Floyd Patterson v. Buster Douglas

On what basis do you attribute "greatness" to Jimmy Cannon ?

 

Well, people say he is, so he must be.

"A sports expert is the guy who writes the best alibis for being wrong" - Jimmy Cannon

I wonder whether he ever wrote an alibi for what he said about Patterson, or for what he said about Ali, for that matter ?

As a judge of fighters, I'd say Cannon was far from "great", but as a writer, yeah, why not.

 

I would have to go with James Douglas in this matchup, even though I'm a huge Patterson fan. Most posters have already pointed out some of the same reasons that I have for picking Buster. He was sifnificantly larger than Patterson, with a fair amount of speed, power, footwork, and overall boxing ability to compliment it. Sure, he showed up to have some fairly lousy persformances in his career, but he well made up for it by beating some big named fighters between 1987-1990. His win over Tyson was better than anything that Patterson had ever done, regardless of the fact that Tyson was giving the worst performance of his career. He also had wins over men like Page, Berbick, Cobb, Simpson, and McCall. Not a bad resume. I just can't see Patterson overcoming him at 180Lbs. Douglas would be jabing and uperrcutting away at Floyd all night. This fight gets stopped somewhere between rounds 6-9.

***On a side note, someone mentioned that a sporstwriter called Floyd patterson the worst heavyweight champion in history. I do not agree with this claim. There were surely other champions both lineal and paper, who I'd rate Floyd well above. Jess Willard, Primo Carnera, James Braddock, Leon Spinks, and a number of alpha champions all come to mind.

 

Patterson beat more than 2 guys who weighed over 200 pounds.

Chuvalo and Bonavena may not have been as tall as Douglas but they were probably just as strong, stronger, and were LEAN at their fighting weight. They had talent, they just weren't as orthodox as Douglas.

 

Who is Simpson ?

 

An undefeated prospect who was 17-0-0-14, and was Ko'd by Douglas in a single round, as part of the title elimination tourney. If you ask me, it was a better win than Patterson defending his championship against Pete Rademacher, who was only making his debut.

 

Did you see the fight ?
What Simpson any good ?
Which title elimination tourney was this ?

 

Moving fluidly is overrated.
Looking slick and cool and relaxed and flashy does not automatically make a fighter twice as good as the awkward herky-jerky granite-headed steamroller who you cant hit twice without getting an elbow in your mouth.

Ali was the most graceful fluid heavyweight in the world, and had a nightmare with Bonavena.

Discussions about "talent" are meaningless. Talent seems to be an intangible quality when viewing top fighters and i find all this talk of talent too vague.

I mean, when someone says Tyson had a load of talent because he had stupid power and speed and physique at age 12 I CAN UNDERSTAND THAT, but when people look at two 30 year old professional fighters who have been training and fighting for 15-20 years and talk about "talent" I dont get it. Perhaps raw speed and chin can be assessed as being rooted in god-given talent, but the rest is just a product of training and the ability to perform and demonstrate what you have trained to do, in whatever style works.

As for weight, in the fights we're discussing Douglas was 231, Chuvalo was 208, Bonavena was 206, and Patterson was 192-196.

Yes, Douglas was significantly bigger than Patterson.

 

1. No I didn't.

2. He might have been.

3. The 1985, ESPN elimination tourney which soon led to the IBF elimination tournament in which Douglas was an IBF challenger.