Something that Floyd Patterson is never given due credit for.

Can anybody think of another fighter who was ranked in so many consecuive years?

Is there a case for a pound for pound type ranking here?

 

Archie Moore?

 

I think Floyd's post title career was more impressive than his reign.
I agree he was very consistant,off hand I can think of only Holyfield being consistantly ranked longer, of the modern champs.

 

What I like about Mike Spinks is, he walked away and remained quite and lives comfortably....... Spinks' big purse money / fights:

In no real order......

1. Qawi of '83 (1.2 Mill)
2. Holmes '85 ( 1 Mill)
3. Holmes '86 (3 Mill)
4. Cooney '87 (7 Mill)
5. Tyson '88 (13 Mill)

Not bad........ Also, Spinks seemingly has either invested or managed his cabbage patch very well........ Unlike his bro Leon, Michael has never had to flip burgers, haul potato's and or usher at the local downtown theatre.........

MR.BILL

 

Close but no cigar:

Holyfield was ranked at cruiserweight in 1985 and 86.

He was prety much continuously ranked at heavyweight from 1987-2002.

But he was not in the top 10 in 1994.

Also I cannot find the annual rankings for 1991 or 1997.

This helps to put Pattersons acomplishment into perspective.

 

Review Patterson-Johansson I a few more times. Ingo should have killed him (literally) with the second "sucker punch" knockdown.

No, because it wasn't really a surprise. I tend to give Michael a pass here due to the fact that many expected the much bigger Cooney's fast starting power to crush the notoriously slow starting Michael the same way. (Yes, Gerry was coked out and stale, but still, the punch was his last thing to go, as Foreman later discovered.)

Kingston was shocking at the time, but not in retrospect. Joe wasn't the same following the FOTC, and that became evident when reviewing Frazier-Daniels and Frazier-Stander. Even his interviews then reveal a diminished intensity and loss of mental edge.

True, but Floyd turned the tables on Ingo, something Frazier tried but couldn't do with Foreman, while Michael Spinks never even contemplated such an attempt with Tyson. Because Patterson actually twice avenged his loss to Ingo the way he did, I cut him some slack for Liston. (My beef is with Floyd's "deer in the headlights" performance." Why did he fail trying to adapt with Sonny as he did Ingo?) Beyond that, the fact remains that Floyd himself, over D'Amato's objections, chose to give Sonny a title shot, one of the most honorable acts of any heavyweight champion.

Ali suggested when commenting during Patterson-Chuvalo that Floyd might have been able to defeat Sonny boxing like that. Patterson was younger than Liston, became far smarter and more resourceful with experience, and I'm not entirely convinced Sonny would be guaranteed of a three peat if they'd squared off again during the late 1960s. Of course after two starchings like what already happened between them, this wasn't ever likely to fly. Then again, Lucien Rodriguez decisioned Evangelista after two bad knockout defeats, the second one much worse than the first, so who knows? (I just happened to mention that old EBU rivalry because I'd been pouring over their records earlier today. Unlikely, unexpected and drastic reverses do happen from time to time.)

 

Archie was ranked at middleweight in 1940, 1942 and 1943.

Light heavyweight 1945-1961.

Heavyweight 1955-56, 1958 and 1962.

He was therfore ranked continuously from 1942-1962 and from 1940-1962 with one year interval.

I think Archie was always going to be a hard act to follow though.

 

Well, Holy was heavyweight champ in 1991 so his ranking is secure there...

And, Holy went into 1994 as champ, but lost to Moorer in April and supposedly was forced to retire cuz of a "Bogus" story about a heart issue.... Therefore, I can see Holy being dropped during the second half of '94.......

Note:

I saw Holy two days prior to his loss to Moorer in 1994 and his health and heart looked fine.... If anything, Holy tore up his rotor cuff / shoulder early in the fight and it left him hurting with pain....

Notice how Holy came back a year later and kicked Mercer's ass....

MR.BILL:bbb:hat

P.S.

Holy's faith heeler 'Benny Hinn' is full of ****.......

 

You'd have to assume that he needed to do more than he actually did to get into a top 10. Maybe he just turned pro with a lot of hype after his Olympic Gold and was automatically ranked highly?

 

It might have been so in practice if not officialy.

 

Patterson is a great fighter with ATG skills. He should get more credit now a days.
Ranks in the top 20 heavyweights imo. His hand speed and combinations are certainly some of the heavyweights best. Plus his resume isn't too shabby either.

 

I love this thread. Thank you Janitor. Mr. Bill should stay away with his hate. This is a love thread.

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You are right, but Patterson was an Olympic champion and the darling of the New York boxing press, the golden child.

 

He isn't given P4P props, he was a middleweight maybe super middleweight with a small frame who force fed himself to HW. He dominated an ATG LHW for the title and beat many top LHWs and top HWs

There is a good case to say Patterson was P4P as good if not better than Moore/Charles but he'll never get those props around here

I'll make an outlandish statement: Patterson beats any version of Archie Moore at any agreed upon weight, he's just better than Archie

 

I think Floyd Patterson was "a great fighter" too, but not one of the great heavyweight champions.

Truth is, he was good enough to beat Archie Moore, which is quite substantial, but Moore was never heavyweight champion of the world. Patterson won the vacant championship from Moore, but was then steered away from the best challengers until he got KO'd badly by Ingemar Johansson. His revenge win over Johansson is impressive, and historically significant as he became first man to regain the title ( ... but he had to lose it to Ingo in the first place !). After winning the Johansson trilogy, he took on another bum, then finally fought Liston and got seperated from the title within a round. The rematch was the same.

Yes, he could beat guys like George Chuvalo (narrowly), and a past-prime mental-illness ridden Eddie Machen, and blast out the likes of Henry Cooper, give young Jerry Quarry a good battle, and arguably beat Jimmy Ellis (although that fight isn't the horrendous robbery some made it out to be) ..... and, yes, of course Patterson had longevity.