Why the double standards against Patterson?

Couldn't agree more, the criticism on here is relentless by some posters, same comments all the time.
Here are the ratings of Harris, London, McNeely, Ingo(3) from magazines at the time ;

Harris ; The Ring, 5, Boxing Illustrated, 1, N.B.A, 3

London ; Ring, 8, Boxing Illustrated, 8, N.B.A, 4

McNeely ; Ring, 9, B/Illus', 13, N.B.A, 10

Ingo 3rd fight, Ring, No 2

Archie Moore was number one contender as was Jackson.

 

Good thoughts. He gets more credit here for his post-title resume, which to be frank is probably deserved but that shouldn't suggest that his reign was an embarrassment.

 

I think it was a weak era, but that's not his fault.

 

I'll play devil's advocate here - and it's a stretch because I really like Floyd. But I think a lot of his bad press came, of course, from the press and perceptions of the era. Not to mention what was expected of a champ back then. Today we are not as critical of a fighter who fights once a year, because we have 3 other 'champs' picking up the slack so bad perceptions go a little bit under the radar today. But back then, inactivity was heavily scolded.

Le4t's look at his reign from '56 - '62.

Hurricane Jackson - although Floyd apparently completely dominated him in their eliminator, one official scored it for Jackson. Because of this Hurricane's rating probably wasn't hurt much and then he won twice - one of them a disputed decision over top contender Bob Baker - which kept him at the forefront. A good defense.

Pete Rademacher - he defends against Pete 3 weeks after Jackson, which is good for activity but I believe lambasted by the press. It also probably didn't help Floyd in the Press by getting dropped by Pete. Poor defense and bad Press.

Roy Harris - Harris deserved his ranking after wins over Bob Baker and Willie Pastrano, but this defense took place one year after the Rademacher debacle. Floyd needed a really high profile win after such inactivity, and although Tom was decent, it wasn't enough.

Brian London - despite holding a rating, London lost his British and Commonwealth titles to Henry Cooper in his last fight. Moreover, it didn't help Floyd or Brian that Ingo Johannsen was going around saying, "My sister could knock out Brian London." Poor defense.

Ingo - a good defense but these two monopolized the heavyweight title from '59 - '61 with one fight a year with good contenders rotting on the vine with this series freezing the title.

Tom McNeely - 9 months after the Floyd-Ingo series, Floyd puts his title on the line against Tom McNeely of all fighters. A guy whose best wins were over George Logan and a well-chewed Willi Besmanoff. A very poor defense with good fighters overlooked during this spell and Floyd didn't help matters by getting dropped again.

Sonny Liston - finally, the top dog.

Again, I'm trying to recreate perception of the Press at the time. I hate to be the bad guy here because, again, I've always liked Floyd, but this really was poor when Nino Valdez, Zora Folley, Eddie Machen, Cleveland Williams and Sonny Liston (since 1958) were top ten contenders and fighting each other. I think Floyd showed he would have got in the ring with anyone, but Cus D'Amato was calling the shots and he finally had to buck Cus by signing for Liston in '62. Anyways, that's my take.

 

Why???


Because top ranked men like Eddie Machen and Zora Folley were hovering around number 1 or number 2 for three straight years while Patterson made soft defenses against London Radamcher mcneely and chose n3 Harris over the number 1 rated Machen who had a great 1957 beating Jackson in an eliminator. Machen and Folley were very highly regarded and yet never got title shots.

Patterson had a vulnerable chin and confident issues, which was clocked by the only two punchers he faced during his title reign Johansson and Liston. Obviously a young Machen was screwed of a title shot. It would have been interesting had he faced other good punchers in the division so we could see how good his chin actually was. Valdes n2 instead of London in 58. Valdes managed bobby Gleason called Floyd “afraid to fight big hitters” in the newspapers and issued challenges daily. Cleveland Williams was rated number 5 in 1961 and promoters tried to set up a williams Patterson bout in place of mcneeley...would have been a very difficult stylistic matchup for Floyd but would have told us a lot about floyds durability or shortcomings. Floyd obviously had the ability to beat all of them...folley was another one who could have gotten a title shot sometime 1957-1961 who never was out of the top 5.


Liston ended up doing the dirty work for Floyd...took out all the dangerous men Valdes dejohn williams Machen and Folley

 

Agreed that it was ridiculous for Patterson and Johansson to monopolize and freeze the division 1959-1961....with really good contenders or dangerous punchers like Liston Machen Folley williams Out there

Patterson and Johansson were not good enough to freeze out the other contenders from a title shot

 

Except for the fact that it caught up with Moore who was stripped of his title for inactivity. I wonder what the rules were back then for a champion and his defenses? The championship should always remain fluid, thus preventing champs from sitting on their title and by giving good honest contenders their chance. I don't know the reasons fighters today (like Gary Russell) remain inactive. They're just losing high-paying opportunities while wasting their prime years. At least with Moore it wasn't inactivity, just inactivity of his title. He was constantly playing with the heavyweight division which means he was making quite a good living.

 

He was until he defeated 3 out of the 4 semi finalists of the WBA tournament by knockout

 

Cus D'Amato protected Patterson more than a mother bear protects her cubs. No HW who was knocked down numerous times by a Swede who trained for his bouts with beer and blonds can be taken seriously. He was one of the worst HW champs ever.