Was Pete Rademacher poorly managed?

How much money did he make, and how much money would have made if he had to work his way to the championship. He might not have been good enough.

 

His manager watched him get splattered on the canvas 6 times against Patterson, 4 times against Folley, 3 times against Brian London, 4 times against Doug Jones, 3 times against George Logan, 8 times against Archie Moore and twice against Mildenberger. All this in 23 fights. I don't know if he was a bad manager, but he was certainly the bravest.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes. (LOL)

 

I thought he was largely self-managed, put together the investors for the Patterson fight and others by himself, inviting others in to help finance his promotions.

And I guess Cus must have been equally brave (and bad?) as many times as Floyd hit the canvas.

 

There really wasn't a pattern for promoting Olympic gold medalists in boxing back then.

He was a big man for the time. He was in his late 20s. He'd been an athlete in a lot of sports. He was very educated for the time (most Americans didn't go to college back then).

I'm sure he looked at boxing and some of the nuts running it, and the smallish champion in Patterson who was much younger than him who had been a middleweight a few years earlier, and thought he could slip right in and grab the top prize.

You can't blame him for trying. Others since then have had the same idea. It doesn't tend to work out, though.

Had he taken a few years to get experience, he may have been in position to fight for a world title around the time Johansson was champ. He may have had better luck.

 

Pete was almost 30 years old when he fought Patterson. In those days you typically had a longer road to the big money than you do now which means his window to capitalize was small. Pete was a very shrewd guy and wasnt interested in turning his brains into mush for the sake of bragging rights. So, no, he wasnt mismanaged. He did exactly what he wanted to do with his career and thats something that is missed here. He didnt have some manager that rushed him into the Patterson fight. That was pretty much all Pete. Pete was the one who came up with the idea and found the financial backers to be able to get it done. If you watch the little footage of him youll see he was there to earn money and win if he could without much trouble but he wasnt interested in taking any bad beatings and getting his brains scrambled. When he got out of boxing he was successful financially so I doubt he had any qualms about the way his career went. In fact id wager his career was more successful than most boxers and had he simply tried to fight his way up the ranks it wouldnt have been. He knew his limitations.

 

I don't think he knew his limitations at all.

In his first two fights, he challenged the top two heavyweights and got massacred by both.

He didn't receive a purse for the Patterson fight because he had talked himself and others into believing he would win.

Rademacher didn't cash in. He started his pro career 0-2 and never fully rebounded.

He still thought he could get a rematch with Patterson for the title if he beat Mildenberger years later when he was viewed as nothing but a punching bag.

Mismanaged is an understatement. He was buried from the start.

 

Very much the opposite.

His management pulled off the perfect coup!

 

If he lost to Brian London, he probably wasn’t championship material. I’d say he did fine as long as he got paid.

 

Seriously, every fighters dream is to get a title fight, even if they almost certainly won't win!

Some of them bleed white to get it.

A manager who gets it for you in your debut, has scored the ultimate coup.

You could always come again later, if you turned out to be any good!

 

Right, and how much money did he make very early for this?

He didn't have the stuff to earn a title shot, but he got fame and $ right out of the professional gate.

 

It's called professional boxing. You're supposed to get paid, too.

Rademacher talked a bunch of people into giving Patterson a quarter of a million dollars to knock him out in his pro debut. Pete got nothing, because he was going to cash in when he was champ. Then Pete thought, since he'd beaten Zora Folley when Folley was a teenager, he could beat him, too. And Pete got brutally KOed again.

At what point do the words "properly managed" come into play in this guy's career? (LOL)

"Crap shoot" sounds more appropriate.

"Slightly delusional" rings a bell.

"Not understanding there is a difference between the amateur ranks and the pros" is certainly obvious.

He seemed like a nice guy. And there's no shame in believing in yourself. But he could've used proper management.

 

What money? What fame? He didn't get paid for the Patterson fight. And he was considered a joke when it was made. Where was this fame?

 

He managed himself. He got himself a shot at the heavyweight championship in his first fight, which was his lifetime dream. He was paid $25,000 for his fight with Folley a handsome sum at the time. He was 28 years old when he turned pro, had fought as an amateur for almost 10 years. He was as good as he was going to get. He cashed in publicity-wise on the Patterson fight all his life and it helped him in business. He retired with a few good wins over George Chuvalo, Willi Besmanoff, and Lamar Clark.

He accomplished everything he wanted, retired with his health, and has had a comfortable life, raised a great family, and was happily married to the same lady for almost 50 years. He was born in 1928 and is still with us.

He was a college graduate and very sharp guy. His story will stand beside any other as one of the best outcomes in boxing history.

The best source of information for his life during the Patterson and Folley years can be found in the trilogoy about Jack Hurley, entitled "The One Is Jack Hurley, Volume Three: Deacon Jack and the Dawn of Major-League Sports in Seattle."