BoxRec

I just got to watch some footage of Johnson.

Wow.

What a skilled technician and an exciting fighter to watch.
Some 'greats' you read so much on, and when you get to
see them with your own eyes, you are in some ways
disappointed.

Not the case with Johnson. What fine jab, and good inside
work the man has.

I look forward to watching more of his fights.

Does anyone here have any memories, anectdotes and so on
about Johnson, that they could share with his newest fan...

thanks again

kym

http://www.doghouseboxing.com/ken/HissnerMM061408.htm

This is an interview I found for any interested.

I've always felt that Harold Johnson was probably the single most underrated fighter in boxing history. He was a top 10 all-time light-heavy for sure IMO, and he was more accomplished than some fighters that are often more celebrated and get rated over him (ie: Bob Foster, Billy Conn). At his peak, Johnson was one of the most complete fighters I've ever seen. In addition to his technical skill, he also had very good all-around speed and he could punch solidly with both hands.

I don't know what fight you saw with him, but I would strongly recommend seeing his fight with Ezzard Charles. That was Johnson's defining performance IMO. He showed great footwork (better than he would years later as champion) and continually outmaneuvered Charles and beat him to the punch, even staggering him a couple of times. I thought Johnson won a fairly clear decision, though to be fair, some people will disagree.

Harold Johnson is one of the greatest pure boxer I've ever seen his fight with Charles is great Ezzard is past his best and a fair amount bigger then Johnson in there fight which was an excellent display of two masters going at it. I scored the fight for Charles by a point but I scored the knockdown.

I watched him beat Doug Jones and Machen.
I shall watch the Charles fight later. Thanks guys.

robby- if you've read any of my posts regarding johnson/jones you now know that i've been talking about in declaring this performance by harold!!!even if you haven't you have seen for yourself why i call this a text book example of how it should be done..but rarely ever is!!! he was a marvel.

i've never seen the match with charles so i have no opinion. it was one of the few fights of his that ezzard said was a home town decision. i do know from reading about it that it was very close, so that would tend to disqualify it as a home towner.

jaclem,

I shall let you know how i scored the Charles fights later.
Johnson fought a great fight against Jones.

My2Sense wrote:I've always felt that Harold Johnson was probably the single most underrated fighter in boxing history. He was a top 10 all-time light-heavy for sure IMO, and he was more accomplished than some fighters that are often more celebrated and get rated over him (ie: Bob Foster, Billy Conn). At his peak, Johnson was one of the most complete fighters I've ever seen. In addition to his technical skill, he also had very good all-around speed and he could punch solidly with both hands.

I don't know what fight you saw with him, but I would strongly recommend seeing his fight with Ezzard Charles. That was Johnson's defining performance IMO. He showed great footwork (better than he would years later as champion) and continually outmaneuvered Charles and beat him to the punch, even staggering him a couple of times. I thought Johnson won a fairly clear decision, though to be fair, some people will disagree.

Johnson in general has been very underrated. I do think though like Charles, many people on this Forum realize how great he really was. One thing that I always found interesting was his many fights at heavyweight. He beat a lot of fringe contenders and as mentioned won a close decision over Eddie Machen and Charles.
As a lightheavyweight, he certainly was one of the Top 10 of All-Time, maybe as high as #6 or #7. He did seem to be a complete fighter. I think it was Teddy Brenner who when referring to Johnson said something like "In boxing, perfection isn't appreciated."

I don't know what fight you saw with him, but I would strongly recommend seeing his fight with Ezzard Charles. That was Johnson's defining performance IMO. He showed great footwork (better than he would years later as champion) and continually outmaneuvered Charles and beat him to the punch, even staggering him a couple of times. I thought Johnson won a fairly clear decision, though to be fair, some people will disagree.

Interesting...I thought Johnson looked real good, but I thought charles clearly won the fight. The boxing match was pretty much even, but charles landed the harder cleaner punches, better body punches, and knocked johnson down in the 10th round with a right hand.

6 rounds to 3 1 even for ezzard charles