MEET THE NEXT HEAVYWEIGHT CHAMPION (1/30/1956) Floyd Patterson, who was the boxing star of the 1952 Olympic Games, now threatens Rocky Marciano's crown: https://www.si.com/vault/1956/01/30/604348/meet-the-next-heavyweight-champion "But before him stands the bulky figure of Rocky Marciano. "I've thought of how I would fight him," he says. "He looks sloppy in the ring. But he is a good fighter, a real good fighter. There are lots of ways you could fight him. I could make him miss—but Joe Walcott made him miss for almost 13 rounds. I think there is only one way. They say Marciano is the fighter who can't be hurt. But if you want to beat him you have to fight him and make him back up. I think of Rocky Marciano a lot." He smiled, faintly. "Maybe," he said, "Rocky Marciano thinks of me." THE MAN THE SYSTEM COULD NOT BEAT December 10, 1956 https://www.si.com/vault/1956/12/10/580178/the-man-the-system-could-not-beat When Floyd Patterson knocked out Archie Moore to become history's youngest heavyweight champion, it was more than a ring triumph, it was also a defeat of the boxing monopoly. "Until 9:15 P.M. (Chicago time) on Friday night, the majority opinion of Floyd Patterson among the professional wise guys of boxing held that he was a brash upstart of a fighter who, though promising, had been brought along much too fast for his own good; that he was scarcely even a proper heavyweight, let alone a true contender, and, sadly, that his manager Cus D'Amato, one of the more independent minds of our time, was about to get his well-deserved comeuppance. A small, left-of-center group gave Patterson a pretty good chance to beat Archie Moore for the world's heavyweight title. A minuscule hard core of extremists picked Patterson to win. The hard-core extremists had a wonderful good time celebrating until sunup on Saturday morning. Floyd Patterson, facing only his 32nd professional opponent, knocked out the wily Archie Moore of the power-packed punch in two minutes 27 seconds of the fifth round and thereby became the youngest world's heavyweight champion ever."
Patterson was "respecting" the champ a little too much here. Perhaps Patterson was a fanboy of Marciano lol "Floyd Patterson joins the ranks of the Rockistas"
I think that the face of the division changed very quickly when Patterson lifted the title. You had a young contender who emerged from nowhere very quickly, who was no aligned with the traditional power bases in boxing, and suddenly he is the heavyweight champion. Did Rocky Marciano think of him? My guess is very little if at all when he first took the decision to retire, and rather a lot in the months that followed!
