BoxRec

I think many people often dont mention ingmaar johannsen when they are talking abotu some of the greatest heavyweights of all time...boxrec.com thinks very highley of him..he did beat patterson but then lost to him twice..noone else that he beat is really ranked highly, so how good was this guy who is ranked 7th greatest all time..ahead of joe luois jack dempsey max baer and others... where does he rank in your lists?

Ingemar was a skillful enough boxer with a very big right hand. At his peak he was way ahead of any of the other European heavyweights, and of course burst to the top of the ratings by KO'ing Eddie Machen.

I fancied him very strongly to beat Patterson in the first fight - when I look back at that fight years later I do begin to wonder how come he couldn't keep Patterson down! He was massively over-confident going into the return and was outclassed before taking a bad KO. After that I felt he was never the same fighter he had been - he looked less sure of himself, and his career just petered out. The third Patterson fight was an untidy brawl, and his last fight saw him decked at the end by a moderate enough fighter in Brian London, though the bell rang for the end of the fight before the count reached 10.

An all time great? Not really, in my view...which is kind of sad because he was one of my early heroes when I first followed the sport. You have to rate him below Floyd based on their three fights, and I can't really see either in the Top 10.

J

Rory McCloskey wrote:I think many people often dont mention ingmaar johannsen when they are talking abotu some of the greatest heavyweights of all time...boxrec.com thinks very highley of him..he did beat patterson but then lost to him twice..noone else that he beat is really ranked highly, so how good was this guy who is ranked 7th greatest all time..ahead of joe luois jack dempsey max baer and others... where does he rank in your lists?

Him being number 7 is only because of boxrec's weird scoring system, I think everyone on this site knows that he isn't top 10.

HE ISNT IN MY TOP 25

HE ISNT IN MY TOP 20

I rank him #19 of all time. He was a very good fighter and a solid champion, but he lost two of the trilogy against Patterson, and his career was too brief.

...just reading the title of the thread, i'd say.....not very.

He should never ever have been champion. Only Patterson could have let this happen. The great underated Floyd Patterson who almost let Ingemar beat him twice. Keep this in mind when Rating Floyd.

Id pick ingemar over james braddock

ingemar knocked out eddie machen in one round. liston couldnt knock out machen. niether could cleveland williams.

- ingo also knocked out all the european heavyweights easy guys like henry cooper, joe erkstine.

patterson took ingo lightly . ingo refused to throw his right hand during training as his trainer said later he didnt want patterson to know he had a scret weapon. then ingo didnt even throw it for 2 rounds, then finally decided to unleash and it caught patterson by suprise.

o yeah and u saw what patterson did in the rematch, he left ingo out cold on the canvas with his leg quivering . and people say patterson cant hit???

how bout heart? patterson got off the floor twice in the 1st round in their 3rd fight and manged to floor ingo at the end of the 1st round. patterson eventually knocked him out in the 6th.

Ok BB it's actually pretty entertaining in all honesty I think I probably do underate Floyd and you over rate him. You know I carry the grudge which I simply can not shake. You however seem pretty ready to sell Braddock for dog food.

I'm not a Braddock fanatic, but I have observed what I think is just a bit of under appreciation for determination and the 'human" element in your analysis. Which isnt all bad you do your homework on all things empirical.

But we do disagree again, As Ingy says he has "litnin in my left and "tunder" in my right. (Do I have that correct?) So your saying that once again Braddock can not beat Ingemar due to styles I take it.

But I'm also guessing that Baer could beat Ingemar in your equation.
Let me ask you this. Is there a single HW champion that Braddock could beat? And let me go one step further than that.

Can you sew detemination, will, inspiration, motivation into any theoreticals? In other words will you always take purely the empirical and then template that and only that, into your predicted outcomes? It is the way of the mathmatician and not the way of the poet. But both have a certain "exactness" about them. Though typically one can not see it in the other.

I won't speak of luck here that is completely undeterminable. Like say a better fighter having a stroke during a fight with a lesser opponent thus giving the lesser opponent the win.

I do factor self confidence into the equation at times. For example I have argued and really not let go of my belief that Tyson could likely hold his own with the best. As long as it was the Mike Tyson that believed he could beat anyone. Once he found out he could be beaten he never seemed quite the same again.
He really saw himself defeated and lost much of what he had IMHO>

Ali though beaten by Frazier Ali never believed it. He saw it as a misunderstanding of the judges or at best a fluke that could never be repeated. (and it never was).

