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Christened Ivanson Ranny Nelson,
Johnny entered this world on
January 4 1967 in Sheffield,
England. He started boxing
because he wanted to impress his
elder brother Alan, but in the
beginning he was, to put it
mildly, not very impressive.
“I was the biggest coward in the
gym. If I got hit, my knee would
come up, then my arm, in
protection. I was like Speedy
Gonzales, I would grab hold of
the other fella, then get out of
the way", he once told writer
John Gibson.
But Nelson wouldn’t always be a
so-called coward, as he found
enough courage to embark on a
less-than-glorious amateur
career. Any person who gets
inside a boxing ring to fight
deserves respect, and when you
continue to do it despite losing
most of your bouts you probably
deserve even more respect.
Nelson lost ten of his thirteen
amateur outings, and when he
received a torch and a blanket
as a price for losing what would
turn out to be his last non-paid
fight, he decided he might as
well start to get some money for
getting hit in the face. This
despite his trainer Brendan
Ingle warning him that he still
had a lot to learn, and would
not be any good for years.
So it’s safe to say that
expectations were not high when
a 19-year-old Ivanson made his
professional debut on March 18
1986 at the Westfield Country
Club in Hull. Fighting as a
Super Middleweight, Nelson lost
the fight on a six round
decision to Peter Brown from
Bradford, but at least he got
paid.
Already a journeyman, Nelson
lost his next two fights as
well. In May of ´86 he was
overmatched against 11-0-1 Tommy
Taylor, but lasted the full six
rounds. In October of that same
year, he travelled to Denmark
where Norwegian debutant Magne
Havnaa beat him on points over
four rounds.
While Brown and Taylor didn’t go
all that far in the sport,
Havnaa would go on to win a
world title some years later,
and perhaps Nelson saw something
in himself during the twelve
minutes the bout lasted that
made him finally believe more in
his own capabilities.
Nelson returned from Copenhagen
as an 0-3 fighter, but things
were about to change for the
former altar boy, who’s mother
wanted him to be a priest and
thought he was taking dancing
lessons and not going to the
boxing gym and fighting for
money.
Six weeks after the Havnaa
fight, Nelson finally won when
he outpointed Chris Little at
the Quaffers Club in Bredburry.
It wasn’t exactly a monumental
accomplishment, and Little would
never win another fight, but for
Johnny it was the start of
something wonderful.
In his next fifteen fights
Nelson came out victorious in
thirteen of them, including a
second round stoppage of Danny
Lawford for the Central Area
Cruiserweight title, and
suddenly he found himself in
position to challenge for the
coveted British crown against
champion Andy Straughn.
Although he now held a
respectable 13-5 record, Nelson
was undoubtedly the underdog
that night in May 1989 in London
against the 17-4-2 Barbados-born
champion, but having already
achieved much more than anyone
expected, he had nothing to
lose.
Nelson defied the odds and
stopped Straughn in eight
rounds. He was now a true player
in the boxing world, if not at
world level then at least on the
European scene. After a
convincing title-defense the
following October, a second
round knockout of Ian Bulloch,
he was given a shot to take the
next step.
WBC World Cruiserweight Champion
Carlos De Leon (45-5) from
Puerto Rico was lured to
Sheffield for a defense on
January 27 1990 against the
still relatively unknown
Englishman. The fight ended in a
draw, De Leon retaining his
title, but while it was
certainly a respectable result
for Nelson, the fight was
nothing short of a nightmare for
him.
The Coward was back!
“I was fighting a man who in his
day was one of the very best and
I was doing it in my own
backyard. The reality suddenly
hit me”, he told John Gibson in
the previously mentioned
interview.
“Everywhere I went people were
wishing me good luck and
slapping me on the back. I was
stopped on every street corner.
Suddenly I was a celebrity and I
thought it was really nice. I
took my eye off the ball and
didn't think about my tactics or
the fight”.
"When I climbed in the ring I
could see the stars from
Coronation Street sitting
ringside.
Linda
Lusardi, the Page Three girl,
and loads of well known folk
like her. All come to see me.
This was real pressure and I
totally froze.”
"I was terrified I'd get knocked
out or beaten up in front of all
these people. So I hit and ran,
hit and ran. It went the
distance and I got a draw, but I
had stunk out the place.”
Less than three weeks later,
Nelson returned to the ring and
stopped American Dino Homsey in
seven rounds of a non-title
bout. Six weeks after that he
knocked out Lou Gent to retain
his British title, and two more
non-title victories over
respectable Americans Arthur
Weathers and Andre Smith, put
him in line for a crack at the
vacant European championship.
Again the underdog, Nelson
travelled to Karlsruhe to take
on undefeated German, and fellow
future world champion, Markus
Bott in December 1990. Eleven
months after the De Leon fiasco,
the year ended on a high for
Nelson after all, as he stopped
the local hero in the twelfth
and final round.
