Two 1st round KOs of Floyd Patterson.

An old custodian years ago told me that "Floyd's mistake was that he tried to go in and fight the 'people's fight'." Granted his straight forward attack style would never have worked against the Great Bear, IMO he could have made it interesting for awhile with a more restrained attack.
Stylistically Sonny was all wrong for Floyd. I've always thought that one of Patterson's more underrated punches was that sneaky straight right hand lead; would have liked to have seen him bring that out in counter over a Sonny jab. Regardless tho, my Floyd never had the size to stand up to a prime Sonny on any night.

 

Yes and I think either Oliver McCall or Fireman Flynn is the GOAT

 

Well you're entitled to that opinion but it's worth noting that McCall and Flynn failed miserably on their second attempts to establish their superiority over Lewis and Dempsey respectively.

Unlike, for example, Liston's two results against Patterson.

 

Liston fought his next fight against a blind man and still couldnt win. Dempsey and Lennox are better than Patterson

1 opponent a career does not make

 

The point is, Patterson was good, had a good career, and was a top fighter of the era. As McGrain says, reasonably, Patterson himself deserves a place in the top 25 heavyweights of all-time.
Liston's two first-round wins over Patterson definitely ought to catapult him somewhere up the ladder of all-time heavyweights.

 

YES but hes implying top5, which is bollox. It is a great win (wins) much like Tysons win over Spinks. Very similar situations but usually rematches bring about similar faster KOs once an opponent has been smashed - Marciano-Walcott, Tyson-Bruno, Pacman-Morales. The KO victim gets scared and loses all faith in their ability and gets ripped apart quickly as a result

Winning by KO is very overrated, everyone jumps on the bandwagon of the puncher, but very often power hides limitations.

As for all time status Liston's all time status slid down the ladder in the Ali fights, yes even if Ali was the greatest

 

Patterson had already been KO'd brutally by another fighter, then came back to win in the two rematches.

 

I think Foreman and Tyson would do the same thing to Patterson if he choose that tactic.

 

Well, Legend X said "near the top of the all-time heavyweights", which might be implying top 3, top 5, top 10. It's quite vague.

But I think it's reasonably to rate Patterson as high as top 15 among the all-time heavyweights, so placing Liston top 5 isn't out of the question.

Patterson proved in the Johansson trilogy he wasn't the type of fighter who automatically gets KO'd by any fighter who previously KO'd him. Just as Lewis proved against Rahman, or Louis against Schmeling, and there are numerous other examples.

KOs aren't overrated, they are decisive wins. The fact that we CAN doubt how much a single result like that says about the relative abilities of the fighters in question is why Liston's absolute duplication of the result is being mentioned.

Also, I think Patterson has gone down in history as a far more accomplished and proven heavyweight than Michael Spinks.

 

Patterson fought at heavyweight a lot longer, but which one of Patterson's opponents, other than Ali and Liston, would you pick over the Larry Holmes of 1985?

 

Listons 2 round 1 destructions of patterson are unmatched and unequaled. consider patterson was never put down for the 10 count in his 17 year career except liston did it twice in 130 seconds. People underestimate just how strong and scientific liston was.