Floyd Patterson’s fistic feats are accorded no special place of prominence in The Ring Record Book where he is sandwiched between the records of Rocky Marciano, the man he succeeded to the heavyweight throne, and Sonny Liston, the fighter who beat him for the title. However, his bare-bones professional record, which shows more wins than Marciano and more knockouts than Liston, hardly tells the story of Floyd Patterson.
For his is a story which goes back to his amateur days, when, as a seventeen year old, he won not only the Golden Gloves light heavyweight and AAU 165-pound titles but capped off his amateur career by knocking out his Romanian opponent in a record 74 seconds to capture the 1952 Olympic middleweight gold medal.
His blurringly fast hands, exceptional mobility and mouth-watering talents led many to believe him to be a Swiss movement to be watched, one they predicted would go on to become a world champion, even one of the all-time greats—a belief New York State Boxing Commissioner Eddie Egan gave voice to, saying, “Right now he could beat Sugar Ray Robinson.” Patterson set out to acquit his bright promise by winning thirty of his first thirty-one fights, twenty-one by knockout—his only loss coming in his fourteenth fight to former light heavyweight champion Joey Maxim fighting in his 105 th fight, a fight eleven of the twelve ringside writers thought Floyd won. Then, in his thirty-second fight he knocked out Archie Moore to win the heavyweight crown vacated the previous year by Marciano, becoming, in the process, the youngest man to ever win the heavyweight championship at the tender age of twenty-one.
Floyd would defend his title four times against well-chosen opponents who could best be described as weak opposition. Then, in 1959, he faced European champion Ingemar Johansson, his manager, Cus D’Amato thinking that Johansson, like most European heavyweights, would be “ready-made” for Floyd. But Johansson not only upset the applecart but Floyd as well, landing his booming right—called “the Hammer of Thor” and “Ingo’s Bingo” by imaginative newsmen—thirty seconds into Round Three, a right that so befuddled the fallen Patterson that upon rising he wandered over towards his own corner thinking he had scored the knockdown. It was to be the first of seven knockdowns Patterson was to suffer before referee Ruby Goldstein mercifully called a halt to the one-sided proceedings. One year less six days later Patterson was to return the favor, knocking Johansson out in five rounds with one deepdish beauty of a left hook, leaving Johansson unconscious, his left foot twitching convulsively, and Floyd as the first heavyweight champion ever to recapture the title. Two defenses of his crown later Floyd would be KO′d in two minutes and six seconds by boxing’s version of the man Jack met at the top of the beanstalk, Sonny Liston, who would repeat the indignity in four seconds more in their 1963 rematch. Floyd would go on to fight twenty-two more times over the next nine years, winning seventeen of those fights before retiring in 1972 with a record of fiftyfive wins, forty by KO, against eight losses and one draw. But, again, that hardly tells the story of Floyd Patterson the man. What the record books can never show is that his career was a tightrope walk across the chasm of his own introspective personality. A shy and sensitive man, Patterson, in the words of Hall of Fame writer Bill Heinz, “wasn’t cut out to be a fighter.” Dating back to his days as a member of the Olympic team, his coach, Pete Mello, first saw this sensitivity, calling Floyd, “the nicest kid I ever handled in my forty-one years in the business.” It was a “niceness” that evinced itself in his fifth pro fight against Chester Miezara, when Miezara’s mouthpiece came flying out and Miezara, stooping over to pick it up, was shocked to see his adversary, Patterson, also bending over trying to pick it up for him. And time and time again throughout his career Floyd would go over to his fallen opponent, as he did with Johansson in their second fight, and try to pick them up as well. Patterson acknowledged his sensitivity, describing himself as “delicate.” It was a sensitivity he showed in his fight against Tommy Harrison when, seeing that Harrison could no longer defend himself, he dropped his arms and stopped punching, forcing the referee to halt the bout.
Or when, after knocking out Archie Moore, he again expressed his sensitivity by telling members of the press, “I felt sorry for Archie. I knew how I’d have felt if he had knocked me out. I put myself in his place and I looked at him and I could see how badly he felt.” Floyd was also burdened with shyness. Afraid of being “stared at,” he was, as is said, “ashamed” to be given a victory parade in his honor in his hometown of Mount Vernon, New York, after he had first won the heavyweight title. “When I first heard about the parade,” he said, “I was ashamed. I mean, me sitting in a car and waving to people.
Those are things you only see kings or a president doing.” And rather than being stared at, he brought a mustache and a beard to Chicago for the first Liston fight in the event he should lose. Perhaps, as Bill Heinz said, Floyd was not “cut out to be a fighter.” Or, as Billy Conn, overhearing Floyd tell newsmen that “when he gets a guy’s eye cut I lay off the eye and hit him in the belly,” as he did with Tommy “Hurricane” Jackson, Conn could only sneer and say, “he’s got no business being a fighter.” But Floyd did. For Floyd proved that boxing not only brings out the beast in a man, it also brings out the best in a man. And Floyd was one of the best, a man who ennobled the sport. A man I’ll never forget.
Download: HERE