Was Cus D Amato too over protective of his fighters? Floyd Patterson.

Boxing is a two tiered activity.
On one level, the fighters and trainers think that they are participating in a sport.
The promoters, managers and lawyers understand that it is business. May God himself have mercy upon you if your manager thinks that boxing is a sport.
The promoters, managers, and lawyers think that fans are rubes and suckers that will fall for anything and, time after time, they are proved correct. So if a guy comes with a pocketful of cash as an upfront guarantee and all you have to do is sell it to the most gullible people on earth...well, hell, make the fight.
On just about every level boxing fans have no concept about how the activity works.

 

I'd agree with you if Floyd had lost to Pete, but he didn't. No harm, no foul. It was a show, people enjoyed it, and Patterson was still champion afterward. Nothing had changed.

 

Thank you.
If there is any question about what I said, consider...when they fought on the same shows, Butterbean made more than Ricardo Lopez and, to this day, people talk about Butterbean as if he was a real fighter.

 

I'd say that Dempsey was more protected by Kearns.

 

Floyd defended three times against his nr 1 challenger. Did Dempsey ever?

 

What? A Boxing Kangaroo?

Reigning Olympic Heavyweight Gold Medalist - who just spent the year knocking out all his national and Olympic opponents - seems like a pretty clear line.

Rademacher was certainly good enough to beat George Chuvalo, who got two title shots himself.

Where were you exactly when Lomachenko fought for the Featherweight title in his SECOND pro fight?

Were you insisting it was the biggest disgrace in Featherweight title history?

If so, I missed that thread.

 

He defended his title against:
Sonny Liston
Ingemar Johansson
Ingemar Johansson again
Hurricane Jackson (top contender)
Brian London (who Ali would defend against, too)
Roy Harris
Tom McNeeley
Pete Rademacher (Olympic Gold Medalist at heavyweight)

How is that the most pathetic bunch?

 

I think most would assume if Ali had of got Stevenson signed up to fight the world title would have been involved.

 

Yep. Of his 8 defenses only two were outside the NBA top 5. One of those two was against the Olympic Champion three weeks after defending against the nr. 1 and the other between defences against Ingo and Liston.

Surely Johnson and Dempsey both had worse defences on the whole. Floyd's reign seems more on the level of Charles's to me.

 

Certainly. Dempsey would be a disgrace by modern standards as a champion. He would have been stripped. People give Joe Frazier crap for not fighting a contender from March 71 to Jan 73. That was after cleaning out the division and wining the greatest fight in history. Joe was legitimately sick or unsure of his health for awhile.
Different eras.

 

Do you understand how absurd a statement that is , as if who is ranked number one is based on merit and not manipulation ? Jackson, Rademacher, Harris and London in order ? From 1956 to 1962, his prime years, Patterson fought one, one, top hundred all time heavyweight (maybe) in Ingo. The rest were terrible .. absurd. That's hard match for anyone .. it was also unfair Floyd who was so much better than that .. he proved in by post title beating or fighting on even level past his best against Chuvalo, Machen, Quarry, Ellis and Bonavena ...

I understand Cus was very bright, complex and likely came from a good place especially when gaged by his industry peers .. it was and remains an ugly arena. However he was not a saint, became quite eccentric over time as the wear and tear took its toll and was not without faults. Of course he was far better than most and overall a sport good guy but I do feel his decisions with Floyd are questionable.

 

The amazing thing with Rademacher is people were quite seriously discussing a possible rematch in 1958. D'Amato went around claiming that his performance against Patterson was good enough to beat any other heavyweight in the world.

https://pasteboard.co/KfxNV50.png

 

A few years back, the Olympic Gold Medalist Lomachenko fought for a WBO Featherweight title in his second pro fight. Loma lost. In his third fight, he challenged for the WBO Featherweight title again and won. I don't remember all this handwringing and outrage about rank amateurs fighting pros, because Loma was a dominant Olympic champ.

Floyd Patterson had destroyed Archie Moore (who was THE GUY when Marciano retired). It was a one-sided beatdown. He stopped Moore in five. Nobody had seen anyone do that to Moore before. Then Patterson took on the top contender Hurricane Jackson, and Floyd beat the living hell out of him, too. Jackson never won a minute of the fight.

So, he'd beaten the top two guys, and then Patterson took on the Olympic Gold Medalist who had stormed through the Games knocking out everyone, and Rademacher dropped Patterson, only for Floyd to get up and spank him. Then they (Patterson's team) spent the next year trying to get Marciano back in the ring ... because the top two heavyweights (Moore and Jackson) were just way overmatched when they fought Floyd. And Rocky was interested, and went back into training, then decided very late to not go thru with it.

So D'Amato saying that about Rademacher, in that context, was hyperbole but also, at that time, the two top heavyweights were destroyed by Floyd. Pete was the only one among them who actually won a round and dropped Floyd. Archie and Hurricane didn't.

Regardless, it didn't happen.

 

This actually gave me a chuckle Patterson is my third favorite heavy (after Liston and Frazier) but the excuses on this board surrounding his title reign and ducking legitamite contenders is laughable.