'You hit [Oscar] Bonavena and it's like giving food to a hungry man or electricity to a bulb. A punch to any part of Bonavena's body generates his desire to go on charging, punching and asking for more, and that is, believe me, discouraging. This, mule of a man violates in his own peculiar way, the most basic of boxing. He doesn't follow at all the 'I-hit-you-you-don't-hit-me' rationale. His philosophy seems to be, 'You hit me and I hit you, let's see who falls first. The trouble with Bonavena is that getting hit doesn't concern hit at all; to the contrary, it appears as if your punches give him energy. So his theory is more; 'Hit me and you generate my power, then I give you pain.' - Jose Torres
Quite an underrated fighter, Ringo was. Good though not great puncher, very durable and tough. His durability might have been his greatest attribute. I would have love to seen him in both earlier and later eras. My guess is he could pick up an alphabet belt in the early 80's somewhere and definitely one in the early 00's.
I actually don’t know if I agree with this estimation of Bonavena and I usually do like what Torres wrote…he just had this weird style that wasn’t overly aggressive or anything, just sort of there sloppy punching, zig zagging or bull rushing here or there I think he made things up on the fly sometimes but his chin was incredible he could punch a bit too he dropped Chuvalo fair IMO the ropes saved him.
Certainly no one is stopping him early (like the first 3 rounds), and certainly not with a clean 1 punch KO. His chin was incredible and he had a pretty strong guard when he needed to survive hiding behind his thick arms. Well it doesn't appear he's saying Oscar is overly aggressive or relentless, only that he was a sort of tank that was willing to eat punches and never backed off in the face of danger, which we can see on film. The thing with Oscar is that he pressured you and came forward trying to stay on you whether he was actually throwing punches or not. A sort of suffocating style, but not quite the same as a relentless volume puncher like say Frazier or Rocky.
