He had an unnoteworthy small am career. His first 11 fights panned out to be 6-5 hardly the stuff of legend the first two years of his pro career would be something most modern fighters would be wrote off for. He would fight 16 more times undefeated 22-5-1 he had built some momentum as a decent pro still no signs of anything to suggest he would be a CW ATG. Then he would suffer 3 back to back losses and lose his first shot at the IBF world title... So we have a fighter who spent three years rebuilding himself. Nelson is given his second shot at a world title against 13-1 James Warring who was about to go 0-2-1 and fizzle out of the scene he drops a UD then trying to bounce back Nelson is stopped by Norbett (Only time he is stopped in his career) and outclassed by Corrie Sanders. So he picks himself up again snatches up the vacant WBF CW titleand defends it once against soft boiled egg opposition and drops it in a DQ against the Thunder bird... a decent pro but nothing special does he pack it in nope he dusts himself off. So he goes up to HW beats Jimmy Thunder then losses his newly obtained title to Henry Akinwande... At this point he is 24-9-1 he has lost to some pretty average guys at this point and his career highlight win is debatable but still eh if he retired now he would be forgotten. He fights Nikolay Kulpin for the WBF title. Wins out against his 10-0 foe and then suffers two back to back Ls to veteran fighter Adilson Rodrigues.... so our hero is now 25-11-1. If you told most people he went 20-0-1 after this picking up one of the best CW records ever and retired without a loss on his next streak with 15 of those fights being world title fights I am pretty sure they would laugh at you but that's just want Nelson did on the verge of gatekeeper status... I think we should never count out the blessing of dedication and the value of courageous obsession. Was he boring as heck oh God yes he could be but did he work his @$$ off till he got what he wanted? well we still talk about him in conversations as one of the best CWs ever I think he did.
Still looking for the Nelson / Sanders fight. It's one of the few I don't have. You'd think it would be easy but, no.
Looks like you've missed out the DeLeon fight in your overview, which was his first shot at a world title, not Warring. Then again, it probably is the dullest world title fight ever so easily forgotten. I've no idea who the 'Thunder bird' is but Nelson was never WBC champion.
On my one trip to the UK back in spring of 1992, I met Johnny Nelson with Brendan Ingle at a show in Hull. I wanted to see a boxing event while in country so I picked up a Boxing News at a newsstand and scoured it and boxing was in the ‘off season’ — the three-bout show in Hull was one of I think two cards in the entire UK while I was there (the other being in Scotland). So I tracked down the promoter on the phone and inquired and he told me it was sold out, a ‘black jacket and black tie required’ charity event at a swank hotel. I told him I was in country from the USA and really wanted to see a show so he said he’d leave my name at the door but I had to have the tie and coat or I’d be turned away. Hopped a train from Manchester, got a room at a B&B. I was on a tight budget so I went and bought a (cheap) button-down shirt and tie and wore my black leather jacket, which the guy at the door smiled and said ‘good enough.’ Anyway, after the show I met Ingle and Nelson and got my picture taken with them (long since lost). This would have been a couple months before Johnny challenged Warring unsuccessfully. The pair couldn’t have been nicer. Had a blast at the show, got on the bus after and I’m thinking all these well-dressed fellows must be fairly upper-crust but they were all drunken hooligans, haha. They ‘adopted me’ and took me out on the town after the show. Fun times. So that’s my Johnny Nelson story.
