Machen fought Champions Ingo, Liston, Patterson, Terrell, Frazier, Harold Johnson & Joey Maxim, and good fighters Quarry, Cleve Williams, Folley, Nino Valez, Doug Jones & Mike DeJohn. An interesting fight in the early 60's would have been against Cassius Clay.....Machen might have won a close decision.
He was a good fighter who fought them all. He had some good fights but didn't get the big wins when he needed to. The beating he took from Frazier was brutal; I saw that fight recently. A match-up with Clay would have been interesting. I can't pick a winner yet.
Machen was rated in the Top 10 from June 1956 to March 1966, for a total of 109 months. His highest rating was of course, #1.
thats the reason clay was steered around machen,he'd have been a tough fighter for clay to defeat at the time.
Yeah maybe right around the time when Clay fought Moore with 15 pro fights. Any other time however, and Cassius would slapped the **** out of him...
Agree with Jake; prime v prime its Ali all the way but IMO Dundee had Clay avoid Machen like the plague in 62-63. My money would have been on Eddie to slip/slide/counterpunch his way to a decision at that time.
I always like Machen thought he was a quality fighter would have like to see fight Patterson while he was more in his prime probably would have been the same result but a better fight.
Eddie Machen and Zora Folley, two good heavyweights that got the short end of the stick. Sadly, their names can be found on a page in "Boxing's Tragic Stories".
I`ve got a 14min highlight of the Patterson/Machen fight, and I gotta say from that little footage it sure looked like a heck of a competitive fight even though Eddie was on the slide by then. He had Floyd completely out on his feet at one point in the later rounds and was pummeling him with some HUGE punches on the noggin only for Floyd to be saved by the bell, had it not rung right the and there it looked to me like Eddie would have knocked him out cold Floyd was so out of it. And yes, Eddie was an excellent fighter who sadly died under tragic circumstances, at his best this man was some fighter. I watched a few minutes of his bout vs Jerry Qarry today as wel and while Quarry was still somewhat green at this point in his career it was impressive to see the more experienced Machen take him to school the way he did, very good performance by Eddie in that fight.
What I found most interesting about Liston-Machen is that all the hardest scoring blows were actually landed by Eddie, who nearly decked Sonny at one point (at the outset of round eight with a hook, if memory serves). Liston's jab carried the day, but Machen proved that a peak Sonny was not completely impervious.
Hey RB, I have to respectfully disagree on a couple of points. 1) I've seen highlights, off and on, of virtualy all of Floyd/Eddie (silent) and I never saw Machen on top of him landing huge punches. What I did see was Patterson (as usual) putting Eddie in some trouble on a few occasions and not following up his advantage. I believe the three judges scored the fight 10-1-1/10-2/9-2-1 hardly a close scrap. 2) IMO no one could knock Patterson out COLD... I do agree that a prime Eddie would give Floyd a much better fight but the result would have been the same. Styles make fights and I find it interesting that Patterson would have always been able to best Machen much easier than Liston.
One of my first issues of "Boxing Illustrated" had the results of the Floyd Patterson vs Eddie Machen in 1964.
I think Raging Bull is referring to the episode at the end of rd. 11. Floyd hears the bell and drops his hands, but Machen (perhaps groggy) throws 4-5 big shots and has to be dragged away from Patterson by the referee and his own handlers. Woller
Greetings Woller! You've jogged my memory there. I got (on e-bay) several years ago, a British boxing tabloid that had the Floyd-Eddie scrap THE main story in that issue. I remember reading about a late round ''nobody heard the bell" moment with Eddie unloading. I think there were booing/complaints from crowd/officials etc...but as Floyd wasn't hurt, the fight continued with no interruption...