Ingo on Liston against Machen

I wouldn't give Johansson much of a chance against Sonny Liston, but in reality Johansson proved himself Patterson's near equal at least.
Consider their third fight was a to-and-fro affair and Floyd won it on what looks like a foul punch, and it's unlikely that Ingo trained as seriously as he should have.

Plus the fact that Ingemar brutally wiped out the number one contender Machen at a time when Patterson's management was avoiding the same fighter.

Johansson was based in Europe of course for most his career, and he drew big crowds there in Sweden, so it's wrong to expect him to have mixed with many top Americans in his short career. But when given the chance he beat the number 1 contender brutally at home, then went to the states and brutally dethroned the champion in the champ's back yard. Outside of that, he beat the best in Europe.

It's fair to say Johansson fits in at number 3 in the era between Marciano's retirement and Clay's rise, with Liston at 1, and Patterson at 2 only narrowly ahead of Ingo.
Machen, Moore, Folley etc. are NOT ahead of Johansson, IMO.

 

Yes Ingo is big over here in Sweden and people still talk about that night when they listened to the radio when he won the title.
I remember one thing my father told me and that was that Floyd was more popular here than ingo was.
However I´ve seen some fight´s with Ingemar cause he came in between the Marciano and Clay era and for me who has Clay/Ali as the nr 1 all time has specialized on his era must say that I can´t help it but I can´t see Ingemar be able to beat Cleveland Williams or Zora Folley, definetly not Liston. He won over Patterson the first time and I think that Patterson thought it would be an easy fight, in the second fight I think it was the opposite and in the third it was a total war.
Will Sweden have a new Ingo? Never!
All the best from Sweden
The Predator

 

What you said was that a win over Johansson wouldn't greatly improve Liston's legacy, because fighters including Folley and Williams (who he actually beat) were BETTER than Johansson, which I think is a fairly indefensible position. As I pointed out above, Johansson consistently did better than both Folley and Williams against repeated common opponents (which IS plainly a measurement of head-to-head ability) and had a much more impressive set of accomplishments in a much shorter career than they did. I would think one should define "good" as "effective at winning fights on a consistent basis against most fighters," and by that standard, it seems clear that Johansson wasa substantially better fighter than Folley and Williams. Now, although this, in fact, was not the vein of discussion I was responding to before, if we want to talk about actual hypothetical head-to-head match-ups between Johansson and Folley/Williams, I would think that, as a better fighter, Johansson should be the assumed favorite (since better fighters generally beat lesser fighters, hence "better") unless there is some strong stylistic reason to overrule that assumption. As is, I don't really see any. I would imagine the type of lesser fighter who would trouble Johansson the most would be one with a very strong chin and either an excellent punch or excellent pure boxing skill, ala David Tua or Jimmy Young, as that fighter would be able to either force a brawl or force a chess match (both very doable with Johansson, I think, as I think his style was pretty dependant on what the other guy did) and beat Johansson at that game. Folley and Williams both had relatively weak chins and suffered their fair share of knockout losses during their careers. Neither of them ever beat a puncher or fighter of Johansson's caliber. I don't believe that they would be effective at making Johansson "fight their fight," or force him out of his normal gameplan (which was typically to fight fairly conservatively, often tempt or lure his opponents in, and explode with the right), as without overwhelming physical advantages or very strong chins, they would have to potentially expose themselves to the right hand in order to do so, and history dictates that this would most likely be fatal against Johansson.

 

what puncher did johansson face of big cats caliber? what man with the size speed power did johansson face of williams power? Johansson on film is not that good. his boxing skills defense movement etc are all pretty average. I favor williams over johansson because williams was not only much bigger but much faster handspeed and he was a better two fisted puncher than ingo. williams was only ever knocked down in his prime vs liston, who is much better than johansson.


folley has a different style than patterson and machen. this is a highly winnable fight for ingo cause of folleys jaw, but if ingo isnt able to land his right he is in trouble because folley in his prime was 3x the boxer ingo was, and he would jab ingo to death.



as to answer your question a win over johansson would not "greatly" improve his legacy because ingo was not a great figther and liston beat a better fighter than johansson. it would be only a slight hair a above a machen folley valdez williams type top contender win on his resume. ingo was not that good, and liston had already beat patterson 2x who destroyed ingo.

 

I agree here.

Agreed.

There might be some stylistic reasons M_F. Williams was a big puncher. Folley was a good technician. Ingo had suspect durability, and really was not technicaly gifted on offese or defense. I still think Ingo was greater and better.

