Most Overrated and Underrated heavyweights of patterson/Listons era

Couldn't agree more.

Floyd Patterson's first 4 title fight purses ;

Archie Moore - $80,214 No 1 contender & L/heavy champ

Tommy Jackson - $123,859 No 1 contender

Pete Rademacher - $250,000 3 weeks later

Roy Harris -------$101,382 Rated number 3 by N.B.A

Floyd Patterson, Occupation Professional boxer. Does anyone doubt that Ali and Tyson would not have done the same had Stevenson and Savon "got on the boat"?

 

Pastrano, Machen and Folley were each held in roughly the same high regard when within a short space of time they each lost to London, Ingo and Cooper respectively. And this was after the 1958 draw that made machen and Folley look every bit as silly as Nino Valdes getting a returned bond in the post from a boxing commissioner saying he wasn't good enough to challenge for a title in 1954.

If Machen, Folley, Valdes and Williams were ducked why did each of them blunder every chance at that time? They could not win a single eliminator between them.

If London was such a bad fighter what was he doing beating a guy considered at that time to be very bit as good as machen and Folley? Why didn't machen win a fight in 1958? Why did Folley lose and draw that year in his only relevent fights of that year too?

 

I never said he was an even match, i said if he landed first it could very well be over. He had that kind of punch. So goes the theory tgat floyd was protected against punchers.

Keep reading those books, maybe youll learn something someday, you clearly havent yet...

 

Ok, Liston was the real McCoy among the many 210-220lb muscle men of his day. Without a shadow of a doubt history proves Charles Sonny Liston was the better man of the Ingo, Patterson, Liston era.

People suspected Liston always was going to be the best of the 1959-63 era before that but he had to fight Floyd twice to prove it. He possibly had to fight Ingo as well to really prove it but his longevity and record over Floyd gives him the benefit of the doubt.

However, I think you sell Ingo way too short. He was not some European imposter who got lucky. He did not get an undeserving title shot at the expense of Sonny Liston. He destroyed Machen and he destroyed Patterson. Wiped the floor with them. Before anyone else had too. Those two wins are the exact same guys Liston built his legacy on.

Stylistically Ingo presents problems against any champion during a very small window of his prime. He had a better right hand than Ali, Marshall, Martin who beat Liston at the beginning, middle and end of Listons career. Why entirely rule Ingo out?

Johansson was not a great champion because Floyd finished whatever he had by the end of their serries, he had too few fights to really stand up against the careers of great champions but for as long as he was around there was nothing more he could have done to establish himself as a new champion.