Joe Bugner was very much a gifted heavyweight who was so often on the receiving end of a bad wrap: “Too negative.” “Safety first.” “Uncommitted,” and so on and so forth. In a nutshell, the critics were often on Bugner’s case for “not giving his all.”
But Joe, who was born in Hungary, and came to the UK as a young man, and then relocated to Australia to find real happiness and peace, was some fine fighter. Bugner went in with so many heavyweight greats/big and recognisable names – including: Muhammad Ali (twice), Joe Frazier, Earnie Shavers, Ron Lyle, Henry Cooper, Chuck Wepner, Jurgen Blin (twice), Mac Foster, Jimmy Ellis, Marvis Frazier, Greg Page, and Frank Bruno.
And it was a rare thing indeed when Bugner was stopped, much less outright knocked out. A brilliant defensive fighter (this the knock on Joe, a real physical specimen who looked like an ass-kicking Adonis), Bugner really could look after himself (this yet another knock on him). Today, however, when he should be showered with gifts, of the complimentary variety, this from the boxing experts who so frowned on him during his glory years, Joe is in a bad way.
Currently in a nursing home in Australia, Joe is suffering the ravages of dementia, and he has no memory of his great fights, or even of the fact that he was ever a fighter. It’s a sad, sad tale, yet at the same time, a cruelly familiar one. Even the greatest to ever do it, Sugar Ray Robinson, was robbed of his glorious memories as he hit old age, Alzheimer’s felling him the way no ring foe ever could.
Joe looked to have come out the other side in good shape. For a while, quite a long while, actually. Bugner was in good health, his faculties in one place during the 1990s, and 2000s. It wasn’t until 2023 that news surfaced regarding Joe’s plight, and his sad existence. Joe, like so many other fighters, deserves so much better. And, in a sadly ironic way, the criticism Joe got for “not giving his all,” and for “not being brave enough,” could never have been smashed away as powerfully as they have been by the price Joe is now paying.
Bugner was a warrior in the ring. He carried on too long (as so many fighters do) and though he might not have been the most exciting, let’s-slug-it-out-until-one-of-us-drops type of boxer (although as we saw in his epic, if losing fight with “Smokin’” Joe, Bugner COULD go to war) – Joe was a special talent.
Today, as he said himself in an interview he gave before he was stricken by the unstoppable, invisible decease he is currently warring with, Joe would have “cleaned up” if he was fighting.
Indeed.
Bugner was a fine fighter, a fine boxer. He absolutely deserves to be remembered. And here’s hoping, more than somewhat optimistically, that Joe can have himself a happy 75th birthday today.
Bugner’s final ring record reads an admirable 69-13-1(41). Joe fought as a pro from 1967 to 1999.
