Floyd Patterson vs Sugar Ray Robinson 1959

Floyd of course would’ve had greater size to be getting on with but his primary calling card was his lightning hand speed and, after that, his weight transcendent power and his own not so shabby boxing skills. Even peak vs peak, Floyd is light years removed from playing the patsy role of a John Ruiz.

 

I never heard any serious talk of this and I was eating up 1957-59 Ring and Boxing Illustrateds like candy when I started collecting them from used bookstores in 1964. As I recall, the speculation at the time was about Robinson fighting Archie Moore for the light-heavyweight title. By 1959, they were both avoiding their top challengers in their own divisions and were trying to squeeze as much money as they could out of their waning careers. Robinson, I think, wanted too much money to meet Archie and the fight never came off. There weren't any promoters who wanted to pay as much as the two old codgers wanted.

I like Longhorn 71's comment about Robinson barely being able to beat top MWs at this stage of his career. Truth is, he never did beat a top middleweight after 1958.

 

Me stating that he “played the role”’ wasn’t entirely accurate.

I will say that, effectively, he was the patsy, just IMO.

The bullets in his gun were completely removed when the ref Nady wouldn’t allow him to get in close to lean, maul and directly impose his greater size on Jones.

Without those preferred tactics at his disposal, Ruiz didn’t have much else to offer - which wasn’t a surprise to anyone.

I don’t think anyone would’ve picked Ruiz to beat Jones in a “strict” boxing match - and they weren’t expecting Ruiz to be so heavily policed by the ref.

 

In 1959 Robinson would have been knocked out. If we take the Ray that fought Maxim and young Floyd when he fought Maxim would have been interesting.