Good post chokelab! Never saw this. To be fair Johnson was nothing more than a journeyman and London was never going to be any serious contender but it's certainly one for us old men's "library".
Thanks Jowlcol I liked it. Johnson has talent but gets tired after two rounds. Hard to believe Amos is only 27. London is effective and tough. He's nobody's fool. Brian gets a lot of stick as some kind of soft touch but he was by no means one of the weakest title challengers. Not by a long chalk.
I saw this at the time ,looking at it now London looks slow and pretty crude imo.Johnson gassed after a couple of rounds and the referee Ike Powell, normally a decent third man ,did not have a good night imo.
They didn't stand any nonsense back then did they? Ike did warn him a couple of times before throwing him out without hesitation. The infringement was 90% down to fatigue so there was clear room to make some allowances had Powell wanted to. He just decided it was going to deteriorate so he threw Johnson out. Seems harsh now but maybe we should go back to that? The commentary says Powell was in his 40th year as a ref, he'd been doing it since the 1920s!
London in his "fight" against Ali sure looked like the weakest title challenger to me. He was worse than pathetic in that fight.
Ali was on another level to London obviously, but big cat Williams appeared just as feeble in his title fight.
Williams did look feeble against Ali and not surprisingly considering that he was shot, literally and figuratively. Also, All toyed with London but destroyed Cleveland. Had Ali fought London the same way, bashful Brian would have quickly sought refuge on the canvas in the first round.
Johnson was" looking with his head" in the early rounds,in the later rounds it did seem to be exhaustion.
Well to be fair after being shot he won 4 consecutive fights leading up to the Ali fight and he won 5 consecutive after the Ali fight. Of course they weren't against leading opposition, but he wasn't exactly an invalid.
Ali was at his best against London and Williams. Both guys made Ali look even more terrific. However, right before facing Ali, Brian London beating Amos Johnson (rated on account of his win over Henry Cooper) was superior in every way to Williams local fight against Todd Hering that somehow also elevated Williams into a championship fight. Herring was one of the guys who gave Williams blood after his shooting. Todd was as famous for that as anything he did as a boxer. In fact, the Williams who fought Todd Herring would lose to the Brian London that beat Amos Johnson. My money is on London!
