Why is Ingo Johansson in the Hall of Fame?

Ingo was the biggest money for Floyd because he knocked out machen.

If ingo was big money just for being a rated european he wouldnt have drew any more money than Brian London and Don Cockell.

 

at 0.24 larry marchant :shock:

 

It looked like he damn near killed Machen. He also got pretty far in the olympics I believe and then just danced it away in a match and was eliminated.

 

"Valdes had also cleaned out the entire Euopean HW scene."

Why is this a big deal for Valdes but not for Johansson?

 

Here's the 1959 Ring yearly rankings

Champion-Ingemar Johansson
1--Zora Folley
2--Floyd Patterson*
3--Sonny Liston
4--Henry Cooper*
5--Eddie Machen*
6--Billy Hunter
7--Roy Harris
8--Mike DeJohn
9--Joe Erskine*
10--Alex Miteff

*Ko'd by Johansson by this time

1962 Ring yearly rankings

Champion--Sonny Liston
1--Floyd Patterson*
2--Cassius Clay
3--Doug Jones
4--Ingemar Johansson
5--Zora Folley*
6--Cleveland Williams*
7--Robert Cleroux
8--Billy Daniels
9--Archie Moore
10--Henry Cooper

*--ko'd by Liston by this point.

Interestingly, Liston is generally credited with cleaning out the division and Ingo with fighting weak competition, but the year they won the title, Ingo actually had beaten more top five men and top ten men in that years ratings than Liston had.

 

An excelent true point!!

Liston got into the ratings beating guys who had dropped out of the top ten like valdes (who did not have a rating after the machen defeats)
The bunch of guys Liston fought earlier, ben wise, daniels, ernie cabb, mederos, whitehurst, bethea, valdez, besmanoff, howard king and wesphal were losing fights at the time Liston squashed them, each lost their previous fight coming in against liston. Even dejohn had lost 2 of his last 4 fights. This cant qualify as "cleaning out a division".

folley, machen and Harris were the only "at the time rated" contenders sonny met before becoming a champion. Its only three wins in one year. Then sonny sat on his rating in low risk fights until Johansson and Floyd were done passing the title around.

 

Lets not push Ring Magazine's Top 10 ratings as the only 'book'.

A better view would be the Top 20.

Sonny Liston 'knockout' victims in 1959

A) Mke De John...........35-6-1
B) Cleveland Williams....43-2-0
C) Nino Valdes.............47-17-3
D) Willi Besmanoff........42-17-7

All worthy of a Top 20 Rating.

 

Were hardly guys who could win anymore at any kind of decent level.

Mike de john lost 2 of his last 4 fights before he fought Liston and would lose 6 of his next 16.

bob satterfeild retired Williams for two years at the 31-2 mark and Bob was still the only name on the big cats record before facing liston. Williams best actual wins in his comeback were against unrated (31-13) frankie daniels or (27-16) john holman when both were on worrying losing streaks. Liston was the big cats first “step up oppoenent” since his comeback.

Was so far on the skids when he met Liston I doubt nino was rated at all..valdes was coming off a loss and in his final year as a pro. Ninos record at that time was not that of a contender on the way up. machen had already ended his chances as a top fighter knocking him out 3 years earlier, at the time liston fought valdes hed lost 8 times since hed been marcianos #1 contender way back when.
valdes actually was beaten up by a young Alonzo Johnson in his last bout before and a fight but one before was up and down like a yoyo before getting KO'd by 19-3-2 Charlie Powel who I think was really a football player in the NFL that took up boxing to become a journeyman.
Its still a good win for liston but valdes was pretty much on the skids then.

but when he met sonny willie lost 11 times in the previous 2 years!!! How could he be top 20?? Archie moore and Donnie fleeman both knocked willie down that same year but Liston did not.

I think not. At the time Sonny fought them these were the guys all the contenders were also beating.

 

choklab,

Put together your Top 20 for 1959, and see if those '4' could fit in there somewhere.

 

Thats a white guy

 

That's what getting hit by Thor's Hammer can do to a man.

 

Maybe DeJohn, I shall have a look at the ratings tommorow. They were all on the circuit but not really winning fights at the time.

 

Eliminated is a polite way of putting it. Disqualified is the correct term. Wouldnt engage with Ed Saunders (i think)

 

Finally a man that believes!

 

You are either In-Denial or a complete idiot


DeJohn was rated # 9 in the world when Liston beat him, Bethea was rated # 8 in the world when Liston beat him, Williams was rated # 10 in the world in 1960 when Liston beat him......


Alll of these men were top 10 rated GOING INTO THE FIGHT WITH LISTON