Should Floyd Patterson have defended his title against Eddie Machen and Zora Folley?

This is a loaded question because saying implies that Patterson should have avoided them and ignores the situation on the ground at the time. Why not ask "did patterson duck Machen and Folley" which is what youve been saying all along. My guess is that your poll would turn out much different.

But again: Obsess much?

How many of these threads have you started now? Its bordering on trolling.

 

I am against Team Patterson on this one but no doubt the recent endless redundant threads does skirt trolling. One or two good threads more than covers the half dozen plus ...

 

I'm going to vote that he "should" have defended against Eddie and Zora. But that would be in addition to the other defenses he made. That is, I would have liked to have seen Floyd put in at least one more defense per year. However, in the other threads Klompton & others spelled out very clearly why Floyd didn't defend more often and why he fought the guys he did. We can debate this stuff, and it's fun, but we can't change history.

 

Exactly.

 

Exactly, I can't vote on that.

 

It's all skirting the obvious ... D'Amato completely protected Patterson .. he fought Moore because he had to for the title shot and then essentially fought no one till Ingo and he was , in my opinion, lucky having beat Machen in the one out of ten he would have ... really until Liston .. not Floyd's fault as he was a kid and a warrior but his reign was ridiculous .. we van make any excuse we want for how Cus was able to justify it but everyone knew at the time Floyd was fighting soft, handpicked opponents. Some fighters win the title and clean out the division like Jeffries, Burns, Louis, Marciano, Frazier and Ali. Charles and did pretty good as did Holmes up to ****ey .. others pick their spots for a myriad of reasons .. You cannot name another heavyweight champion that held the title for years other than say Jess Willard ( who did not fight based on WW1 ) and fought no one of any merit ..

I blame D'Amato as Floyd went on to fight much better guys post title when he was old and did very well ..

 

Jackson was the number one contender, so it is unfair to Patterson to not consider him "of merit"

And Patterson did defend against the two outstanding contenders of the era, Johansson and Liston.

But Patterson really asked for flak by fighting Rademacher and McNeeley. Rademacher might have been an easy money shot, but Cus and/or Floyd should have considered reputation.

London I see as a warm-up less than two months before taking on Johansson (whom quite a few experts considered outstanding). Off topic--that Floyd felt he needed a warm-up points to his respecting Ingo more than some would have it.

Considering his total reign, which includes the defenses against Johansson and Liston, does Patterson really deserve to be rated behind Johnson or Dempsey, neither of whom defended against the best out there? Floyd did.

 

So in six years he fought two (2) fighters .. the other five fights were all against lower second tier opposition .. unfair and inaccurate to compare Johnson who did fight and defeat his top challengers prior to winning the title , Dempsey a whole other story .. read the coverage from the day .. Floyd and Cus were badly ripped for who he fought .. it's all there in black and white ..

 

Where have all these "Patterson was a 'paper champ' threads come from recently Suz? I'll concede your point that he didn't fight the best but that wasn't his fault.
A late 50's Machen may have been a better 'chess match' for Floyd but IMO Floyd wasn't going down against slick Eddie. Yes, Machen was said to have mental problems when they fought in Stockholm in 64 but Floyd basically ran the table on Eddie and Machen went on to fight Terrell for the 'WBA' title and 'schooled' a young Quarry afterwards so one could argue that he was hardly 'shot' when Patterson kicked his **** in Sweden.
Folley was a cautious boxer/puncher; does anyone think he would 'walk right thru Floyd?' Cooper beat Zora in 58; none of us have seen the Cooper/Zora rematch but I can't imagine it being more one sided than the Patterson-Cooper bout where a cautious Floyd bided his time and laid Henry into a ***** street puddle inside of nine minutes! :nut
Enough of the Floyd 'rag-fest'. Given weights, eras, and competition, he truly is an all time great with the fastest hands of any HW ever. And, by the way, with that glass jaw we so often hear about, he never was face down with the ref counting him out!

 

Machen was worthy but blew elliminators. Lesser fighters got shots without elliminators but they managed to outshine Machens appeal and their credentials were still worthy enough to warrant a title fight.

The system was the champ defended two times a year and there was a process to establish outstanding contenders and big box office draws.

For whatever reason the process of establishing either public intrest or establishing an outstanding claim for an automatic challenge resulted in Machen failures.