ONE thing fight fans probably never really forgave Floyd Patterson for was that, when he held the heavyweight title, he didnโt defend against either Eddie Machen or Zora Folley.
Machen and Folley were the two outstanding contenders. Instead of meeting them, Patterson defended against the likes of Roy Harris, Tom McNeeley, Pete Rademacher and Britainโs Brian London.
Patterson, now an official with the New York State Athletic Commission explained why he never gave Machen or Folley a chance in an interview show in two parts on Canadaโs Global TV network.
He told interviewer Mike Anscombe on โSports Probeโ that Machen and Folley were โcontrolledโ by the powerful International Boxing Club, which had a stranglehold on the US fight game in the 1950s until ordered to disband by a senate commission investigating monopolies.
โI didnโt fight Folley or Machen because the IBC didnโt let me,โ he said. He was ridiculed by certain journalists for not fighting the top two contenders, but he said he did not want to be controlled by the IBC.
โThe choice was to be ridiculed by the press or controlled by the IBC. People didnโt realise what was going on behind the scenes.
โBut thereโs one thing they canโt take away from me. I was the heavyweight champion.โ
Patterson talked of his early life in Brooklyn. He was one of 11 children, the family moving from North Carolina where he was born. He had โno recollectionsโ of the South.
โI just knew poverty and poverty,โ he said. This, he felt, had a psychological effect on him as a youngster. At the age of โ10 or 11โ he was sent to a special school because โIโd done mischievous things, played hookey (truant) from school, ran away from home.โ
โI became quiet. I figured if I didnโt speak I couldnโt say anything stupid. I was the dullest boy in class. I wouldnโt answer any questions, wouldnโt raise my hand.โ
He remembered a woman teacher offering the class a bag of candy (sweets) for the boy who got a certain question right. Patterson said he knew the answer but didnโt raise his hand. He remembered bursting into tears and the teacher gave him the candy because she knew heโd know the answer.
His โincredible shyness,โ as interviewer Mark Anscombe called it, was, said Floyd, because, โI always felt dumb, ignorant.โ
He recalled going into assembly one morning wearing one of his fatherโs white shirts, as he didnโt have one of his won. The collar was far too big and, unbeknownst to Floyd, one side of it rose up and his necktie slipped down to produce a ludicrous effect that made his classmates burst into laughter.
He said, โThere was a series of things that made me accept the fact that I wasnโt too bright.
โOnce I stole a whole box of ice cream. I took it to the place I was hiding, way back of a subway (underground railway station) where the workmen took their tools. It was in the summer, and I was going to come back at night and eat the ice cream. But of course it melted.โ
He said he used to walk the streets at night and sleep by day. He slept in parks in the summer and in the subway during winter. โI was always sort of wondering,โ he said. โI would steal fruit from grocery stores just to eat, to survive.โ
His parents worked hard, he said, and, with so many mouths to feed, Floyd โfelt guilty, like a parasiteโ when he sat down to eat with his family. โAt the age of nine I got the realisation of this,โ he recalled. โI felt guilty just being there.โ So he ran away from home.
He returned to boxing, he said, because โI found something in this life I could do as well as the next guy.โ
Talking about the relationship with his manager Cus DโAmato, Floyd said never had a contract. โMy word was my bond,โ Floyd said.
He managed himself from 1962 to 1976. DโAmato was gifted with words and could do the talking for him. But as Floyd got greater self-assurance he found he could talk for himself.
Talking about his fights with Ingemar Johansson, Floyd said โa lot of weird things happenedโ in their first meeting on June 26, 1959.
โI didnโt have much respect for him,โ Floyd recalled. โI went into the ring with the intentions of disposing of him right away.
โYou never underestimate an opponent but I did underestimate Ingemar.
โWhen he knocked me down the first time I didnโt know Iโd been down. All I know, I was standing there, I heard the referee say โthree, four, fiveโ so I assumed Iโd knocked Ingemar down, so I went to walk to a neutral corner.
โThatโs when Ingemar came from the back of the other side of me and knocked me down again and I still didnโt know I was down.
โWhen you come to, itโs weird. If youโre on your feet you donโt remember being down.โ
The thing he vividly remembered about the fight was John Wayne (โmy heroโ said Floyd) sitting at ringside. โI was looking directly into his eyes,โ said Floyd.
From the angle of Wayneโs head, Floyd said, he realised one of them must be down. โSo I looked up and saw the referee counting and realised I must be down.โ
He got up but Johansson dropped him five more times before the bout was halted.
โWhen it was all over,โ Floyd said, โthe most embarrassing thing was to walk back from the ring through the people to the dressing room. I wish there had been an underground tunnel so you could just drop out of sight and crawl back to the dressing room.โ
Afterwards, the press were saying how good Johansson was (โa combination of Joe Louis and Jack Dempseyโ as Floyd remembered one description) and what a poor champion Floyd had been.
โI went along with it,โ said Floyd, โbecause if I did happen to beat Ingemar in our next fight, I might not be as good as Ingemar but theyโd have to put me there somewhere.โ
He said he went away into training camp for nine months, away from โthe people, the public and the press. It was a bad year, the whole year.โ
He agreed he was obsessed with beating Johansson, and beating him badly, in the return fight in June, 1960.
โNot because of what he did to me,โ said Floyd. โDonโt misunderstand, physical abuse doesnโt mean that much to me. It was the mental anguish I went through.
โIt was watching him (Johansson) on television, reading what he said about me. I had never met Ingemar Johansson before, but youโd think weโd been enemies for years by what he was saying about me.
โHe was saying Floyd Patterson was a bad champion, he canโt box, he canโt punch. He never had one good word to say about me, everything was derogatory. Ingemar kept saying this about me the whole year.
