Pete Rademacher, worst management ever?

It's easy to forget now just how seriously Rademacher was taken at the time. For a while it genuinely looked like he was going to get a second shot at Patterson in 1958 without even having to win an eliminator. When he did fight Zora Folley he was only narrowly the underdog.

March 1958, he wrote a magnificently arrogant letter to the press in which he condescended to fight the number one contender, just to remove any lingering doubts that he deserved his rematch with Patterson:

Although it is not necessary for me to fight anyone prior to a second engagement with Patterson, I feel it is only fair to my backers, to Mr. D'Amato, to the general public and to the National Boxing Association that I prove myself, beyond the shadow of a doubt, a logical and fitting contender for the heavyweight title of the world.

https://ibb.co/8BZv0f0

 

TL/DR: “If you insist that I kick Zora Foley’s behind before I whup Patterson in the rematch, I will do so even though it’s really not necessary.”

 

Sounds like Adrien Broner.

 

Solomon Deedes post above kind of expounds on Rademacher’s mindset.

 

He beat Folley and Baker in the ams.

 

People forget how green a lot of OIympic pro debuters were. They still needed to work on their skills, defense, pacing, conditioning, generalship.

I don’t thinks Spinks or Briggs would have beaten Patterson. Keep in mind Frazier was life and death with Bonavena early on. Going from an amateur 3-round fighter to a 15-round fighter is not easy. Holyfield was life and death with Qawi the first time, but with more experience blew through him. Lomachenko made the same mistake.