-the Joe Bugner thread-

[Brutu]

If Joe Bugner only fought Muhammad Ali like he had Richard Dunn.

Just throw 'caution-to-the-wind', and go out with 'Guns-Blazing'.

Absolutely nothing to lose......

Could never figure out that passive approach.....

Frankly I think the reason that Bugner may have not gone all
out on Ali and Frazier was due to a lot of respect for them.
As a youth he(Im sure) had very much appreciated them for taking the timeout of their busy schedules to even meet and to talk to him when he came to America in 1970(or maybe even 1969)
sparring with them,and making him a better boxer.
Richard Dunn and some of the others Bugner could feel
like he could go over them rough shod (if he felt like it).
I remember him saying in the interview after he had won
the Lonsdale belts from Henry Cooper,going back to St.Ives with a large crowd there to greet himThathe had felt that it didnt really
mean anything to him to have won the belts.

[misterpunch]

we will never know - but the news article states that joe was once the "darling of great britain"... this we all know never was true.

has anyone unearthed the news pic of joe in mid-flow using an axe to chop a huge tree down, publicity pic for the frazier fight? i remember the pic well and it certainly gave you the impression that joe was going to take the fight to frazier.

[Brutu]

Are there any "lost" fights of Joe Bugner?
Which were his earliest televised professional fights?
I looked at some of the older tv schedules that were in the newspapers.
Joe Bugner vs Ray Patterson
was to be shown on the sports show GRANDSTAND on BBC-1 21.April 1970.
It was Bugner's 27th pro fight.
Ive never seen the video of it anywhere .
Im sure Bugner vs Brian London was televised,
maybe first on closed-circuit.
If you watch the Cooper and Bugner reunion,
at the beginning of it I think they show half a second of it,
but its difficult to tell.

[Brutu]

"The Grudge"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jd9Xj2tzVI

[Brutu]

The booing of Bugner goes at least as far back as March 1969,
when he was reportedly booed for not knocking out Ulrich Regis
even tho he had him down twice on the canvas.
I wonder when exactly the booing started.
My guess it was with the retirement of Billy Walker around that time
who never really lived up to his potential it seems.
Bugner had his whole boxing future ahead of him and
at his size( 6 ft 3.5 inches tall,)was a actual heavyweight.
Billy Walker fans probably resented him.
and booed every time they could,and it became like almost sort of a tradition.

[Rockytony67]

Are there any "lost" fights of Joe Bugner?
Which were his earliest televised professional fights?
I looked at some of the older tv schedules that were in the newspapers.
Joe Bugner vs Ray Patterson
was to be shown on the sports show GRANDSTAND on BBC-1 21.April 1970.
It was Bugner's 27th pro fight.
Ive never seen the video of it anywhere .
Im sure Bugner vs Brian London was televised,
maybe first on closed-circuit.
If you watch the Cooper and Bugner reunion,
at the beginning of it I think they show half a second of it,
but its difficult to tell.

Not sure about Bugner-Patterson, but film of Bugner-London exits.

[misterpunch]

the hating of joe precedes the cooper fight by some time. the billy walker idea rings true but it was joes amazing build and how he didnt make the most of it that really got to the fans.

i liked joe and he was the best european heavy by a street around 1973-5

the larry middleton bout was filmed but probably no longer exists

[Brutu]

That was a typo.I meant to type 6 ft 3 and one-half inches tall.
which was his given height in 1971.
He may have gotten taller of course.

[Brutu]

Does Billy Walker mention Joe Bugner at all in his autobiography
WHEN THE GLOVES CAME OFF.
Their careers overlapped there at the end.
Billy Walker's team had plans to fight Buster Mathis
in August 1969,
that was cancelled after Walker was TKO'd by Jack Bodell
earlier that year.
I just wondered if Walker had used Bugner as a sparring partner
at least since Bugner had trained and did a lot of his fighting in London
during 1967-1969.
also City folk who usually think they're so special
may have considered Joe Bugner a "Rube"
since he was from Cambridgeshire.

[misterpunch]

no mention of bugner in walkers book - its not a very detailed boxing book as its title suggests, more about billys life after he quit and a good read it is too.

by the way, we city folk who think we are so special...just are

[Brutu]

maybe Billy Walker should write another book entitled
"When the hand wraps were applied"
I prefer boxing books were they discuss their actual boxing career's,how they trained,stories from others in the fight buisness.

[Brutu]

They were still Booing Bugner in April 1983!
when he fought the American Danny Sutton in London(TKO 9).
such a tough crowd there it seems.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=JM ... 4278034&dq

The article also says that a fight with Randy Tex Cobb was scheduled to take place on 08.June 1983 for a possible title fight with Larry holmes.

[misterpunch]

bruto - so do i

[keithmoonhangover]

If Bugner had fought Foreman in Zaire, he would have beaten him.

[Brutu]

What if Bugner had fought George Foreman in England in June 1973,
who Jarvis Asataire and Andy Smith reportedly originally wanted Bugner to fight?

[Brutu]

I think Bugner had said in one of those interviews that he had broken a bone in his foot while he was training for that fight.
Instead of canceling it he got a shot of cortizone in it.
I think there was even a short newspaper article
about some press wondering why he was going into
a doctors office and rumours the fight was going to be cancelled because of an injury.

