Imagine Patterson at 168? He's still be very fast and he'd be breaking ribs, caving in faces. It's a terrifying thought.
Possibly, but Patterson made the light heavyweight limit for the last time when he was 20 - an age when other famous heavyweights like Jack Johnson, Max Schmeling and Evander Holyfield were also under the limit. From his mid-twenties onward, he was a solid 190 lbs. He may well have still been capable of sweating down to 175, but there's no strong reason to believe he would have been effective at the weight. There was a rumour in 1973 that the 38 year old Patterson was trying to get down to 175 to challenge for Bob Foster's title, but nothing came of it.