I see Marvin winning this on points. Reggie had very good durability and was never knocked out in his career. Thoughts?
Reggie could have been stopped btw. Jones carried him for the Hell of it. Reggie stopped trying after the third round, and Roy was content to just shut him out rather than push for a stoppage. Marvin Johnson wouldn't let up, so yeah, I could see Marvin stopping him.
Both these guys are kind of sentimental favourites of mine. Neither really get the respect they deserve, particularly Reggie, who might just have been the unluckiest fighter of the nineties. Interestingly, though Marvin is the bigger guy here, I think if they were both around these days this is a fight which could have been made at 168. I think Marvin would have benefited from a Super-Middleweight division, but obviously in his prime years it didn't exist and he was too big for Middle. Though he was tough, brave as they come and had talent to go with it, I always thought he was a bit overpowered and small compared to some of the Light-Heavyweights he was mixing it with, and it played a part in a couple of his defeats. As for Reggie, he skipped 168 completely and was definitely on the small side at Light-Heavy. I think both of them would have made fantastic Super-Middleweight champions. I don't think Reggie gets splattered or badly beaten here, but I'd go with Marvin on points. For starters, Reggie's style didn't always translate well to the judges as we know. Marvin was a sucker for body punches and uppercuts, and Reggie did go to the body nicely (John David Jackson fight not a bad example of this). But the uppercut wasn't really a strength, and he was more of a hurtful and sharp puncher downstairs rather than a devastating one. Not sure he had the power to dissuade Marvin from keeping on after him (the Guthrie KO was definitely the exception rather than the rule!). I don't think Marvin chews him up and spits him out in those rough, close up exchanges, because Reggie was tough and proved against Collins (granted, at 160) that he could hang in a dirty, physical brawl, but it's still more Marvin's kind of fight than his. Marvin wins the decision but I think Reggie is unbowed at the end.
