticket going in, he had his number for the rematches. Floyd outslugged Johansson 2 out of 3 times. I question if floyd had the harder punch.

 

Ummm.. No your wrong. It is commonly known as "Liston's Era"


Liston in that time period defeated Floyd Patterson 2x, Eddie Machen, Cleveland Williams 2x, Zora Folley, Nino Valdes, Mike DeJohn, Wayne Bethea, Roy Harris, Johnny Summerlin. These were the best contenders the division and era had to offer. The only name worth fighting not on this list was Johansson, and Johansson was scared to fight Liston.

Liston arguably cleaned out his era more so than any other heavyweight champion.

 

I have to disagree. He took away Patterson's fast handspeed out of the equation with his own footwork and constant use of the left hand. It was predictable to an extent, as Patterson was able to adjust and make his way in with rapid-fire jabs in their second fight, but it took a KO loss for him to figure it out. It might not take one for Liston but it could take one strong right hand on the nose atleast.

 

I am not the only one calling him a "Scaredy Cat"


"But still lingering in my mind was the rememberance of something that I had never talked about, even after Johansson and I were signed to fight. I had never in my life seen a man so scared in the ring, as Johansson was in that fight with Sanders. First impressions are lasting, and that was mine."- Floyd Patterson in Victory over Myself




Aug 2 Ingemar Johansson (SWE) W DQ 2 Final Round

"Navy sailor Ed Sanders... operated like a lesser Joe Louis. Big and strong,
he demonstrated power that was more than slightly frightening to his
opposition. In the final against Sweden's Ingemar Johansson .....Ingemar
wanted no part of him. He ran, literally ran, from big Ed, and the referee
disqualified Johansson for not fighting." (2)- Jess Abramson - The Ring - Nov 52 p8,9,41

 

Here is the AP report on London vs Johansson

"Referee Andrew Smythe of Ireland, the sole judge, awarded The fight to Johansson, but Said later he probably would have stopped The fight and given it to London if the bell hadn't rung. 'Ingemar was not in a position to defend himself,' Smythe said, 'but he clearly had won more rounds.'
London said he thought he had won, and the crowd, which roundly booed Johansson on his home Grounds, seemed to share his view."

Ring magazine April 1984.

Top 10 Glass Jaws of All-Time

1. Floyd Patterson
2. Bob Satterfield
3. Ruby Goldstein

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5. Tippy Larkin
6. "Phainting" Phill Scott
7. John Tate
8. Joey DeJohn
9. Ken Norton
10. Primo Carnera
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1. "You really do have all the excuses in the world, don't you"

I was merely quoting Machen, who claimed he had an injured shoulder against Liston. My observation is that Machen did not throw many rights against Liston.

2. "He walked into European soil"

It was a right hand which knocked him out, not "soil". What has this got to do with anything. Johansson's two defeats were on American "soil", so they don't count?

3. "Sandbagging"

And you bring up excuses. Machen and Patterson contract to fight a man known to have a good right with plenty of film of that right readily available, and then they are "sandbagged" when they are hit with a right. Give me a break.

4. "Floyd had no idea"

With the film of the Machen fight being shown on TV in a program hosted by Jackie Gleason. I remember in his 1961 biog he was quoted as saying he knew Ingo had a right but was surprised by his mobility.

5. "Machen and Patterson went into the fight grossly underestimating Johansson's right hand."

Tough.

6. Why should Ingo pound overmatched sparring partners with his right? I don't see the point to these articles except that a lot of boxing writers were not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

7. On Louis--Johansson was sloppy trying to finish Patterson. He looked great finishing Machen.

 

I recently bought the Floyd/ Ingo trilogy ,and was pleasantly surprised by how mobile Ingo really was, I am not a particular fan of his, but to say he could not use the ring effectively is denying reality.His left jab was also faster than it at first looked,interestingly in one of the fights [the first I think], Liston is introduced into the ring ,during the preliminaries.

 

How did the "bum" Johansson fare with Machen, and how did Valdes do? Johansson got the fight with Patterson because he was the #1 contender.

 

The facts support this viewpoint.Liston was matched tough early.