I think he was. I'm trying to find a complete list of his knockdowns. Tom McNeeley knocked him down once. We can add that to the list. Roy Harris knocked him down.
Did McNeeley score an official Knock Down? Referee Tommy Loughran did not score a KD in the Patterson v. Harrris fight.
I don't know if it was official. McNeeley knocked Patterson down to one knee in the fourth round. Harris knocked Patterson down in the second round.
No I'm saying I counted a down and he went down like 13 times as a champion. One thing to consider is that Patterson went down 7 times in the Johansson fight, a preposterous number that a more sane referee wouldn't allow. It inflates his total; he was done after the first but kept on getting up.
many people would get surprised about how patterson would destroy charles, he had the speed of hands and feet that marciano never had,he was much harder to outbox than rocky, maybe he did not have the raw power of rocky but he was a much more explosive puncher, much more effective against cute boxers. charles never had the type of power to worry patterson
No big deal. 20 was the career number. You know how they say winning a title makes a guy a better fighter? I think Patterson is the only guy that was worse as a champion. All his best results are when he wasn't the champion. He was better both before and after.
Jean-Claude Crecy-1 Pete Rademacher-1 Roy Harris-1 Tom McNeeley-1 Ingemar Johansson-9 Sonny Liston-4 Muhammad Ali-1 Jerry Quarry-4 Oscar Bonavena-1 Total kds-23 Only one of those knockdowns occurred before Patterson the heavyweight title in 1956.
Patterson was not knocked down against McNeeley. He got wobbled briefly in the fourth but didnt go down. The action wasnt stopped, no count was given, it wasnt called a knockdown by either the television broadcaster or the referee. If you are going to stretch to add knockdowns to his record then its only fair to take away the knockdown that was counted against him against Bonavena but was really a slip, easily seen in slow motion. Pattersons problem was less his chin than the fact that he always squared himself up to get power and often leaped in with his punches. Both are a recipe for knockdowns.
Patterson went down on one knee against McNeeley. It may not have been scored, but he went down. Walcott was the referee, so the scoring is anybody's guess.
Patterson was not down against McNeeley. The following day some reports said he went down and was given a standing 8 count but the full closed circuit teleprompter broadcast exists and you can see he never goes down and was never given a standing 8 count, nor does the commentator ever mention Patterson getting dropped. Not sure how that story got started but the film doesnt lie.
As champion, Patterson let himself be overly protected by D'Amato. He certainly should have fought Machen and Folley- maybe Pastrano and Valdez, but Machen and Folley for sure. His legacy could have handled the Rademacher and London fights as long as he still faced the top contenders. I think he could have beaten most, if not all the people he would have faced. He would still have gone down in 1959 or so to either Johansson or Liston, but he would be known as a decent champion who took on all comers.