[Brutu]

http://www.boxing-monthly.co.uk/content/0803/two.htm

he refers to the injury in this interview.
he mentions he had broken a small bone in his right foot
shortly after he signed the contracts started to train for it prior to the fight.
If the cortizone made his foot lack sensation ,I think it would have affected
his mobilty and punching off of it.

[Brutu]

Bugner also told the press that he had to drive his brother Bill(who didn't drive) to the physical therapist,so that he could have his foot taped.
A few days before the fight with Ron Lyle.


http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Km ... ,771325&dq

[Brutu]

I think Bugner did allright considering he had fought this fight with a small broken bone in his right foot.He wasn't able to launch a really big right
like he did on Dino Denis anyway.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roMCayAuwUw


Bugner also didnt make excuse for losing to the ring dude,
athough lyle seems to make an excuse for
not whupping Bugner's Butt more then he had did.

[Brutu]

looks like Bugner may still have been feeling the effects of jet lag here.

http://www.books.google.com/books?id=1L ... pg=PA44&dq

[Brutu]

here is an interesting newspaper article from 02.February.1973.
"Bugner's British Bunch"
at least 1,350 of his fellow countrymen came over to Las Vegas
to watch him fight Muhammad Ali(in a non-title fight).
and 15 cinemas in Britain that were going to show the fight live
closed-circuit had really good advance ticket sales.

http://www.news.google.com/newspapers?i ... ,498882&dq

Also interesting in the article it mentions that Bugner
had sparred with Ali some 40 rounds on various occasions
since 1970 when they had first sparred at Gil Clancey's gym in NYC.
(Bugner had said in later interviews that it happened in 1969,
which I still can not find any contempory news references to.)
It would be interesting to compare how many Brits came over from Britain decades later with Ricky Hatton to watch him fight Floyd Mayweather?
I would imagine in 1973 the British fans that had came over to support Bugner were probably mostly the well to do and very few working class men could either have the money or take time off of work to come to Las Vegas in 1973 to watch it like it appears had did for Hatton vs Mayweather.
Even back then Las Vegas was known as "The City of Lost Wages".

[Brutu]

I just looked it up.
The official figures are attendence for British fans for Hatton-Mayweather
was at 4,000 (based on advance ticket sales)but it was
estimated to have been closer to 12,000(possibly 20,000) at the MGM arena when the bell rang .

http://www.mlive.com/mayweather/index.s ... vegas.html


http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/boxing/7134946.stm

[Brutu]

here is another interesting article from 16.March.1977.
Bugner explains why he looked so poor in fighting for the title
in 1975.
He arrived in Malaysia just 2 weeks before the fight,
and the climate took its toll,during training loosing 7 to 8 pounds a day
(and loosing 14 and one-half pounds after the fight itself).
He also mentions here that it was in 1972 that he had sparred
with Jerry Quarry.

http://www.news.google.com/newspapers?i ... ,515299&dq

[Brutu]

A couple of interesting fights for Bugner that never happened.
When Jerry Quarry was in training to fight Joe Frazier
again for 17.June 1974,Quarry was interviewed by a newspaper earlier and said that he would like to fight Bugner after the Frazier fight(if he was to win of course).and
When Duane Bobick had defeated Randy Neumann 12.December 1975,
Eddie Futch was quoted after that fight that he wanted
Duane Bobick to fight Joe Bugner next.

I think it would have been better for every one involved in those 2 fights if
Both Jerry Quarry and Duane Bobick had both fought Joe Bugner
instead of them fighting Ken Norton.
Also in early 1977 Muhammad Ali wanted Norton to cancel his fight
with Bobick so that Ali could defend the title from Duane Bobick,
and it was offered that Ken Norton fight Joe Bugner as a preliminary
to that title fight which had been planned to take place in Brazil.

Jerry Quarry vs Joe Bugner Feb 1975,who wins?
Duane Bobick vs Joe Bugner Feb. 1976,who wins?
Ken Norton vs Joe Bugner March 1977,who wins?

[Brutu]

Those dates that I had listed for those proposed fights with Bugner.
I had forgot to mention what if Bugner had fought them in place of who they actually had fought those dates.which were

Feb.26.1975 Jerry Quarry vs George"Scrape Iron"Johnson W UD10

Feb.06.1976 Duane Bobick vs Larry Middleton W UD10

and The original date for Ken Norton vs Duane Bobick
was March.02. 1977 at MSG,
but Duane Bobick had to postpone that fight
due to a rib injury sparring with his brother Rodney Bobick.
it was re-scheduled for May.11. 1977 .

Also when it was announced in December 1976 that Muhammad Ali
would defend the title in February 1977 against Duane Bobick.
But it was Ron Lyle who finally signed a contract to fight
Ken Norton as a preliminary to it.
Neither one of those fights ever happened of course.

and for comparison during that period of time 1975-1977
Joe Bugner had fought,

Feb.28.1975 Joe Bugner vs Dante Cane II WTKO 5

June.06. 1975 Muhammad Ali vs Joe Bugner II LUD15

(early January 1976 Bugner announces his retirement from the ring)

Oct.12.1976 Joe Bugner vs Richard Dunn KO1

March.2.1977 Ron Lyle vs Joe Bugner LSD12