After one defense of the
European title, Nelson was
awarded a shot at IBF World
Champion James Warring in May
1993 in Bealton, Virginia, USA.
Despite the fact that he was
still struggling with his
self-confidence, and had yet to
compete at true world-level,
Nelson describes it in his 2007
autobiography, Hard Road to
Glory, as a chance he could not
afford to refuse.
“Waring’s people must have
sensed I was mentally fragile
and they played a trump card as
we were waiting for the fight to
start”, wrote Nelson in said
book. “As I stood there looking
at Warring, psyching myself up,
I heard someone in his corner
call out to him: “remember the
De Leon fight”. That was all it
took. I went back into my
shell.”
Nelson put on another horrible
performance against Warring, and
no matter how much trainer
Brendan Ingle shouted and cursed
at him he just couldn’t break
out of that shell. Again he had
wasted a huge opportunity in the
worst way, and this time he lost
by wide scores: 120-108, 118-111
and 117-111.
The humiliating performance
against Warring almost put
Nelson back in the journeyman
role he had finally escaped,
when he travelled abroad again
and lost two fights to Norbert
Ekassi in France and future WBO
world heavyweight champion
Corrie Sanders in South Africa.
It was no shame losing to Ekassi
and Sanders, at least on paper,
but when an opportunity to
challenge
Australian Dave Russell (23-7)
for the WBF World
Cruiserweight title came in
October 1994, Nelson was again
the underdog when he packed his
bags and jumped on a plane
headed for Melbourne.
But this time it finally all
came together for him, as he put
on a wonderful performance and
basically toyed with Russell
until the Aussie quit in round
eleven. Ivanson Ranny Nelson,
AKA Johnny Nelson, was finally a
world champion in his third
attempt!
Four months after winning the
WBF World title, the new
champion made his first defense
against another Brit, Tom
Collins, and didn’t waste any
time as the fight was stopped
already in the first round. Less
than two months later, Nelson
travelled to Belgium to make his
second defense, this time
against Ugandan-born Franco
Wanyama.
A former Olympian with loads of
experience, Wanyama used every
trick in the book to unsettle
Nelson, and elbowed and
headbutted the champion. When he
finally got too frustrated and
retaliated in round ten, referee
Marcel Roloux immediately
disqualified Nelson, who was
ahead on all three judges’ cards
at the time.
Shortly after the heartbreak in
Belgium, Nelson got another
unexpected opportunity when he
was offered to move up in weight
and challenge WBF World
Heavyweight Champion Jimmy
Thunder in New Zealand. Still in
decent shape from the training
camp for Wanyama, Nelson
accepted.
In Auckland, outweighed by ten
kilos, Nelson showed his
doubters that he had come a long
way since his poor start in
boxing and the De Leon and
Warring disasters, when he won a
deserved unanimous decision over
Thunder, a big puncher who had
stopped fifteen of his previous
seventeen victims.
Now a two-weight WBF World
Champion, the Sheffield-Southpaw
decided to continue the “Have
Gloves, Will Travel” theme that
his career was already such a
good example of, and in November
1994 he went on the road again
for his first defense.
“Bizarrely, I went all the way
to Thailand to defend my WBF
Heavyweight title against a
Russian, Nikolay Kulpin. Quite
how the promoters came up with
the idea of staging the fight, I
still don’t understand, but it
was clear from the moment we
arrived that this was a big
deal”, Nelson explains in “Hard
Road To Glory”.
“There were billboards with my
picture on and people came up to
me and said, “you are a very big
man, you will win”. Once Kulpin
arrived and they saw that he was
a real heavyweight, they changed
their tune. “He is a bigger man,
you will lose!”
Nelson didn’t lose! He fought a
good fight and was too quick and
busy for Kulpin, winning a clear
unanimous decision. Thailand
embraced Nelson, and the good
experience made him agree to
next travel to Brazil to defend
his world title against local
icon Adilson Rodriguez (60-5).
Unfortunately the Brazil
experience was not as good as
the Thailand adventure. After
twelve rounds, most people with
two eyes could see that Nelson
had outboxed Rodriguez, except
for the tree judges who all
scored the fight for the South
American champ.
The result was so controversial
that the World Boxing Federation
ordered a rematch, which took
place four months later, also in
Sao Paolo. However, the result
was the same and a discouraged
Nelson decided he had had enough
of the big boys, and would
return to Cruiserweight.
Back at his natural weight,
Nelson once again took the
traditional route by first
winning the British title, then
the European and then the WBO
world crown. He made thirteen
successful defenses of the WBO
title before retiring, as
champion, in 2005. Very
fittingly, his last fight was
again on the road, in Rome,
Italy against Vincenzo Cantatore.
Today 46-year-old Johnny Nelson,
who finished with a 45-12-2 (29)
record, still lives in Sheffield
and works as a boxing expert for
SKY television. He can proudly
look back at a career that took
him from run-of-the-mill amateur
to journeyman professional, to
eventually one of the best
Cruiserweight boxers of all
time!
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