You see where I'm going with this, inspiration and self belief or remarkable will, can have an impact on the outcome. A fighter that will not be beaten.....is very very difficult to beat. And it adds a few points to his skill+talent factor that must be intuited rather than calculated.

This is purely and simply my take on it. And it is why on some if not many occasions I will go with the theoretical underdog. Indeed my betting lately has taken me to abandon this line of reasoning and bet on mostly the favorites and I have been right about 1 out of 10 times lately.

The one time I had it right was betting against Ebo....who was favored to win.

I don't seem to have as much belief in my system of reasoning when money is at stake. Funny how that works.

i do not overate paterson at all. i rate him 16th all time heavyweight list and he deserves it. and reasons i pick him over braddock is braddock is style wise MADE for patterson. i also do not underate james braddock. i am one of the few people hear who give him is fair shake. I actually rate Braddock in my top 50 heavyweights which i think by all accounts is pretty fair.

and just cause floyd upset archie on a bad archie night, doesnt mean u have to dismiss floyd or not give him a fair rating. marciano beat archie, i dont see u hold a grudge against him? is it because archie fought a great fight against marciano like archie said "it was one of my best fights". and archie had a off night against patterson?? archie said "something wasnt right, it wasnt me out there, i didnt feel right mentally or physically" . i mean i agree archie should have beaten a young green floyd patterson. im just wondering why u hold such a grudge against patterson and not marciano or charles???


do i think braddock would beat any other heavyweight champions???

answer : yes and my list is counting ONLY undisputed champs not alpha winners.

I think braddock would beat leon spinks, Marvin Hart, hasim rahman, possibly tommy burns, and possibly ingomar johansen. and I have to say it max baer . he gets credit for beating max baer on that night. do i think max would beat him if they fought again?? yes and by knockout.
- i think primo carnera was underated and he did legite knockout jack sharkey with a real blow. i have many of primos fights on tape and i think he would beat braddock.


fact is u overate braddock. he was a true inspiration and showed he can fight, but to call him an all time great is hogwash. use his match against tommy farr as an example, fought on very even terms. braddock was just another nova, farr, godoy, simon etc except he gets a higher rating cuase he took advantage of a situation and won the title. but u cant say much more than that about him. he was a limited fighter talent wise, and heart and toughness alone cant win against the best guys who also have heart and toughness plus power, speed and skill. braddock was limited in all those areas. he wasnt the cinderella man for nothing.

how can u justify him beating patterson???

Not sure you can actually find a quote of mine saying that he was an all time great. But now that you mention it I would likely say he was. But we may be using different criteria to define greatness.

The way I would choose to define greatness might have him in the top 5 or 10 of "great champions" That is not to say he would be anywhere near there in terms of "great boxers". But that is totaly a symantics issue. I think the Great John L's rating system seemed very plausable to rate Patterson and Braddock at about the same place on the scorecard.

Truly the mathmatician and the poet's debate. I do like your empirical thought process and find myself with very little to disagree with you in that area.

There are moments that can define a fighter. I'll try to find the thread but I would like to get your take at some point on the Douglas Tyson fight. We know that Douglas suffered a terrible loss in his life and that he may have had an unusual focus on that particular night. It may be another illustrator of those "intangilbles" that have to be dealt with when imagineering these theoreticals. Did Tyson lose? Or did Douglas win?
Sorry if I am getting to ethereal here. But on that night just who could Douglas beat? On that night would he have been more likely to "operate above his pay grade" so to speak?

I am probably most surprised by your assesment of Carnera that one is just unexplainable to my way of thinking. But this is what sports discussions are all about.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:i do not overate paterson at all. i rate him 16th all time heavyweight list and he deserves it. and reasons i pick him over braddock is braddock is style wise MADE for patterson. i also do not underate james braddock. i am one of the few people hear who give him is fair shake. I actually rate Braddock in my top 50 heavyweights which i think by all accounts is pretty fair.

and just cause floyd upset archie on a bad archie night, doesnt mean u have to dismiss floyd or not give him a fair rating. marciano beat archie, i dont see u hold a grudge against him? is it because archie fought a great fight against marciano like archie said "it was one of my best fights". and archie had a off night against patterson?? archie said "something wasnt right, it wasnt me out there, i didnt feel right mentally or physically" . i mean i agree archie should have beaten a young green floyd patterson. im just wondering why u hold such a grudge against patterson and not marciano or charles???


do i think braddock would beat any other heavyweight champions???

answer : yes and my list is counting ONLY undisputed champs not alpha winners.

