Joe Bugner 'Overrated/Underrated'

good question. as with most fighters. overrated by some, underrated by others. i don't like him too much on film but as slip, he was a good survivor

 

Generally Bugner is underrated, especially by fans these days. Bugner was a legitimate contender during one of the most competitive eras in heavyweight history. He had strength, remarkable durability, hand and foot speed, very good defense, competent orthodox boxing skills, and an excellent left jab.

The downside to Bugner is that he was somewhat muscle bound, kind of tight. I think this is why he could never really let his hands go. What people regarded as his lack of motivation probably was, in reality, a lack of true fluidity and agility.

Too many fail to realize that Bugner was in his prime only between 1973 and 1977. Therefore, we should forget about rated him based on his Bodell or Shavers fights. That's just nonsense.

Concerning the Shavers affair, Bugner stood up to Earnie's bombs in impressive fashion. Almost anyone else would have taken the count under that kind of punishment. I think if not for the cut eye, Bugner probably would have come on later and gotten the better of Shavers.

 

Overrated. Just look at his 72-76 efforts, in short, his prime. I don't care what he did once he, and others, reached that "I'm old now but I'm still effective" stage.
After his first scrap with Ali, I thought the young man was for real. Big guy, nice jab, very stiff chin, but?....NO LEFT TITTY. Fought only to survive against the elite. His Khala Lampur title bout with Ali in July 75 was...a...miserable joke.
As I've said before, Henry Cooper holds a UD against a prime Folley in 1958 and that alone trumps ANYTHING this underachiever accomplished.

 

Cooper's decision win over Folley is regarded by many as a blatant robbery. I think it's more than fair to say that the Bugner who lost to Ali and Frazier in 1973 was better than any version of Cooper.

Truth be told, I'd take the Kuala Lampur version of Bugner over any version of Cooper as well. Cooper just didn't have the size to cope with the mature Bugner, who was not only bigger, taller, and more mobile than Henry, but had a better jab as well.

 

Joe was a transported Olympic discus thrower who's heart was probably not that of a fighters, an articulate man, he often stated his distaste of the business of hurting people. Pyhsically imposing, he looked the goods , and as someone unkindly said, "Joe looks like a Greek statue and uses the same movement". Joe was not hopeless and was most certainly defensevly durable, some of our greatest could not get him out of there and therein lays his legacy.

 

Thanks for responding kenmore. I know that Zora avenged the loss with a fairly quick knockout in their rematch in 1960 but the I've seen the first bout and IMO it certainly wasn't a 'blatant robbery'. I think Zora caught him with a shot in the 2nd and decked Henry (nothing major). But Cooper rose and for pretty much the rest of the fight banged with Zora and came on late, staying aggressive and not letting Folley get off. Certainly not a blatant robbery.
I have to still stand by my opinion of Bugner tho. "Never has so little been done by someone with so much talent"

 

Point taken. I never saw the Cooper-Foley fight, and know only what little I've read of it. Maybe it wasn't a robbery. I do know that it established Cooper in the worldwide top-10 for the first time, a position that he generally held until 1971.

 

lol

 

Bugner didn't do that badly against Ali in 1975. Sure, he lost a one sided decision. Still, he went the distance with a still-dangerous Ali, when lots of other contenders could not have done the same.

 

Some fighters are like that: they show their true abilities only in fine losing efforts against better fighters. Bugner is one such example. Immediately following his 1973 Ali and Frazier fights, everyone agreed that Bugner was legitimate.

Bugner's best wins were not earth-shaking performances, though. He beat Jimmy Ellis, ranked #10 by Ring Magazine at the time, in one sided fashion by decision. But the British crowd was unhappy with Bugner's failure to dispatch the aging Ellis.

Henry Cooper was rated in almost everyone's top 10 when Bugner beat him, but that was a fight that could have gone either way.

Another fairly big name that Bugner beat was Mac Foster. But Foster had fallen out of the top 10 by the time Bugner got to him. The victory was another one sided decision that failed to impress British observers.

Bugner's other big win during his prime -- over Richard Dunn -- was good in the sense that Dunn was ranked just inside everyone's top 10 at the time. But Dunn, whom Bugner dispatched in one round, was an exceptionally chinny fighter who would probably have been KO'd by any decent top 20 heavyweight at the time.

 

i guess im not d Xpert that u r m8

 

Folley 2(1):0(0) vs Cooper.
Cooper did much better than Bugner vs Ali , except from being more cuttable .
D thing is Cooper was also stopped by Folley , Patterson and others . But in his case he wasn't lucky at all 2 get stopped on cuts against Ali . IDK which 1 of them was better but Bugner was a somewhat less beatable heavyweight even if not by much and even this only due 2 his size advantage .

 

These were all solid wins for Bugner, who was just 19-20 yrs old at the time and hadn't had any amateur career worth speaking of. These victories were literally Bugner's substitute for amateur experience.

Most of the victims on this list were solid "B" level heavyweights.

Concerning the Hall fight, it was a very close decsion. Hall won by just one round. Many observers felt Bugner should have gotten the nod.

I'll mention also that O'Hallaron weighed much more than 225 lbs. He was closer to 260 lbs when he fought Bugner.