Ali V Ingo In 1962

I favor young Ali too. His speed, reflexes and footwork were just outstanding + Ingo was fading. Furthermore, Ali was taller and had way better reach.

About young Ali's potential vulnerability to left hooks. I noticed that Ingo also had a sharp left hook which he often liked to use in combination with his right hand (for instance, when he knocked out Patterson). As a single punch it wasn't as good and noticeable as e.g., Cooper's or Patterson's left hook though. Normally this shouldn't cause any problems for Ali. I just mean Johansson wasn't only a one-armed bandit with his Bingo.

About Patterson vs. Liston instead of Patterson vs. Johansson 1. Well, I don't think there was any reason for Patterson to fight Liston at that time. Liston was in prison from 56 to 58. Johansson fought Machen in September 1958 and became No. 1 contender in October according to NBA's Quarterly Ratings (Liston was No. 10 here). I think Johansson vs. Machen was also a title eliminator bout. When Ingo became world champion, Sonny was No. 4 contender behind Patterson, Cooper and Folley. One can criticize that Patterson hasn't faced Folley and Machen before or Liston later on... but I think the Ingo fight was okay. I think Ingo was a deserved short-time world champion and it wasn't his fault that Sonny was in jail for so long.

 

Yes, a one off spar in 1961.

More details here on a BoxRec thread with a link to the available vision at the bottom of that thread.

Not to feed into a prediction either way but while Ali looked very good in there boxing with Ingo, a sparring session is still just a sparring session - and Ali himself became known for not looking great a lot of the time in his own workouts as Champ.


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Yes, it was in February 1961 while Johansson was training for the third Patterson fight. To be fair this was more than a month before the fight and Johansson wasn't at peak fitness.

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IIRC there's footage of them sparring.