Floyd Patterson In The Lightheavyweight Division

I still don’t get the age thing. By this reasoning Wilfred Benitez is the best 140-pounder of all time because of his age and not what he accomplished in the division.

It’s like saying ‘we know Tyson would have dominated the heavyweight division for 12 years because, look, he was young when he won the title.’ But he didn’t dominate the heavyweight division for a dozen years.

What age someone was when they fought does not have anything to do with what they would accomplish later.

He became lineal champ when he beat Michael Spinks and lost to Buster Douglas two years later. How does that support your theory?

 

OK, so Patterson’s results when he was the more experienced fighter come with an asterisk and are considered losses since the other guy was less experienced, right?

Can’t have it both ways.

 

I used to believe what you're saying myself. But I've questioned it since. Moore was the dominant LHW and HW division years after the Charles contests but at the time he was picking up plenty of losses. And you can say his level of competition but at the time he was losing to journeymen. How high do you rate Leonard Morrow and Henry Hall? They both beat Archie around the time he was losing to Charles. He'd later avenge those defeats.

And you say his comp wasn't as good post murderer's row, but from 49-56 he faced

Harold Johnson 5 times - winning 4-1
Bob Baker 2 times - winning 2-0
Valdes 2 times winning 2-0
Bivins x2 - 2-0
Joey Maxim x3 3-0
Clarence Henry x2 - 2-0
Bert Lytell 1 time
Leonard Morrow - he avenged the loss, knocking out Morrow

So he was not only defending and beating the best light heavyweights but he was beating the best heavyweights

Even at the age of 45 he was taking Willie Pastrano to a draw. I believe Archie Moore made less mistakes and improved his skillset as he matured, which led him to be more dominant. He fought Harold Johnson 5 times and was only finally able to stop him in 1954

BTW if you haven't seen it watch Archie Moore-Durelle 1

 

You're being deliberately obtuse now. Patterson was the only fighter able to land clean power punches. The highlights weren't put together by a biased fanboy, they were put together as highlights of the fight. As for the judges. Boxing is the most corrupt sport on the planet. Judges scoring a fight purposely wrong happens all the time.

As for Patterson-Moore it would obviously be the same result at 175. Patterson weighed 182, he could sit in the sauna for 2 hours and make weight.

 

I'd rate Hall highly. He beat Lytell, multiple times, beat Baroudi, Lowri, Moore (of course), Satterfield, and drew with Holman Williams. He was clearly a capable fight. I look at the Morrow loss like I do Carter vs Griffith. A fluke result from a huge puncher. And Morrow was a good fighter, he beat Bivins, Godoy, Smith, Lytell, Moore etc.

I didn't say his comp was bad. I said it was better vs the Murderer's Row, do you not agree with this?

I agree, it's indisputable. Moore was clearly more consistent as he got older, and I agree that it's because his maturity made him both turn up both better shape and he made less mistakes. However, the physical gifts he had as a younger man means that he's better then, but less likely to show up in top top form. Obviously all IMO.

I agree that Moore is a phenom, I'd probably have him top 10 P4P. But side note, I do find Pastrano very overrated.

Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen most regularly available Moore footage. Great, great fight.

 

Heavyweight results aren’t relevant to light heavyweight.

And you can’t tell who won the most rounds by a highlight reel of ‘who landed clean power punches.’ In between those punches he may have eaten a steady diet of jabs and body shots that didn’t make the highlight reel. I can show you brief exchanges of most any competitive fight and convince you either guy won.

 

I think Charles was probably better than anyone Archie beat. Aside from that I think Harold Johnson would be the second best light heavyweight that Archie faced. Using the term 'Murderer's Row' doesn't denote weight class. Because it included men who boxed from welterweight to heavyweight who were shunned by most of the other contenders of their day. So P4P Archie may or may not be right that Burley was the best he faced but as a light heavyweight, he very probably wasn't

Bivins just doesn't pass the eye test for my liking. He had combination of having long arms and being a stong in fighter but he was slow and ponderous while lacking intensity.

I don't think peak LHW Archie loses to Burley, Bivins, Booker, Morrow, Chase, Hogue, Hall. Even though he did when he was making his way in his first decade in the sport.

Honestly Archie Moore is a lesson for all men in life. Everyone has failures in life. Archie must have felt terrible after all his early career losses and 46-48 he could of accepted his status a journeyman and given up on his dreams. But he buckled down, worked hard, learned lessons and improved himself.

 

You’ve been basically saying, or strongly hinting, that Patterson’s loss at light heavyweight shouldn’t count because he was younger — as if that automatically means he would have won if he had been older and more experienced.

I maintain that we don’t know that. His record at light heavy in no ways screams ‘this guy could have dominated that division and been an ATG.’ At the same stage of experience — number of fights — that Floyd stepped up permanently to heavyweight, Michael Spinks was entering his 10th defense. I don’t care if he was older when he turned pro, experience counts whether you’re 12 or 18 or 28 or 30. Spinks proved himself as an elite all-time light heavyweight and every assertion that Floyd could have been great at that weight is simple conjecture because when he fought in that division for 25 or 26 fights, he did not carve out an ATG resume in the division.

 

Revisionist historians??? Get the **** out of here. The press, almost to man thought Patterson won, the audience booed the decision, and you are basing your opinion on a copy of the fight thats missing two rounds, a full quarter of the fight.

 

Oh so we are pretending that a near 30 year old Moore almost a decade into his career was “green” when he lost to those guys... or maybe he just wasnt unbeatable.

 

It also didnt hurt that the division was incredibly weak as he aged.

 

He lost. Get over it.

That some might have disputed a decision does not turn a loss into a win. He absolutely did not dominate to the point that this was considered the worst decision ever or anything of the sort.

This fight is somehow being used (by some on this thread) in a ‘well he was really young’ way to try to make a case that Floyd Patterson would have dominated the light heavyweight division and become an ATG at 175 had he stayed there, and his resume in no way supports that.

 

Get back to me when youve actually seen the full fight.

And given the fact that he easily beat and knocked out the guy who ruled the division for years afterwards and actually came into that fight weighing less than the champion, yeah, I think we can arrive at that conclusion safely. Its not like its an outlier, you know like claiming a popular contemporary opinion is revisionist history 60 years after the fact...

 

The result is what it is. You may not agree with it but it stands and no one ever has claimed it was the worst decision of all time or something.

His record at heavyweight has no bearing on what would have happened at light heavyweight.

You have an opinion. As do I. That’s al it is. Get off your self-righteous high horse.

 

Nice straw man argument. I never said it was the worst decision of all time. Nor am I the one sitting on his high horse claiming anyone today calling it a bad decision is a revisionist historian because like a dumbass Im judging the fight based on only seeing three quarters of it and ignoring the fact that then and now the majority who saw the complete fight (like myself) think Patterson won it. Now if you want to argue that Patterson wouldnt have beaten Moore at 175 (a weight Moore killed himself to make) despite knocking Moore out easily at a weight Moore was much more comfortable at while being outweighed by Moore then Im sure we can all have a good laugh at you over that. Its funny, according to your standards we cant use Pattersons performance against Moore at HW to gauge how Patterson would have done at 175 but we can use a very green Patterson getting robbed against a Maxim who was also over 175 two and half years earlier to illustrate that he wouldnt have been a great LHW. Agenda much?