By Don Colgan

I was at my kitchen table listening to some sports radio on Saturday morning when I heard the news that Ingemar Johansson had died.  I wasn’t entirely surprised. Ingemar has been afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease for nearly a decade, struggling between good days and bad, in sickness where decline and ultimately death is a virtual certainty.

I have had an email correspondence with a long time friend of Ingemar’s, Olaf Johansson, who has been corresponding with me regarding a book I am putting together, “The Gentle Champion” about the life and times of Floyd Patterson.  Ingemar is central in the evolution of this book, as his friendship with Floyd was enduring and special.

You can’t hear about one without thinking of the other, so riveting, and binding, a trilogy was Patterson-Johansson.  Not only their three bouts, which were electrifying in their own right, yet the powerful and long lasting friendship that binded them together over the decades.  They were central figures in a golden age for boxing, and those three championship bouts are entrenched in ring lore.

Johansson was not held in high historical regard.  His championship reign was brief, and he and Patterson proceeded a 40 year era of historically great heavyweights, from Liston to Lewis.  He was a classic stand up European boxer, with a mechanical “one and a two” style as he worked behind a persistent, flicking left jab that set up “Old Toonder," Ingo’s explosive right cross that literally slammed opponents to the canvas.  In terms of footwork, lateral movement and overall right generalship, he was in the bottom third of the linear heavyweight champions.

However, for one fleeting moment he indeed was the “baddest man on the planet!"  From June 25, 1959 until June 20, 1960, he was the undefeated, dominant World Heavyweight Champion who had decapitated number-one ranked Eddie Machen in one round in Goteborg, Sweden and destroyed Patterson in three rounds, punctuated by seven crushing knockdowns in two minutes and three seconds.  Machen was a skillful heavyweight and legitimate title threat who gave Liston more than a little difficulty during their May 1960 contest, extending Sonny the full twelve round distance during the height of Liston’s pre-championship rampage through the heavyweight division.

Ingemar had knocked out Henry Cooper with one punch, something even the great Ali couldn’t manage.  His demolition job over Machen earned him a shot at the championship and the straight right hand that made Patterson an ex-champion is arguably one of the top ten punches of all time.

Johansson is always viewed as a bottom tier heavyweight champion yet he decisively knocked out the #1 heavyweight contender and defending Heavyweight Champion in less than four combined rounds - no small achievement.

When evaluating the greatest heavyweights Europe has produced, Ingemar can only stand behind Schmeling and Lewis.  You can argue the multi talented Briton would have manhandled Ingo, yet considering Lewis’ fragile chin and his brutal knockout defeats at the hands of Oliver McCall and Hasim Rahman, if Johansson had connected flush with “Toonder” the referee could have, to quote Ingo before the 2nd Patterson fight, “Counted to 1000."  Of course, Arthur Mercante could have counted to 5000 before Ingemar would regain consciousness after he absorbed Floyd’s left hook, a punch for the ages.

It is the Patterson-Johansson trilogy that truly immortalized both men.  They were clearly flawed heavyweights who possessed a singular exceptional gift.  Floyd’s lightening hand speed elevated him to the top of the heavyweight class and “Ingo’s Bingo”, the powerful overhand right, was a well-known punch.  It was the sum of their three bouts that exceeds their individual achievements.  Without Floyd’s china-chin Ingemar would never have held the title, and without Johansson’s enormous overconfidence prior to their return bout, Floyd may never have earned the distinction of becoming the first to regain the heavyweight throne.

It was their durable and genuine friendship that ultimately transcended the three ring wars they waged.  Floyd, who had lived in Sweden for a time and was treated with great reverence in Ingemar’s homeland, considered the Swede a puncher for the ages.  He treated Johansson’s ring skills and achievements with profound respect.  Floyd traveled to Sweden annually to visit Johansson and earned tremendous admiration from Ingo’s countrymen.  Years later the two men ran in the New York City marathon where Ingemar, predictably, finished far behind Floyd.

Ingemar was a sportsman.  He overcame the dishonor that was unfairly heaped upon him after his disqualification in the 1952 Helinski Olympics against the American giant, Ed Sanders.  Johansson did not flee from Sanders, he was obeying his fight plan against a dangerous, threatening opponent.  His intention was to open up and take the fight to the American in the final stanza.  The puckish referee saw fear and not calculation in Ingo’s eyes and disqualified the Swede.  The perception, wholly inaccurate, that he wasn’t trying was not removed from his record until after he won the championship and brought great pride to Sweden.

Ingo, in Floyd’s own words “did a lot with the championship”.  He exploded upon the scene with color and confidence.  He was a man of honor who held the championship with great dignity and was much admired in this country as well as idolized in his native Sweden.  He may not have been a great fighter, yet he was a champion in every definition of the word.