Why the double standards against Patterson?

Agreed, post title reign he fought a whose who it seems

I think sometimes it is easily forgotten that every fighter is protected at one time or another from certain styles......it is naive to think a successful fighter has not been navigated to the top

 

To answer the thread question: because outside the ring he was a nice and well liked guy.

 

I'm not saying you're wrong. The benefit Archie had over Floyd was that, as lt heavy champ, he was entitled to fight non-titles, whereas, Floyd could not. Take away those over-the-weight matches Archie engaged in and he has one of the worst championship reigns of all time. But he fought often ( 9 times in '53, 12 times in '56, 10 times in '58) and against high-profile fighters which obviously endeared him to the public and the Press. Also, Archie had the gift of the gab while Floyd was withdrawn. A lot of reasons the Press took to one and not the other.

 

I think it was the losses to Liston, and the way he lost is what most remember. Also running around in disguise after those losses didn't help his legacy if thats true.

 

I think that he made some questionable choices in terms of title defenses, but when you add up the strengths and weaknesses of his choices, he was by no means a bad champion.

He had eight title defenses where he selected the opponent, and half of them were against the current #1 contender.

Compare that to any lineal champion of recent memory.

 

Wladamir Klitschko is rightly respected as a champion, and he defended the lineal championship 11 times, if you take him as lineal from the Chagaev fight.

He fought the #1 ranked contender twice during this period, plus two additional men ranked in the top 3.

That gives earlier title reigns some perspective!

 

Interesting that Mike DeJohn was brought up. DeJohn had the power to do what Ingo did in Fight #1...put Floyd on Q-Street early in the fight, keep him there, and win by TKO.

 

Correct. Yank Durham had a little speech talking about "We will fight the winner of the WBA Tourny"; plus NYSAC, and several other State recognized Frazier as champ...and then for the Dave Zyglewicz fight Frazier was recognized as World Heavyweight Champion by New York, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maine and Massachusetts, as well as Mexico and Argentina. But those following boxing in 1969 knew the real fight out there was the showdown between Ali & Frazier.

 

Wasn't Patterson always high in rankings from a few decades ago?

I doubt there's a single champion (people talk about much), that we aren't revisionist about. Revisionism isn't a bad thing.