Was Patterson rematching Johansson considered suicide?

I also think that Floyd underestimated Ingo in their first fight, in the second Floyd knew what was coming and trained for it.

A question for some of you who might know. I heard rumors that Floyd started to use weighttraining for this fight and that this was the first time a boxer used that type of training so much.

The third fight is pure war. A classic trilogy.
The Predator

 

For the 1st fight Floyd weighed 182lbs to Ingo's 196lb,in the year 's wait for the rematch Floyd had put on 8lbs of solid muscle, he came in at 190lbs, he was primed and ready,and extremely motivated.
Look at the last of their trilogy ,Ingo is up to 206 1//2 lbs he has flab on his torso,he still had that right hand but his stamina , and condition were lacking ,he boxes open mouthed after the start of the fight .

 

Johansen did a prety good job of making Patterson underestimate him.

In public sparring sessions before the fight he didn't throw Thors hammer once. Made Pattersons people think that it was all hype and that he just got lucky against Machen.

 

Yeah, I've always appreciated Ingo's strategy in mystifying his "hammer of thor" right hand in press releases while training for that first fight. He would say that the punch had, more or less, a mind of it's own, and was a mysterious force unto itself and all that. He wouldn't use the right in training when reporters were around to build an air of mystery about it. And he even kept Patterson in the dark about it during the first 2 and a half rounds before he suddenly unleashed it. Very clever of Ingo.

 

I wonder if Patterson ever saw Johansson's fight against Machen? I would never underestimate a man who nearly killed the number 1 contender in just one round.

The big right hand was on display and it dropped Machen like a stone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezLbrjlyTuQ

Johansson also scored many impressive knockouts over European opposition.

I think anyone who had seen Patterson vs Rademacher and some film of Johansson should've been able to see the upset coming.

 

I've always been an Ali fan thruout the years and I can understand the legendary cult following surrounding him but (admittedly a Patterson fan) it always bothered me that it was Ali lighting the Olympic torch and not Patterson who arguably, by many counts, was much more representive of a true 'American' hero.
My $0.02

 

When Ali lighting the olympic torch, he killed the whole olympic games, nothing could beat that and no one will ever beat that, the king of them all lighting the torch magnificent.
Ali is the greatest of all time.
The Predator

 

Floyd's aversion to being vicious was a contributing factor to him not reaching the heights that he was capable of.

 

Hey RC :hi: Of that I can agree with you 100%!
But of course, had he had that killer machine mentality, I guess we wouldn't have liked him as much.

 

By God the referee had a strong stomach to let that go on as long as it did. :!:

 

But, as I've previously said, I wonder how things would have played out if Ingo had nailed him inside of 30 seconds left in the 3rd? Floyd's recuperative powers were very good to say the least...

 

True.

 

There are stories to that, though. One of which was Marciano being out of the game and not in great shape. It was said he was crazy to do it by peers and he just said "You're right, screw this." But I think there's more to that. Basically, from the knowledge I've gathered it all seemed to die down when Cus slipped in talking about the guarantee rematch bout. And that just killed that idea.

As for Floyd. Great fighter, and as for these fights.. well they are great too. Underrated series in my book. I remember Floyd talking about the Liston fight and how he was a big underdog in the Johnson II fight too, so odds wouldn't prove it was impossible.

As for Floyd, I agree with RC I do feel that he was almost too nice to be a fighter. Not too nice, but him being as nice as he did certainly hurt him. He wasn't very ferocious, it didn't help that he was fragile in terms of durability. But his heart is something beyond questioning.

 

Floyd could be so frustrating to watch because of his passivity. We all saw perhaps the fastest heavyweight combos in history on occasion but in so many of his fights he simply held back. I've mentioned this before but the best example of his "keeping his guns in his holster'' approach was the TWENTY FOUR rounds it took him to dispose of Roy Harris/Brian London!
And IMHO the criticism of Patterson with respect to the Rademacher fight is a non-issue. Pete was much older than Floyd, had been fighting for years, had a ton of weight on him, and turned out to be, at least, an abbreviated decent professional. AND an off-balance Patterson was never even hurt by the punch that put him down...embarrassed? Sure....

 

Watch Patterson's pre-title bouts. He wasn't afraid to let his hands go against light heavyweights his size. :good

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pazrZZbvi6w
3:20