Why is Ingo Johansson in the Hall of Fame?

Despite the opponents, IMO Ingo was the real deal. The right hand was HOF, and he had an underrated jab. No left hook of course, no European could even spell l-e-f-t h-o-o-k at that time.
The Machen beatdown was brutal, with both hands in combination.
His only problem was his lack of 'warrior' mentality to put it best. IMO he simply didn't want to continue fighting (much like Cooney)
He would have lost (and won) his share in any era.
I vote a thumbs up for HOF.
And to all the Douglas nut-huggers...he was a monster against Tyson (I loved it!) but what did the underachieving POS do after that? Wasted...nothing!
The fact that Douglas (wait...in the Tyson fight?...any other fight?) could have beaten Ingo is completely irrelavant in ANY HOF consideration.

 

and what did machen do to valdes? why fight the guy who got KTFO by the guy you just beat?.atsch

Truth is Ingo's people wanted Valdes in 1957 but it fell through and the best the agent could do was book mcbride (who held an old win over nino) instead.

Not one bit. Even American reports on the fight went to cooper. Folley was rated and cooper beat him.

 

Henry cooper?

 

Watch the fight, terrible decision. Folley floored him and outboxed him. By the way you forgot, Folley easily destroyed cooper in 2 rounds in rematch

 

Ive seen the fight. read the reports. Cooper out boxed zorra and won the decision. It was a tough fight and both took a hiding, zora was all swolen up, both were cut. point is the man who lost to Ingo won.

OK zorra did win the rematch. Cooper Says he was over weight, it was still a good win for Zorra who would also lose to Brian London who lost to Ingo... so zorra lost to two Ingo victims.

 

On 'Country Club Playboy Ingo'

One knock, he had signed a contract with Eddie Machen, that if he beat
Eddie in Sweden he would give him a rematch in Eddie's home-base of Portland, Oregon
within 6-months.

Eddie Machen, screwed again.

 

I think machen has the record for longest serving gatekeeper to the top 5. The ingo blow out and draws with folley and williams screwed him.

 

INGO was offered $300,000 to fight Sonny Liston in December 1961.

And in principal, he agreed.

Just imagine if INGO did the impossible, and defeated Sonny in December 1961.

He would have gotten another shot (#4) with Floyd Patterson, in 1962.

 

Ingo would be giving away about 7lb to Liston, whats that a big meal? ingo would have done better against Liston than floyd did (nobody could do any worse) and would have been a good fight. I favour Sonny in 1961 but ingo was leagues better than big cat williams ...its just that johansson was on the downslide after the patterson triology. It took up 3 years of the swedes prime years - and suffered two knockouts in the process. 1959 johansson vs 1961 Liston would have been a 50-50 fight on paper because ingo had beat better men. Lack of title fights from 1959-1964 hurt all the defending champions involved.

 

Johansson was pretty good.
I mean, I'd put him on the same level as Patterson. He just didn't have the longevity.
As soon as he won the title he slacked off too much.

 

A number of champions did. Baer, Douglas, Sharkey, Bowe, Liston, Young Foreman, Witherspoon, Dokes,

 

Yes.
I'd rate Johansson somewhere in the middle of that bunch.

 

INGO flooring Cassius Clay in a 1963 sparring session.

This was an 'exhibition match' while Cassius Clay was in Europe.

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Yes that is correct, forgot about the converted southpaw but, throughout the decades, at least until recently, Euro fighters seemed to be straight jab-right bomb and Ingo fit that profile perfectly.

 

That's not Ali Pepe!
I've heard, after Floyd-Ingo 3 in 1961 that a young Ali sparred with Ingo in Miami and was boxing his ears off.