in their second fight Johnson dropped Mcvey 3 times ,sam was tough and could hit ,but he lacked polish from what Ive read,I would take Patterson to win a close dec,but he could be caught.Johnson ,even after retired named Sam Mcvey as his toughest opponent.
Not at all ,he went the distance with some serious punchers,if there is a glass chin here it belongs to Floyd I think,Johnson hit a lot harder than is supposed ,but seldom went for the ko.
Sam McVey is one of the forgotten greats. He beat Sam Langford and Joe Jeanette. He beat Harry Wills too. It's hardly a stretch to think he could well beat Floyd Patterson. The 49 round fight to the finish with Jeanette in Paris is legendary. That's real fighting.
Floyd Patterson was one of the best technical fighters heavyweight boxing has ever seen. His handspeed was the fastest in HW history. His Combination punching was like lightning striking in 5-6 different places at once. There is film of sam mcvea on youtube, he does not impresse anywhere near as much as floyd.
Patterson was down 7 times against johansson. down against bonavena. down v.s quarry. floored 3 times v.s henry cooper. down 3 times v.s liston in their 2nd fight. so yes, patterson had a glass chin.
Grainy old footage with missing frames isn't likely to impress. And who's to say whether that section of that fight is anyway representative of McVey at his best. Imagine if the only footage of Lennox Lewis was grainy old section of him against Phil Jackson, or the Liston-Besmanoff was the only footage of Sonny Liston. They filmed with hand-cranked cameras in those days. Imagine what George Foreman v Jose Roman would look like filmed like that. We'd laugh our asses off. I'm a huge fan of Patterson too. I'm just saying any man who beats Langford, Wills and Jeanette (who ALL must have been pretty good to get the reputations and records they did) cannot be dismissed in a match with Floyd Patterson. People who actually saw those fighters thought they were great. They fought epic fights , they went on to train several top fighters, esp. the later generations of black fighters. They were GREAT fighters. Just as Floyd Patterson was.
sonny liston was the only one. ps - my apologies, i read wrong, it was cooper who was down not patterson.
I am inclined to go with McVea here. Sam McVea had freakish power and he was a more savy fighter than he is given credit for. He would be bad news for anybody who fancied going toe to toe with him. Perhaps we are looking at a split series.
