Floyd Patterson vs 80s HW division.

I’m with you other than Floyd not being a warrior.

It took an Ali to not be ready to crap your pants seeing Sonny Liston standing across the ring from you.

And yes, Floyd laid eggs in those fights, but a lot of people 60 years removed don’t understand what was going around him in real time. Boxing fans may have wanted to see Liston get the shot he rightfully deserved, but there were a lot of people outside the sport who didn’t want to see that “thug ex-con mob connected N-word” as heavyweight champion. Supposedly even JFK himself told Floyd personally, “You got to beat this guy.”

Floyd in those days wasn’t exactly the most stable person psychologically and with all that pressure on him to keep Liston away from the title plus AI couldn’t create a worse H2H matchup for Floyd than Liston, it’s a wonder he could even stand up that night in Chicago.

 

Those are really good points. Reminds me of some of the pressures (not to quite the same extent but u get the idea) that Louis & Schmelling must've been feeling.

 

This will be an unpopular opinion, but I think Cooney is all wrong for Patterson.
I have him losing to Holmes obviously, Witherspoon and Thomas at his best, but he’d beat Coetzee, Dokes, Page, Smith and Tillis IMO.
The reason I think he loses to Cooney is the combined skills that Cooney has, it’s the power, size, punch selection and handspeed that come together that make it a hard task for Patterson, I don’t think he can stay away from Cooney, he’s gonna end up against the ropes at some point and have to face those combinations and I don’t think he has the artillery to deal with that, Michael Spinks was much better going backwards and was stronger than Patterson, that’s why he was able to deal with Cooney.
Spinks also beats Patterson IMO, he’s elite and bigger than Patterson slightly, he uses his range, jabs, measures Patterson and watches out for the left hook, possibly takes him out at some point.
I think Patterson can pick up a title though.

 

Agree. And if we’re looking at prime for prime scenarios, then the Spinks vs Cooney fight shouldn’t even be factored in to the equation

 

Cooney would be a dangerous opponent.

 

Yeah something tells me he might have beaten Patterson and Johansson

 

I know he beats Johannson but it's a winnable but dangerous fight for Patterson.