Floyd Patterson would have sucked in any other era

Interesting thread, but sadly it seems it is suffering of an acute case of confirmation bias from both sides.
I feel like this has become a debate gridlocked between “Patterson sucked and ducked everybody worthy” versus “Patterson was a daredevil who fought everybody”. But reality is not “Black or White”, it is a lot of shades of grey. And that is the case with Patterson’s career. A lot of grey before he got rid of Cus.

Actually, Floyd came clean in his autobiography and admitted that Cus managed carefully his career, thus he didn’t cross paths with Rocky and once champion, tried to stay away of those challengers Cus considered too dangerous, like Liston.

Of course, Floyd's fight with Ingo is argued as proof that he didn't duck, but I think that is not conclusive. Once in a while Floyd had to fight some decent contender, because that is the way the game goes: nobody can’t be playing safe 100% of the time unless he wants to become a joke of a boxer. Soon or later a champion has to face somebody who is more or less dangerous, like Ingo. But, let’s not blow things out of proportions. Patterson vs Johannson was OK; but FOTC or RITJ it was not.

My humble take is that Cus saw Johannson as a “manageable” fight for his protegee, way less risky than other contenders and went for it. Sure, he was mistaken; but hey, that happens all the time. Tyson, vs Douglas, Frazier vs Foreman, Duran vs Leonard II, Ali vs. Spinks, etc., all of them assumed it was just another easy paycheck and got burned.

Anyway, credit to Floyd for getting his title back. In the same way credit to Floyd for finally ditching Cus and facing Liston, Ali, etc. Actually, you could say Floyd’s career post Cus is what makes him an ATG. Floyd showed he had a champion’s heart,

But, what I don’t understand is how now we have this kinda weird narrative going on, where Patterson didn’t ever duck anybody and always took the best available contenders.

 

He spent his career fighting in the wrong damn division. He'd have been a hell of a LHW in any era. While he's got some great accomplishments at HW, honestly, I think Cus did him a bit dirty by having him campaign at HW.

 

"Rocky versus Marciano" is one big and most regrettable "what if?".
And I agree that Floyd would have a decent chance versus Rocky.

Sadly, we will never know, thanks to ... gues who?: Cus and his shenaninghans.

 

Why Cus took Floyd to the HW division?

Well, in the inmortal words of William Francis Sutton Jr., a small time criminal, when asked why he insisted on robbing banks:
"Becase it is where the money is!!!"

 

What's difficult to figure out there? Every story I've read about him shows that his public persona is who he really was -- a genuinely nice dude. He had some premier boxing chops, as you say, but he didn't have a mean side. No mean side, no killer instinct. Simple as that.

Plenty of other public polite (and even privately polite) champs still had a mean side they could let out. Patterson just didn't.

 

Fully matured he was around 195 lbs also, so he'd have to go to HW eventually.

 

The one time he did, Ingo 2, when he really wanted to frick Ingo up bad, he was like “What have I done” when he saw Ingo twitching on the canvas.

 

McNeeley didn't do much to merit a title shot. I don't recall what the rationale was. He was undefeated, or nearly so, but not against top competition. I don't object to your questioning this.

 

Jethro Boudine is not going to like to hear that Floyd Patterson can beat his Daddy, he might turn into a Double Knaut Spy with his uncle Buddy.

 

My only dispute with you here is your statement that Frazier thought Foreman would be easy. I imagine Joe was confident. I don't think he was delusional. Nobody ever considered Foreman to be easy.

 

Pete Rademacher had won the 1956 Olympic gold medal in Melbourne. He was a good enough amateur to beat a lot of professionals but not nearly good enough to beat the heavyweight champion. He was competitive for two rounds against Floyd before getting taken to the woodshed. This fight started the sportswriters charging that Cus didn't want his protege to fight anyone deserving. I think it's a fair criticism and it rose to a crescendo when Cus wouldn't let Floyd fight Liston. Apparently Floyd agreed that the criticism had merit.

 

Most of us would probably agree that Patterson's career post-title showed more valor than his title years. There was something about Floyd that inspired fierce loyalty among his fans. We don't like to hear him criticized harshly. We feel protective of him. At least I do. HomicideHank, won't you admit that in Patterson's career there was much to be proud of?

 

Who has ever said that? I've never come across someone saying something like that as I can remember.

Clearly he didn't take on all comers like Louis, Marciano or Ali (pre 1977) and I have never seen it suggested that he did. The arguments on his behalf as a champion are rather against the hyperbole like "he never faced a top contender", "he ducked Williams" and "he avoided Liston for years". That's all.

 

He beats Spinks at lhw and cruiser Holy

 

I think there are some things Floyd should be critsised for. He definitely doesn't come ut well looking at the longer reigns before and after. Rocky defended two times a year, against his nr 1 each time except for once when he defended against the nr 2. And Ali cleaned out the top 10 bar one fighter (Machen).

So definitely we could expect more from Floyd, but what gets me are the extremes people go to when critisising him, when other champions did similar things without it hardly being mentioned. Holmes went for three years with only one defence against a top 5 guy and that will be defended by some until blood starts to come out of their ears, while Floyd gets **** for not defending against Williams etc. Facing Rademacher (three weeks after his number one) must have been mentioned thousands of times here, while Daniels and Stander (Frazier's ONLY defences that year) rarely comes up (except from me ).

That imbalance bugs me.