Could Floyd Patterson have been the best LHW ever?

That makes me think even more of Patterson because it shows me he was a normal flesh and blood human being and not a statue or even a caricature.

I went to Newspapers dot com and looked at the NY Daily News coverage of the Patterson-Bonavena fight you mentioned, and Dick Young in his column wrote that Joe Frazier got a “warm welcome” when he was introduced before the fight but his reception was like “a deep silence” compared to the ovation Patterson got, he said, “You’d have thought it was Joe Namath.”

Young stressed how much Madison Square Garden crowds adored Patterson so I figure Floyd was just playing to his people if he was trying to fire them up more.

 

A New Yorker, Floyd fought eight times in the Garden, winning all eight. He fought his final two fights there and as a headliner he always filled the arena. The crowds would roar at his flurries, even when his punches failed to land. Some of the credit goes to Cus D'Amato, who taught his fighters that it was important to be exciting. But there was something extra special about Floyd that endeared him to boxing fans. I suppose it was his vulnerability combined with the speed and power of his punches and the beauty of his style. When he was fighting a hard puncher you always worried for him; few fighters I've seen had his appeal. I regret that I never saw him fight in person. Just being witness to the scene would have been worth the price of a ticket.

 

Those issues of the Daily News reported that the folks at the Garden were pumping up a Frazier-Patterson fight and Frazier apparently wanted it. As a Patterson fan, I am glad that didn’t happen. Floyd went out a loser against Ali but he went out with dignity, as I have noted several times he threw the last punch in that fight and connected with it. I don’t think it would have been like that against Frazier.

 

Wasn’t his last fight a loss to Ali? Or do you mean his last fight at the Garden he won.

 

Oops, good catch. You're right. He lost to Ali in his last fight at the Garden.

 

A declining Joey Maxim beat him.

Floyd could have been a great LHW but he couldn’t be the best-ever LHW.

 

He was only 19 and still fighting eight-rounders when he fought Maxim, and the decision was controversial. Don't you think he would have won a rematch? Maxim wasn't near the fighter Floyd would become.

 

He couldn't be the greatest LHW let alone a HW, he did good against some average gatekeepers like Chuvalo,Bonavena etc but he failed every chance when he was a champion.

People praise him only to make Sonny Liston look good and have a good record which isn't true.

 

He was also still well and truly maturing physically and at 168 pounds (vs Maxim's 177 no less) was as heavy as he'd ever been. Maxim was just his 14th fight.

 

Probably (as far as Floyd winning a rematch). Maxim went 4-10 in his last 14 fights after losing the light heavyweight title, with Floyd being the only real notable win during that stretch.

He was also already beginning to decline. I think he won only seven of his last 20 fights. So it wasn’t exactly a prime Maxim that Floyd lost to, and Maxim was generally an attrition fighter and seemed to finish stronger than Floyd from accounts I’ve seen … so a 10-rounder might not have even been a terribly close decision.

Point being, while Patterson wasn’t the fighter he would become, Maxim at this stage wasn’t the fighter he had been.

We do not have a lot else to measure Patterson by at 175, although he had quite a few more light heavyweight fights after Maxim. Other than Maxim and Yvonne Durelle — an up-and-down fighter for sure most noted for one mighty round vs. Archie Moore — the resume for Floyd at this weight is pretty thin as far as real quality. So I think we have to give this bout vs. even a past-sell-by Maxim a lot of weight in assessing Floyd’s potential for greatness (ATG-ness) in the division.

There’s simply not enough depth on his CV at light heavy to know how great Patterson might have been had he stayed there, but it’s reasonable to assume he’d have eventually struggled to make that weight and thus be weakened. Given what we do know about his chin, I think he’d struggle against punchers … especially when he reached a point where he’d be weakened by a struggle with the scales.

Maybe there’s a version of a 175-pound Floyd who would catch an aging Archie Moore at the right time and do what he eventually did to an even older Moore at heavyweight, but that would make Patterson a champion … not an ATG.

Given that we have so little to go on, I have to fall on the side of him not being able to become the greatest ever at the weight. But he could have been really good, or perhaps even great.

 

Who were the greatest punchers in the division aside from Bob Foster? I don't envision Floyd getting kayoed by a light heavy. People dwell too much on his knockouts by Johansson and Liston. He fought plenty of good bangers among the heavyweights and never got stopped except by those two and Ali. Floyd was a great fighter. In a 20-year career he never lost to a non-champion except Jerry Quarry.

 

He got knocked down like 18 times or so, right? I figure if he’s bouncing off the canvas, even if he bounces right back up it’s at least going to cost him points.

If he’s had to cut weight, which would seem to be inevitable at some point if he kept fighting at 175, I would think that would also negatively impact his punch resistance.
If he’s had to cut weight, which would seem to be inevitable at some point if he kept fighting at 175, I would think that would also negatively impact his punch resistance (and getting bounced off the floor frequently runs a risk of losing decisions).

And while his only loss to a non-champion might have been to Quarry, both of his wins over champions should carry an asterisk: He beat Archie Moore at heavyweight, where the Old Mongoose was never a champ; and the other, Ingemar Johansson, was only a champ because Patterson lost to him.

I’m not saying he would be an awful light heavyweight if he spent his entire career there, nor even that he wouldn’t be a great one — but the topic is whether he’d be THE GOAT at 175, and I just don’t see it.

 

Let's break this down. I count 19. In five fights Liston and Ingo knocked him down a total of 13 times. (Ingemar dropped him seven times in one round of their first fight while he was woozy from the first KD. Liston overpowered him, there's no disputing that.) He was dropped six times in all the rest of his fights. He slipped against Bonavena and the referee called it a knockdown. That leaves five. Rademacher scored a flash knockdown but Floyd got up and gave him a thrashing. Quarry dropped him twice in their first fight and once in their return bout. Both of those fights were decided by the judges (a draw and a disputed decision). Jacques Royer-Crecy floored him once in a contest that the very young Patterson won by TKO. And finally, I recall Floyd falling to a knee in his first go-round with Ali.

He was counted out only twice, against Liston both times. We can argue whether or not Floyd had a china chin. I say that's been overstated but I understand why. But if he had fought only light heavies, there would be no such stigma. The whole glass-jaw argument would be up in smoke. Would there have been some tough assignments against people like Conn and Foster? No doubt about it, but I think Floyd would be a serious challenge for any light heavyweight in history. Agree or disagree? Who do you favor against him?

 

He'd have gotten close to being the best, put it that way.

 

If you take the living, primed Floyd Patterson and had him fight every single dead light heavyweight great, he would mow through every last one of them, and please, don't you tell me about Patterson's chin, because there ain't a dead man alive who's knocking out primed Floyd Patterson.