Was Patterson the best fighter AFTER losing his title?

totally agree and was tempted to make a similar thread but i don't know floyd well enough to keep it going :good

he seemed to lose that fear of well...losing. he took on top contender after contender and seemed to have a bit more durability, a strong focus on technique and with his feet planted, kept quite a bit of power. he lost speed and movement but he became a more exciting and risk taking fighter who was near the top WAY past his best

 

Agreed,

I won't claim that he was necessarily an IMPROVED fighter per say, after losing the crown, but he still looked sharp and was certainly willing to take more chances. Most felt he won the first Quarry bout. Don't know about the rematch. He also defeated Bonavena, Chuvalo and Machen, plus gave a good account of himself in the first Ali fight, all when after losing the title.

 

I agree Floyd Patterson is definitely underated and possessed some mad skills. Very exciting to watch and a very humble Champion.

 

he very nearly won the title a third time in that period.
have a look, a good look, at the jimmy ellis fight....and see if you think he could have been given that decision. - hell of a fight too

 

Having seen these bouts on tv, I'm convinced that patterson won BOTH Quarry bouts as well as the Ellis fight...in fact, I think he was robbed. My dad watched them with me and he thought Floyd was screwed royally. Interestingly, my father was not a fan of Ali or many other modern fighters, but he thought the highest of Patterson and was most impressed by how he took the losses..by not complaining and by congratulating both guys after the decisions were announced. He emphasized to be that it was "how a real man was supposed to act", as in showing sportsmanship and being dignified in "defeat". He pointed out to me that the way Patterson conducted himself was a valuable "life lesson"..just as much, if not more than if Floyd had won those bouts..which of course we both thought he did. Patterson has always impressed me as both a man as well as a fighter for reasons that go outside the boundaries of strictly boxing related criteria.

 

:thumbsupwell put

 

10 years after losing the title? - Holyfield - he never stops, Tyson (don't really count his alphabets so much), Schmelling beat Joe Louis, Uzcudun, Hamas after, Liston - a pretty good run after Ali 2

 

If being stripped of the title meets this criteria,I'd say Muhammad Ali. The early seventies version of him was pretty awesome. Two victories over his first conqueror,Joe Frazier,and the George Foreman fight. How many champions of the past,after losing their title,would have retained enough of their peak form to have picked apart a monster like a prime Big George ?


To answer the pollster's question - Yes,Floyd still had a lot left.

 

:good

 

Floyd was a very good fighter as champion and even after losing the title. I don't think he got better after he lost the belt. If anything, he slowed a bit, and threw less blazing combos. However, he was perhaps more appreciated later on, given his strong performances against some top competition. Made folks realize that he was underrated.

I don't see the Liston fight the way some do. I don't think he froze or was scared. Patterson actually should have fought scared and ran his ass off, but didn't, and it cost him. Plus, he wasn't much of a clincher, and you needed to have strong arms to be able to firmly clinch Sonny on the inside, and Patterson simply could not effectively tie up Sonny. Either way, he was too small and not strong enough to compete with Liston's amazing strength, ferocity, power, and aggressiveness. It would be like getting KO'd by Tyson or Foreman. Just because you get stopped quick by them doesn't mean that you don't give everyone else hell. That was Patterson. Can compete very well with anyone except the ones with monster power and ferocity.

 

And his televised one punch knockout dethroning of Heuser for the European Title in his comeback from Louis II was impressive.

Scroll forward to 31:24-32:24 for the conclusion of Schmeling-Heuser:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-yCsTHLxXs[/ame]



Had it not been for WW II, Max may well have dominated European boxing himself, and held the EBU HW Title throughout the rest of the 1940s had he been allowed to remain active. (Despite being over two years younger, Heuser had 15 fights from December 1939 until June 1944, just two months before professional boxing discontinued in Nazi Germany. Of course it's the Hitler regime we're dealing with here, but if Heuser could be allowed to remain in competition, then Max was certainly old enough at 35 to then be exempted from combat duties.)

Certainly he was respectable enough during his post war comeback despite having sustained grievous combat injuries at Crete. (And that 3-2 return to competition earned him the money which allowed him the acquisition of the Coca~Cola franchise for post war Germany, representing a pretty successful return to boxing considering the payoff.) To come back from Louis II the way he did against Heuser a year later, then to actually return to competition from that Pyrrhic German paratrooping victory at Crete, then live almost to the century mark, this was an insanely tough and resilient hombre.

Take away WW II, and Patterson may not be the subject of this thread title (nor would there be any debate over whether or not Sharkey was superior to Schmeling, as Max's early and mid 1940s resume would have likely blown Jack completely out of the water.) Schmeling may very well have been an Archie Moore-Jack Britton type with respect to pugilistic longevity.

 

Nice post. Again, I did not see the fights you mentioned but your claim coincides with the opinions of a lot of people who did, so I'll take your word for it.

 

Angelo Dundee thought Patterson was psyched out.

 

Ezzard charles is simular to Patterson in that he was also seen as a chease champion but as an ex champion really earned his bones as a heavyweight.
As champion ezzard beat Louis who wasnt active, barone and beshore not rated, maxim hed beat many times in boring fights and lesnavich was outmatched. oma and valentino were not as good as layne, bivins and saterfield he beat after losing the title. walcott was the only top guy he met in title fights.

It was not for ten years but ezzard Charles was an excelent heavyweight who was still producing championship form right up until the second Marciano fight. Charles like patterson had fights as an ex champion (with valdes, walcott, layne and harold Johnson) that many people thought he won. The added bonus was Charles also knocked out layne and held other legit wins over walcott.