Instead of defending his title against Roy Harris, he defends his title against Matthew Muhammad. Keep this in mind, in 1957, Matthew Muhammad probably would have fought at both light heavyweight and heavyweight (as did many light heavies of the day like Archie Moore and Harold Johnson).
Mathew Franklin was absolutely awesome at light heavyweight. Unfortunately however I just don’t think he had the chin to take shots from heavyweights. And Floyd Patterson was quite fast and powerful especially in his youth. As much as I like and respect Saad, I can’t see him doing too much here.
Patterson kissed the canvas quite often, so yes I can envisage a KD or two, but go with Magoo on final outcome. stay safe buddy.
It’s not impossible. For whatever reason and I don’t know why, Floyd Paterson was highly knock down prone. Even a debuting Pete Rademacher in his first ever pro fight decked Floyd. So yes I imagine Saad “ could” score a knockdown.
I'm a huge admirer of both of these guys and this would certainly be an intense fight while it lasted. Saad was an absolute warrior who never envisaged defeat. Never a great technical Fighter, his courage bordered on reckless insanity. Matt also had the advantage of being a southpaw. The Floyd of 1957 would have had limited exposure to lefties. Having said that, the Patterson of 57 was no raw kid. He was growing into his Heavyweight self and was marrying power to his already recognised speed. Without doubt, Cus D'Amato over protected Floyd but he already had that KO over Archie Moore which doesn't bode well for Saad. As other posters have pointed out, Floyd was very gettable early on in fights and it's no stretch of the imagination to see Matt dropping him in the first couple of rounds. All told, I imagine Patterson recovering from a shaky start and getting into his stride against wade in Saad. Floyd was already used to handling much bigger men on the inside and taking them out from range. I would expect Floyd to force the stoppage, maybe after a couple of knockdowns, around the 8th or 9th.
Patterson would light him up. His power, handspeed and Saad's impacted effectiveness due to the higher weight would be a bridge well and truly too far for mine. He's not exactly hard to hit either and is at a big disadvantage in this firefight. This isn't Lopez, Johnson or Conteh.
Muhammad got destroyed by Qawi twice because of his bobbing and weaving style, Muhammad's straight punches wern't effective for that style. Now obviously Patterson's style is different to Qawi, and he isn't as short as Qawi. But he still has peek and boo style with bobbing and weaving style, and Patterson hit harder and was faster than Qawi. So i think Patterson gets him out of there by the 10th round, in a pretty one sided fight in my opinion outside of flash knockdown from Muhammad.
Matt wasn't a southpaw, Loaded. Are you thinking of Pops Johnson, another amazingly entertaining LHW from that time? Agree with everything else you say, mind you. Cheers.
