Marvin Johnson

Marvin Johnson ( born April 12, 1954 in Indianapolis ) is a retired American boxer.

Amateur

The southpaw Johnson won the 1971 U.S. Championship and the Golden Gloves light heavyweight. In a move to the middleweight division and won again the Golden Gloves tournament. At the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972, he won the bronze medal. He suggested there include the German Ewald Jarmer and the Cuban Alejandro Montoya before he went against Vyacheslav Lemeshev from the Soviet Union in the semifinals knockout.

Professional

He became professional in 1973 and won his first 15 fights before in a fight for the North America Cup met in July 1977 at his nemesis Matthew Saad Muhammad and lost in the twelfth and final round technical knockout. He punched a spectacular attack style with good punching power, but stayed not big on his defense and had only average taker skills. In June 1978, he lost to Lottie Mwale on points, but then got on December 2, 1978 quite undeservedly a world championship bout against WBC titlist Mate Parlov. He took this opportunity to beat his opponent KO. But in his first defense of the title five months later had to give up the belt after a premature defeat to Matthew Saad Muhammad.

Johnson quickly got but one more shot at the title. On November 30, 1979, he boxed against the prestigious Argentine Victor Galíndez for the WBA title and was able to win by technical knockout in round ten. But this belt he held only a few months, because in his turn first defense he defeated Eddie Mustafa Muhammad prematurely.

Against the undefeated Olympic champion Michael Spinks in 1984 he went kurzrundig KO. But in 1984 he defeated "Prince" Charles Williams on points and defeated Eddie Davis prematurely so that he could once again erboxen a world title fight. Against the not very prestigious WBA champion Leslie Stewart of Trinidad he was on February 9, 1986 win his third world title, but lost the rematch and then joined 33 -year-old back from boxing.