If Tyson was 5'9 and 220lbs with abs showing, surely he was on roids. There has never been a boxer that muscular.
patterson was just a smallish guy vs questionable heavyweights and was being protected by his manager D mato from the real contenders How long did he last with Sonny? Cus still believes Floyd lost to Ali b/c of a bad back losers always have an excuse
Floyd absolutely beat legit contenders. Jackson was #1. Moore was #1. Ingo was #1. Liston was #1. Floyd was not protected at all when you check the timeline. Liston was never rated above Johansson until after the Floyd Ingo series. #2 Foley and #1 Machen both blew a final eliminatior so Floyd took #3 Harris. Ingo smashed Machen putting him ahead of both Machen and Foley. So he got the shot. The Radmacher And London fights were warm ups, weeks ahead of defending against number one contenders. London was rated #4 anyway. Mcneely was no worse than Westphal. Liston and Floyd fought both of them on the same card as an appetiser for their upcoming showdown. It was a double header. Nobody was ducked.
That is incorrect. While Tyson was at least n inch taller than that... Even before there WERE steroids around, The Ambling Alp was described here as cut at 268. Even at 77 & a half inches tall that is more bulk than Tyson. Neither showed the overall size, or rapid gain in muscle when already bulky...That means they must have used drugs.
As a HW Floyd took everything you could throw at him, Liston aside. Sonny didn't lay Floyd into a puddle as he did with much larger Heavies. Perhaps you should tell us a 'little guy' who did better against bigger men? Patterson is, TRUELY, an ATG Hall of Famer! My $0.02
The short answer is There was plenty of 6’6” heavyweights during Floyds time but they just got beat up on the way to world level by smaller fighters because the gulf in talent could not so easily be bridged with just size alone. Boxing was not yet a sport where the tallest guys could regularly make it at world level because the training and nutrition side of things had not yet developed sufficiently to support that type of build. Heavier heavyweights used to gass out. Tall thin guys with long necks never took the best punch. The amateur sport had yet to cater for giants because fighters turned pro before they got so big. There was no Superheavyweight division for giants to learn their craft. In the 1930s and 1940s grass roots pro boxing was supported by a lot more smaller halls and a real club circuit where managers could slowly develop fighters who had little amateur experience. It was possible for managers to fund giant fighters as a novelty with slightly more success than the 1950s but TV killed the small clubs and the grooming of fighters became so rushed in general that nobody had the time to waste on giant guys (with no amateur pedigree) who might not make it anyway.
Floyd Patterson was between 5'8 1/2 - 5'9 max I've done extensive comparisons of lots of fighters both modern day and old school fighters and the above is true. I mainly got it from him being shorter than Fraiser and slightly taller than Sugar Ray Leonard, Ray Leonard is a confirmed 5'8 - 5'8 1/2, Fraiser is 5.9 1/2
Floyd Patterson fought Henry Cooper, only once and that occurred on Sept 20 1966, Patterson won by KO 6.