Did Cus D Amato overly protect Floyd Patterson as champion?

I do think that Johansen was the most dangerous potential challenger for him, before Liston came along.

If Cus could have kept him away from Johansen, by fighting Machen, Folley or Williams, then he should have done so!

 

Its no myth he defended against unranked Rademacher , unranked London ,and unranked McNeeley.

 

Floyd had to fight Johansson because he'd knocked Machen out in an eliminator.

 

No, but plenty of champions have defended against bad opponents. Louis and Ali have lots of undeserving challenges on their record.

The main things has always been if the most deserving also have gotten their shot.

In '57 and '59 Floyd defended against the nr 1 contender. So not much to say there. In '61 he honoured the rematch clause with Ingo, In '62 he defended against the nr 1 contender. So that leaves '58, when he defended against nr 3/4 contender.

 

That explains a lot!

 

You said he can only be brought to task for defending against Harris instead of Machen or Folley and Ive given you 3 instances in which he defended against unranked fighters at the expense of ranked ones,which included.Cooper,Pastrano,Valdes,Machen,Folley at that present time.
In 7 defences he defended against the number 1 challenger twice.
In 3 of his 7 defences he defended against unranked boxers.If that is not the very definiton of being protected then please tell me what is?

 

He defended against the nr 1 challenger three times (Jackson, Ingo and Liston) over five whole years as a champion. The remaining two years he defended against Harris, who was right behind Folley and Machen, and Ingo, with whom he had a rematch clause. One of Folley/Machen was the only who can really feel stiffed out of a title shot.

And Ali defended against London, Cooper, Williams, Wepner, Lyle, Dunn, Coopman etc when there were more deserving challengers out there, but I don't consider him a bad champion since he also generally defended against those who deserved a shot. The same with Louis, who defended against lot of guys who hadn't really deserved a shot but also against the really deserving ones.

Tyson, Lewis, Holey, Holmes were others who also were guilty of defending against certain opponents when there were more deserving ones out there. Hell, everyone who had more than or two defences have been guilty of not defending of the most deserving challenger every time.

So, yes, one of Foley/Machen should have gotten a shot but didn't get one, but that's about it. It wasn't at all as abysmal and shameful a reign as Dempsey's was in a large parts, or Jeffries's for that matter, so the kind of attention it gets is overblown.

 

Nicely put Richard.
It's as you say, in a lot of cases in life, we have to bite the bullet and get on with it. Face what's in front of us.

 

Im not 100% sure on this but werent machen and folley involved in some kinda legal issue after their bore-draw eliminator? Patterson had to fight his mandatory and Harris was the next leading contender at no3? The Rademacher fight, in my opinion, should be taken into context as Patterson had defended against his no1 only 3 weeks before. He was offered plenty of money for the fight so why not? Now, again, im not 100% on this so bear with me, but was It was only classed a defence as the rule regarding the heavyweight champion stated anytime they entered the ring the title must be on the line?

 

I'm talking about successful defences and I'm not comparing his reign to any others,just stating he was protected. Cooper,Lyle ,Wepner were ranked contenders ,the others were taken in between defending against ranked contenders and when Ali was in his mid 30's taking an easy one in between the tough fights.Louis and Ali were also defending their title several times a year. ps Pastrano was ranked at 3 ,Harris at 4.

 

Cooper wasn't ranked when Ali defended against him.

And if we're talking about whether Floyd was protected, the unsuccessful defences have to be included since the title was on the line just as much in them.

 

You are right about this.

an important factor was Tax. There simply was not possible to defend the championship more than twice in one year without a champion fighting for nothing.

The Jackson fight was a legitimate number one contender challenge. The Radmacher bout was hastily planned as an extra defence a few weeks right off the back of the Jackson fight..Floyd stayed in camp to save on having two seperate camps. But it took up his two fights.

When Floyd was next due a defence he was set to fight the winner of Folley vs Machen. The result was a draw. It stank. So Floyd took Harris his #3. And just like that, zora and Machen both lost their window to meet Floyd.

The top American contenders all lost to Europeans within the same period. Pastrano lost to London. Folley lost to Cooper and Machen lost to Ingo.

The biggest threat to the title resulting from these results was Ingo. He was an automatic number one and logical contender.

As a warm up to Ingo, #4 London was squeezed in a few weeks before as a warm up for the ingo clash. But really that should have been Henry Cooper because in the space between beating Pastrano, London lost to Cooper who with his win over Folley was a better looking challenger to Floyd behind Ingo.

By now, Folley and Machen were well out of the title picture.

 

You're right Cooper wasn't ranked but Hilton was whom Cooper ko'd in 1rd and London whom Cooper had beaten 3 times out of 3 was.Cooper had also floored Ali in their 1 st encounter so it was a sellable fight. Comparing Patterson to Ali and Louis doesnt work nobody would ever say either were protected whereas Patterson certainly was which is why he ultimately split with his manager.I'm a Floyd fan but he proved his worth after his reign was over,imo.

 

Rubbish!
Pastrano was no3 behind Machen and Folley not Harris..
Folley was
1 in 59
4 in 60
3 in 61
5 in 62
5 in 63
6 in 64
5 in 65

Machen was
1 in 57
7 in 58
5 in 59
3 in 60
2 in 61
6 in 63
6 in63
7 in 58