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

I think Cus really got inside the head of troubled young boys. I’m thinking something really weird was going on.

 

Holmes's reign gets discussed a lot, and if you look at his lineal reign after beating Ali I wonder if Floyd's reigns doesn't come out better if you look at their challengers when the fights were signed (how they would do afterwards was of course not known at the time). Holmes was lineal champion for about as long as Floyd was undisputed.

Holmes never faced his nr 1 (although he wanted Coetzee when he was top contender), and correct me if I'm wrong but I think that Cooney, Spinks and Bey were the only top 5 ranked (at the time the fight was signed). He was busier than Floyd, though, but of his other challengers I think only Cobb, Witherspoon and maybe Williams were ranked in the top 10, in the lower end.

So that's six ranked all in all in five years, three of them top five ranked, none nr 1. The only time I know that Holmes really made an effort to face the nr 1 was when he was a soft touch that Holmes thought would bring a record purse because of him being a white South African.

You might think that Holmes's challengers still would beat Floyd's in most cases, but that isn't really here nor there since you can only beat what there's to beat.

And you who have raged against bringing up the IBC as an excuse for Floyd (not that I've personally made that argument) should probably think twice before you bring up King. I think it's safe to say there were plenty of politics in both eras.

What can be said in Holmes's defence is that he'd already beat Snipes and Weaver, that would later become top contenders, before he became lineal. Which conceivably could have made them less interesting challengers, even though the first meets were exciting and Weaver and Snipes probably improved after them.

 

I don’t believe Williams ever was in a high enough position to demand a shot at Patterson ahead of anyone Floyd actually defended against. Williams was already knocked out by Liston. So Sonny would have been first over Williams.

 

Forget the money etc etc.

Fighting is an art, it can be taught and learned at a young age, but it is now 2021 and the art of fighting has gone now sadly.

I challenge anybody on here and ask, at some point what made you an expert on fighting....

 

it’s quite a bold and generalising statement to say the art of anything “has sadly gone” when it still exists on internationally global scale and historical archive footage is all free to study in the internet.