 

Its a shame people get to witness ingos best knockouts, yet they make opinions about williams and valdez without actually watching the two best knockouts on film. Valdez and williams at there best looked very dangerous on film, they both had skills for very big men and they could crack. Williams had very fast hands while nino did not.


its a shame really that people dont take the time to order the film of folley machen williams valdez in there primes. all very good fighters. outside of ingo, the americans clearly dominated the heavyweight division during listons era. Its too bad ingo didnt consistently take on amercian fighters. Ingo was nearly knocked out by feather fisted brian london. imagine if one of the bigger better american fighters got a hold of him.


I wish marciano had come out of retirment and gave ingo a beating in 1959 like he wanted too. marciano despised ingo. so did liston.

 

Agreed,

I too fail to see the relevance of any claims of Liston's dislike for Johannson. In addition, as an interesting side note, Liston would later spend some time in Sweden, and fought a few matches which were promoted by Ingo himself. Of course, this does not reflect their feelings towards one another, but obviously things couldn't have been too bad for them to be able to do business together.

 

Once again, people make opinions of valdez(not singling you out) without having watched his best knockouts on film. Valdez at his best looks very dangerous on film. you were there at the time, you prob seen it.

Also, before you critisize valdez let me point out to you he pretty much singlehandily WIPED OUT the entire european heavyweight scene above the age of 30 during the mid-late 1950s. I mean he brutally knocked out most of the top euros of the time. And according to you valdez wasnt even one of the best heavyweights in the world, which proves my theory the american heavies of the 1950s were far superior to the eurpean heavyweights of the 1950s.

Your just bringing boxrec into this now. im talking about watching some prime footage of zora folley at his best, and seeing how wonderfully brilliant a master technician he was in his prime. btw, folley knocked down and handled jones for the entire fight before jones caught him, and folley beat jones in a subsequent match. Lavorante was a big fighter with a long reach who could punch, had archie moore not physically ruined him he would have been a top contender for a long time(which shows just how good moore was). never did I say folley didnt have a weak chin, but there is no denying how good folley's skills and jab were.

ur bringing up few minor examples. fact remains the best american heavyweights liston valdez williams macehn folley pretty much handled all of the european heavyweights they fought. folley lost the decision to cooper, even though I have the fight film folley knocked him down and outboxed him. in the rematch folley brutalized cooper in 2 one sided rounds.

marciano thought of ingo as a snake. he felt he didnt honor the belt the way a champion should, he thought ingo lacked the mentallity of a champion. marciano wanted to put a beating on ingo in 1959.



ingo simply did not prove himself enough against a wide variety of american heavyweights to truelly tell how good he really was. His record against top american heavyweights is 2-2. thats .500. He took advantage of his american opponents being poorly technically prepared during the first fights, but once patterson knew about the right hand he exposed the one dimensional ingo for what he was.

 

Good post,Cooper said that Folley knocked him down ,and when Henry got up,Zora forgot about his boxing and went right hand happy,enabling Cooper to steal points with his jab,of course Folley kod him in the return. Richardson was giving Richardson a working over when he stuck the nut on the American to foul out ,avoiding a hiding ,so an old friend who was there told me.

 

Without being too terribly crude, I think it can be fairly said that Old Fogey and Marciano Frazier have stuck their feet so far up Suzie Q's **** pipe on this subject that he can practically tie their shoe laces with his teeth...

Now that I got that out of the way, I can give my own assessment.

Ingemar Johansson would not have my vote to beat Sonny Liston head to head, on the sole basis of stylistic issues, but contrary to SusieQisms, it would have nothing to do with things like bad ass looks, or wins over fighters like Nino Valdez. I think Liston would utilize his lengthy reach, and powerful jab to take ingo apart somewhere between rounds 3-5.

As for Ingo's resume, I think that it is fairly solid by all standards. He convincingly KO'd a prime all time great, who had never before been stopped, and earned this shot by scoring a first round KO over another fighter who was undefeated, and surprisingly ( but not really ), is a man who Suzie commonly uses as a build up win for his man Liston.

Ingo is one of the few fighters who managed to beat every man he ever fought ( at least once ). Suzie talks about Ingo being exposed, but the fact is, he exposed Patterson long before Liston ever did. He was also one of the few fighters who never fought a man with a sub .500 record - a rareity among any great champion.

During the 1960's, Ingo did most of the exposing.......

Frankly, this crap about Ingemar Johansson being an " overrrated Euro fighter " isn't really being backed up here. I think its more of a reflection of one poster's bias against Euro fighters. He earned his title shot, and capitalized on it well. In addition, he nearly defeated his archrival in their rubber match by floring him twice in the first round - diminishing any myths about him being " exposed "

 

judging from magoos little tantrum making all those "beats Liston" threads, it looks like I got to him. SuzieQ 1 Maghoo 0.

 

No tantrum....

And nothing against you little brutha..

Let's just have some fun this evening.......:hammertime