how good was floyd patterson??

...i have always dismissed patterson in my mind until some recent threads prompted me to find out more about the man......olympic gold medalist and golden gloves champ at miidelweight.....no1 pro lightheavyweight contender and then youngest ever heavyweight champion at only 21.....looking at his record, i see he defeated some pretty tough guys, chuvalo, bonavena, a draw and a decsision loss to gerry quarry, a fighter many on here rate highly, a decision loss to jimmy ellis over 15 rounds in the h/w tournament of the time, after breaking ellis nose in the first round...and a quick win over henry cooper...all after he was blown out by liston..twice....even his amature rcord suggests he could bang a bit, 37 kos out of 40 wins.....the guy had a great ko record in the pros, and for a fighter who is generally perceived as light in the whiskers department, was only kod by huge punchers, sonny liston and ingemar johansen.....but the johansen loss was avenged..twice..by ko to floyd....the guy fought and beat bonavena in 72 and fought ali again in the seventies......what a long, and distinguished career.....the black and white on paper evidence suggest here we have a fast moving, hard hitting , physically small heavyweight with tremendous power for his size and, against popular opinion, a decent chin and good defense......and, if some of the fights iv actually seen of him in archive footage, tremendous amounts of pride and heart, particularly, perversely, in his humiliating systematicall beating at the hands of ali......and his insistence, against the wishes of cus d'amato, to fight liston...twice.....an underrated and unfairly overlooked h/w champ then????...the fact that floys seems to have been a tremendously liked and popular character out of the ring also speaks volumes....anyone else have any facts/opinions with regards to pattersons ability/status in the hw hall of fame??

 

i was always aware of his acheivments, but i genuinely, along with many others, assumed his career fizzled out after the liston debacle....but when you look further, you find that he competed at the top level for almost a decade longer......i liked watching him on the history of the heavyweights videos i used to have, exciting, crouching, almost predatory style with the hands held high defence.....thanks for the reply janitor, i think you are right....raw talent sums him up.....what was it with cus and mentally weak heavyweights lol....