He was a fine fighter...unlucky because his chin let him down, but then it was on the receiving end of SRR's and Ancient Archie's thunder...can't blame him for that. He did lay a whipping on Joey Maxim..putting Joey on the deck a few times in the process...pretty good.
I like Olssen. He was a nice technically sound pressure fighter, who had his own unique defensive mechanism, that I love. A steady workman with solid tools IMO, but as mentioned above his punch resistance may have let him down.
i like bobo too, he was best fighter from hawaii and had a very impressive resume at a world class level. i think he held the middle weight title for the longest period in the 50's? im looking at boxrec and his wins over turpin, young, hairston, castellani, villemain, longlois, gavilan and giambra (disputed) could have been the best 8 other guys outside of robinson in the division.
Good fighter Olson. Unfortunately his careers been tainted from being on the wrong end of a few highlight reel knockouts.
My dad knew Carl "Bobo" Olson growing up as kids in Hawaii. He told me he was a really tough street fighter. He was really upset that he never could beat Sugar Ray Robinson but he also thought that SRR was the best boxer ever. When I was following Sugar Ray Leonard, he confidently told me that Robinson would beat him easy.
I used to not think much of Olson but the more Ive seen of him the more respect I have for him. He was a really tough, well schooled boxer. Very strong and very tough to beat. I, like someone above, used to think he had a weak chin but think about this for a second: He fought in an extremely tough era, turned pro at lightweight, had 118 fights, and was only stopped 7 times. 2 of those stoppages came against light heavyweights, two came against heavyweights, and 3 came against Robinson. Five of his stoppages came against hall of famers and four of those stoppages came against men considered to be among the greatest punchers in history.