Was Brian Nielsen a good fighter?

Good fighter is relative. He won a lot of professional boxing matches and has a bronze medal from the Olympics. So he was a good boxer. Was he an elite professional boxer? No, I don't think so. Finding fighters from the 80s and dragging them to Denmark in the 90s potentially to lose on purpose doesn't really strike me as excellent prizefighting. Taking a Brian Nielsen fight seemed to be the ultimate "I need money" move. Like fighting Zsolt Erdei or Sven Ottke or something.

 

Decent but many of his fights were handpicked and some of them may have been fixed. He tried breaking Marcianos record and then got stopped by someone unknown.

 

He was the nearest thing to Marciano that we've seen..

 

He’d be an ideal addition to a round robin with Kownacki and the Turkish guy who just beat him.
Edit: Demirizen

 

Good, yes - Great, no
He was fun to watch and easily scored victories over undertrained american boxers. No need to fix any fights, although I personally thinks that he lost the Larry Holmes fight. Funnily enough the american judge voted for Nielsen and the "Home" judge voted for Holmes.
I have all his fights on tape, but one thing strikes me. When I watched him from ringside, he had much faster hands than on tape?!
Extremly popular in Denmark, even my mother watched his fights on tv when she was around 80.

 

'Super Brian' !!

Don't let the grotesque layer of excess flab fool you - in a fair world he'd have taken the scalps of Lennox Lewis & Wladimir Klitschko.

Robbed of a place in the '92 Olympic super heavyweight final in which he would've won the gold comfortably. As a pro his record was quite astonishing. 64-3! The list of victims included fellow ATG Larry Holmes, plus prime ex-champions Witherspoon, Tubbs, Bonecrusher Smith & Terry Norris, the always-devastating Lionel Butler, & world class contenders such as Jeff Pegues & Peter McNeely. Knocked back the challenges of countless pretenders and was also never afraid to bitchslap dangerous undefeated prospects who dared to step up such as Damon Reed & Joey Guy.

Tragically he blew a future wbc title shot against Lewis in his showcase bout taken on the advice of his idiotic manager when he teed off on that bum - yet due to two broken hands - embarrassingly couldn't drop him on the undercard of Lewis-Akinwande (despite the agony of a double injury Brian still admirably forced a 4th round TKO).

Only lost during his prime when dangerously dehydrated vs D*cky Ryan and ended up in an induced coma. Won a rematch easily.

Was already well past his best when he landed another two superbouts vs Tyson & Holyfield. Neither could've handled Brian if they were all in their primes.

In his autobiography, Manchester journeyman Michael Murray wrote about Brian after spending time in camp with him. He said Brian would never even bother doing roadwork, he'd just spar - and his sessions would always be wars. Plus his farts were pretty much nuclear weapons apparently.

He was scandalously misquoted as using a racial slur on the eve of the Tyson fight. That was just a mistake in translation on the part of some stupid journalist.

That classless punk loser Jeremy Williams also tried to smear Brian's impeccable rep when he claimed he'd taken a dive in their bout. Everyone knows Williams couldn't carry Brian's jockstrap.

Brian was/is a very likeable guy. A top bloke, really.

 

This looks like something @cross_trainer would write about Tire Iron Jones.

 

Extremely popular - and also extremely protected fighter.

Lots of former champs, nearing the end of their respective careers, came to Denmark to collect a decent paycheck - several probably with little ambition of more than just that!

 

Beautiful Joe!

I always thought Brian’s sister, Brigitte, was pretty hot.

I remember when Brian’s then brother in law, Sly Stallone, was foolish enough to ask Brian to go a few rounds of “playful” sparring.

Well, just two rounds, 3 busted ribs and two black eyes later the Italian Stallion wasn’t at all happy - I think it hastened the demise of Sly’s union with the statuesque Brigitte who was also known to knock little Sylvester around on occasion.

Never did road work? I’m shocked. I mean, sure, Brian had those big TUTs, but so did his sis’ Brigitte, I though it was just family genetics - good for Brigitte, bad for Brian. Maybe Brian was too proud to wear a sports bra while running so he gave it away altogether.

The punishment Brian soaked up from Tyson was very REAL - hats off to the Big Dane for his courage and determination. If he’d hung for another 1-2 rounds, who knows, things might’ve been very different…so close, yet so far….

Not sure, but didn’t Brian open a pastry shop after retiring or is that just ridiculous stereotyping?

 

What other fighter beat Holmes, Witherspoon and Holyfield?

GOAT.

 

So true. And just in respect of their own Nielsen family, simply put a wig, make up and a dress on Brian, voila, you’d have Brigitte - impossible to tell them apart.

Come to think of it, I haven’t see one photo or video of those two together - strange for such close siblings.

Hmmm, maybe Sly worked this all out well before I did - and he still stayed married to Brian/Brigitte for a good two years! - which now seems like an eternity given the now obvious and extraordinary circumstances.

 

Don’t quote me, but a little birdy told me that after he finishes Dempsey, Mr Pollack will be giving Tire Iron the full treatment in a 2 volume set.

Of course Adam will utilise all first hand/primary sources to arrive as close to the truth as possible - some myths will be busted but some truths will also be reinforced in due balance.

It will be must reading and a terrific reference book to have on hand when discussing all things Tire Iron. Can’t wait to add it to my bookshelf - in the non fiction section of course.

 

I actually went back and rewatched some Nielsen tape, boy was he dreadful. I have no doubt that the fights against name opponents were fixed in spirit, in the sense that both men "knew what time it was"--what's understood doesn't need to be said. You're coming here for a fat check, don't even bother training because you don't care. The fight against Witherspoon was sad as hell, if Tim broke a sweat leading up to that fight, it was probably on the airplane to Denmark. Total farces. The guy sure took a hell of a hiding against Tyson, though. He was an excellent punching bag.

 

A bunch of his fights were fixed, he was a typical Mogens Palle pro wrestling hype job. Fix a bunch of his fights, get a bunch of wins over bums and has beens and build him up as an attraction.

If you want to see how crazily biased and fixed his fights were watch the fight against Dickie Ryan where Nielsen is trying to break Marciano's record. He gets knocked out, literally tries to crawl out of the ring and away from the fight and then Danes at ringside literally roll his fatass back in to the ring and push him back into the fight EVEN THOUGH HE HAD BEEN STOPPED! Watch the ninth round where he gets battered all over the ring and the referee gives him a ton of time to recover while Nielsen's corner is allowed to stand on the ring apron, coach him, cool him down with water, massage his neck ALL WHILE BEING COUNTED OVER BY THE REF!