Floyd Patterson..."I am a Coward"

Unlike other members of the New Journalism group (Norman Mailer, Hunter S. Thompson), Talese didn’t put himself at the heart of his essays, rather he saw himself as a non-judgmental writer, who allowed each subject to speak for him / her self. Nowhere was this more true than in “The Loser”, his incredible profile of boxer Floyd Paterson, which included a shocking admission by the former World Champion:

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http://www.dangerousminds.net/tag/Gay-Talese





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Gay Talese on Floyd Patterson:

Patterson, his trunks and sweat pants on, bent over to tie his shoelaces, and then, from a bureau drawer, took out a T-shirt across which was printed The Deauville. He has several T-shirts bearing the same name. He takes good care of them. They are souvenirs from the high point of his life. They are from the Deauville Hotel in Miami Beach, which is where he trained for the third Ingemar Johansson match in March of 1961.
Never was Floyd Patterson more popular, more admired than during that winter. He had visited President Kennedy; he had been given a $25,000 jeweled crown by his manager; his greatness was conceded by sportswriters — and nobody had any idea that Patterson, secretly, was in possession of a false mustache and dark glasses that he intended to wear out of Miami Beach should he lose the third fight to Johansson.
It was after the being knocked out by Johansson in their first fight that Patterson, deep in depression, hiding in humiliation for months in a remote Connecticut lodge, decided he could not face the public again if he lost. So he bought false whiskers and a mustache, and planned to wear them out of his dressing room after a defeat. He had also planned, in leaving his dressing room, to linger momentarily within the crowd and perhaps complain out loud about the fight. Then he would slip undiscovered through the night and into a waiting automobile.
Although there proved to be no need to bring the disguise into the second or third Johansson fights, or into a subsequent bout in Toronto against an obscure heavyweight named Tom McNeeley, Patterson brought it anyway; and, after the first Liston fight, he not only wore it during his forty-eight-hour automobile ride from Chicago to New York, but he also wore it while in an airliner bound for Spain.
"As I got onto the plane, you'd never have recognized me," he said. "I had on this beard, mustache, glasses, and hat — and I also limped, to make myself look older. I was alone. I didn't care what plane I boarded; I just looked ip and saw this sign at the terminal reading 'Madrid,' and so I got on that flight after buying a ticket.
"When I got to Madrid I registered at a hotel under the name 'Aaron Watson.' I stayed in Madrid about four or five days. In the daytime I wandered around to the poorer sections of the city, limping, looking at people, and the people stared back at me and must have thought I was crazy because I was moving so slow and looked the way I did. I ate food in my hotel room. Although once I went to a restaurant and ordered soup. I hate soup. But I thought it was what old people would order. So I ate it. And, after a week of this, I began to actually think I was somebody else. I began to believe it. ... And it is nice, every once in a while, being somebody else. ..."
Patterson would not elaborate on how he managed to register under a name that did not correspond to his passport; he merely explained, "With money, you can do anything."
Now, walking slowly around the room, his black silk robe over his sweat clothes,

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He stopped. He stood very still in the middle of the room, thinking about what he had just said, probably wondering if he should have said it.
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http://network.yardbarker.com/boxin...ions_of_boxing_writing_in_a_long_time/5763703

 

spud1, shake, and red cobra....their responses are what I was getting at with posting Floyd's words.

The Fighter's mind.....WOW. Freud would need so much cocaine and need to sit down on this one.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1Pq6RmpgaA&hd=1[/ame]


I also found it interesting that Patterson and Tyson were both picked up and managed by Cus D'Amato...and D'Amato had the Psychology thing going for him.

Both Patterson and Tyson were also considered "Small" Heavyweights for their era. So again, what they had to overcome...maybe that fear forced them to fight like a crazed animal that was forced into a corner and forced to fight for his life.

Floyd could have easily been a LH in his era and in my opinion, gone down as an ATG LH..even though in a way, I still feel he is an P4P ATG.