Joe went the distance with Ali and Frazier but Brit fans never forgave him for beating Cooper

BOXING legend Joe Bugner died aged 75 yesterday after a career in which he held his own with the greatest but failed to win the kind of adulation a British heavyweight could usually expect.

- By David Charlesworth

Tough enough to take both Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier the distance, he earned grudging admiration for his abilities but never quite won over the nation.

His Hungarian roots and a safety-first style might have contributed, but British fans never got over his controversial win over national treasure Henry Cooper.

Bugner’s sculpted face and torso and a defensive approach relying heavily on a ramrod jab led sports writer Hugh Mcllvanney to say he had “the physique of a Greek statue but with fewer moves”.

But he always welcomed a challenge in a career that spanned four decades and encompassed 69 wins, 13 defeats and one draw. He once said: “Get me Jesus Christ and I’ll fight him tomorrow.”

Born in Szoreg, Hungary, on March 13, 1950, Jozsef Kreul Bugner was taken out of the country along with his four siblings by their single mum Margaret after the 1956 Soviet invasion.

He once said his mother “had more balls than anyone I have met in the boxing ring”.