โI built up so much hate in me I didnโt think of the title, that was secondary. I just want to hit him as hard as I could and as many times as I could, so that if they should raise his hand in a victory he would know he had been in a fight, that was all, and in the process I won.โ
Patterson scored his greatest win when he knocked out Johansson in the fifth round, but he recalled, โWhen I saw Ingemar Johansson laying there on the canvas with his foot shivering, blood coming out of the side of his mouth, I was petrified. It hit me that maybe Iโd killed him. Finally he sat up and they sat him on his stool and he was still groggy. Iโve never been so happy to see a man get up.โ
โI felt sorry for him,โ said Floyd. โThe press never really gave him a break. They never let him forget that he was once a convict, they never really gave him the credit that was due to him.
โIt wasnโt until he lost the crown and went to Las Vegas that you began to see pictures of Liston smiling. I think they treated him very poorly.
โI never had any personal contact with him but I felt if they didnโt criticise him so much I felt he wouldโve been so different, he would have smiled a lot sooner.
โWhen I saw him get knocked out by Cassius Clay in Lewiston, Maine, I went back to his hotel. There werenโt many people at his hotel. They were all over at Clayโs hotel. I went up to his room and had a talk with him.
โIโd never had any conversation with him before but I explained to him that I knew how he felt, because I had experienced the same thing. I told him people who were with him before would still be with him and I told him not to go into hiding as I did, just go out and be yourself.โ
He said he was confident of beating Liston, even though he took a disguise with him to the fight (a false moustache and beard) which he could done to slip away unnoticed in the event of defeat.
โI had that same moustache and beard for the George Chuvalo fight, the same moustache and beard for several fights,โ said Floyd, โbut I never had a chance to wear it because I was winning.
โEvery fight I had fought with a tremendous amount of confidence, most fighters do, but you donโt always win. Thereโs still a reasonable doubt.โ
He carried the moustache and beard because he felt ashamed to, as he put it, โlet so many people downโ if he was beaten.
โIf I had to do it all again I wouldnโt wear the moustache and beard,โ said Floyd, โbut Iโd be just as ashamed (to get beaten). We grow up but some of us grow up late.โ
He was asked why he still called Muhammad Ali by Aliโs discarded name of Cassius Clay.
โBecause his mother still calls him Cassius Clay,โ answered Floyd. โShe gave him the name when he was born and she still calls him that. When his mother calls him Muhammad Ali, Iโll call him that.
โOther people resent the fact that I called him Cassius Clay but yet they give him the right to call me The Rabbit. They say he is doing it just for publicity reasons, but we havenโt fought in goodness knows how long and when I saw him three months ago he still said โHey, The Rabbit,โ and I said, โHey, Cassius.โ He doesnโt resent it.
โThis isnโt a right Iโm asking for (to call Ali โCassius Clayโ), Iโm taking it.โ
โMy body has been beaten many times and I hold the record (for a heavyweight champion) for going down, but Iโve never been counted out on the canvas.
โIโve been beaten many times physically but never mentally and thatโs important to me.โ
He said he likes Ali and feels Ali likes him, too. โI just donโt agree with the things he belongs to, we lead different lifestyles altogether. But as a person I still like him.โ
Patterson said he respected Ali and Ali respected him, despite Ali calling him The Rabbit. โHeโs got names for all of his opponents and with Cassius youโve got to expect something like that.โ
Patterson said he entertained hopes of getting another shot at the heavyweight title up to three years ago. He said he would have like to have proved a point โnot to the press or the people, just to me.โ
He went on, โI went much further than I ever expected to. I never even expected to win the New York Golden Gloves, much less the Olympics, and if you told me about the heavyweight championship Iโd say โforget about itโ and being the first person to win it back and the youngest man to win it. It just wasnโt even in my dreams.โ
Interviewer Anscombe reminded Floyd of a writerโs opinion that Patterson, because of his body structure, could have been the greatest light-heavyweight of all time had he chosen to box in that division.
โI still would rather just be the heavyweight champion,โ Floyd said. โTo me itโs the top division, thereโs no other division like it, itโs world-wide. When you become world heavyweight champion everyone in the world know is, even Russia.
โI donโt have to be a great fighter, just to be heavyweight champion is enough. Iโd sacrifice being the greatest light-heavyweight who ever lived just to be heavyweight champion.โ
Patterson said he was โcomfortableโ preferring that word to wealthy. โI learned from by crooked lawyer and crooked business advisor just to do the opposite of what they told me and Iโd come out on top.
โWhen I got rid of them in 1961-62 everything was different from that point on. I left everything up to the office because I figured they represented me, but they represented themselves. So I decided to do it myself, and I did.โ
Floyd, a Roman Catholic, was reminded of a quote he once made, โIf the Church bans boxing I would quit boxing immediately.โ He was asked if he still held strong religious convictions, โYes, theyโre even stronger now than they were then,โ said Floyd.
Heโs been married twice but said, โI am in the process of which I have spoken to the Chancery and there is a slight possibility I can possibly get my first marriage annulled.
โI donโt feel the marriage was valid because we married when we were very young and we didnโt really know what we were doing. We finally did get married, we learned what we were doing, and we didnโt like it.
โIโd like to receive communion with my two daughters which I have now from this (his present) marriage. We go to church regularly but I canโt receive because I was married before.โ
Another quote he made, back in 1957, was: โI have never been more than 70 per cent of myself. My ambition is to be 100 per cent.โ
Floyd said he was still struggling to reach 100 per cent, to get as far ahead as he could. โOne hundred per cent is a figure that we never reach, because once you reach it you stop trying.โ
He was asked what he felt was the highest price heโd have to pay to boxing.
โThatโs a very good question,โ he answered. โI can only think in terms of what boxing did for me. I donโt think it owes me anything. I think that I owe it.โ