I think braddock would beat leon spinks, Marvin Hart, hasim rahman, possibly tommy burns, and possibly ingomar johansen. and I have to say it max baer . he gets credit for beating max baer on that night. do i think max would beat him if they fought again?? yes and by knockout.
- i think primo carnera was underated and he did legite knockout jack sharkey with a real blow. i have many of primos fights on tape and i think he would beat braddock.


fact is u overate braddock. he was a true inspiration and showed he can fight, but to call him an all time great is hogwash. use his match against tommy farr as an example, fought on very even terms. braddock was just another nova, farr, godoy, simon etc except he gets a higher rating cuase he took advantage of a situation and won the title. but u cant say much more than that about him. he was a limited fighter talent wise, and heart and toughness alone cant win against the best guys who also have heart and toughness plus power, speed and skill. braddock was limited in all those areas. he wasnt the cinderella man for nothing.

how can u justify him beating patterson???

I think prime Spinks could take him.

Ingo was a very good heavyweight indeed. Big for that time, mobile and with an awesome right hand.

and just cause floyd upset archie on a bad archie night, doesnt mean u have to dismiss floyd[

Patterson was bigger stronger and hit harder than moore and would have beat Moore at any point in his prime.

think braddock would beat leon spinks, Marvin Hart, hasim rahman, possibly tommy burns, and possibly ingomar johansen.

Rahkman would beat Braddock on a bad night. ingo would have beat him worse.
Braddock could not beat any prepared hall of fame heavy weight in history. He could not beat any of the revolving door heavyweights of the early eighties or any of them from the 90's. Like stated earlier maybe guys like Marvin Hart, Leon Spinks and...thats probably it.

...boxbuzzy....symantics? har har.

ill agree theres not many great fighters of HOF that he coulda beat but i think theres a little bit of injustice going on here. i think that braddock would have defeated spinks. I think he would beat carnera because the only thing carnera could do was punch, and braddock always faired well against boxers that fought primarily with power. braddocks chin and heart would keep him in this fight. if he could stay up against a fighter who knocked primo down 11 times in as many rounds, then he surely could stay up to primo?

We all are learning every day ...

BoxRec All Time Ratings are in an optimization process now. The formula is optimized using souces as The Ring Magazine's 80 Best Fighters of the Last 80 Years (2002) ...

The latest release of BoxRec All Time Ratings look like this:

1 Muhammad Ali 1,786 1960 - 1981 56-5-0

2 Ezzard Charles 1,760 1940 - 1959 97-25-1

3 Joe Louis 1,737 1934 - 1951 68-3-0

4 Rocky Marciano 1,715 1947 - 1955 49-0-0

5 Floyd Patterson 1,703 1952 - 1972 55-8-1

6 Evander Holyfield 1,702 1984 - 2004 38-8-2

7 Mike Tyson 1,669 1985 - 2005 50-6-0

8 Jimmy Bivins 1,659 1940 - 1955 86-25-1

9 Lennox Lewis 1,643 1989 - 2003 41-2-1

10 Jersey Joe Walcott 1,643 1930 - 1953 51-18-2

11 George Foreman 1,641 1969 - 1997 76-5-0

12 Sonny Liston 1,641 1953 - 1970 50-4-0

13 Larry Holmes 1,635 1973 - 2002 69-6-0

14 Joe Frazier 1,628 1965 - 1981 32-4-1

15 Michael Spinks 1,616 1977 - 1988 31-1-0

16 Max Schmeling 1,589 1924 - 1948 56-10-4

17 Ernie Schaaf 1,588 1927 - 1933 57-14-2

18 Primo Carnera 1,585 1928 - 1946 88-15-0

19 Eddie Machen 1,582 1955 - 1967 50-11-3

20 Gene Tunney 1,564 1915 - 1928 72-2-1

21 Jack Sharkey 1,563 1924 - 1936 38-14-3

22 Ingemar Johansson 1,555 1952 - 1963 26-2-0

rory..carnera couldn't punch ....actually he boxed better than he could hit, but wasn't good at that either. braddock would have taken him.

hmm would inge and jjb be a good fight? ive never watched footage on inge and no nothing about him other then the basics