When Floyd Patterson was the undisputed world heavyweight champion, he was the youngest to win the title and the first heavyweight to regain the world title after losing it.
He won a gold medal at the Olympic Games, a Golden Gloves title, and won 55 of his 64 professional bouts; 40 inside the distance. He was, unlike many other heavyweights, an excellent boxer.
Most boxing fans know that Patterson became the youngest boxer to win the undisputed heavyweight championship when he stopped Archie Moore in the fifth round in Chicago on 30 November 1956.
Patterson was 21 years 10 months and 26 days old when he won the undisputed world heavyweight championship. Mike Tyson was 20 years 4 months and 22 days old when he won the WBC heavyweight title.
Patterson later became the first heavyweight champion to lose the title and then regain it.
He was born in Waco, North Carolina, on 4 January 1935; the youngest of 11 children. The family later moved to Brooklyn in New York, where the youngster often played truant and became a petty thief.
The youngster was so hard to handle that he was sent to a reform school at the age of ten. He later attended Cyrus W Field, a vocational elementary junior high school that he later said helped change his life.
TRAINED BY CUS D’AMATO
Patterson began boxing under the guidance of the famous trainer Cus D’Amato, who was then operating at the Gramercy gym. The youngster soon found boxing more stimulating than schoolwork.
After six months with D’Amato, the 15-year-old Floyd competed in the sub-novice class in a tournament at an old boxing club in Queens, New York. He weighed 63.5 kg those days.
As an amateur, he won the US middleweight championship, the New York Golden Gloves middleweight title and, at the age of 17, a gold medal at the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games, also in the middleweight division.
He had an amateur record of 40-4, including 37 wins inside the distance, when he turned professional. He made his debut at St Nick’s in New York on 12 September 1952, stopping Eddie Godbold in the fourth round.
It was said that after the fight he walked around with three $100 bills in his pocket, feeling like a millionaire.
PEEK-A-BOO STYLE
He soon became known for his peek-a-boo style and won 13 fights in a row before he was matched with former world light-heavyweight champion Joey Maxim. Just about everyone thought it was a lopsided victory for Patterson but the judges though otherwise and gave the fight to Maxim.
After Rocky Marciano’s retirement, Patterson was matched with former light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore. They fought for the vacant heavyweight championship at the Chicago Stadium on 30 November 1956.
It was a rather poor fight that ended when Patterson knocked out Moore in the fifth round.
The new champion retained the title in defences against Tommy Jackson, Pete Rademacher ( an Olympic Games heavyweight gold-medal winner who was making his professional debut), Roy Harris, and Brian London before meeting Sweden’s Ingemar Johansson in the first of their three fights.
Patterson was the overwhelming favourite but Johansson knocked him down seven times before the referee stopped the fight in the third round.
For the first few days after the fight Patterson remained in his house with the lights turned off and the curtains drawn as he lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling.
When he emerged from his dark mood, he began training for a rematch against the Swede. It took place at the Polo Grounds in New York, six days short of a year after their first bout.
A rejuvenated Patterson knocked Johansson down with a perfect left hook in the fifth round.
They met again, and Patterson had to come back from a knockdown to retain the title with a sixth-round knockout.
TAKING ON SONNY LISTON
He retained the title against Tom McNeely and insisted, against the wishes of D’Amato, on defending it against the No 1 contender, Sonny Liston. The bookmakers installed Liston as the favourite even though some boxing writers favoured Patterson.
The fight lasted 2 minutes and 6 seconds. Liston hit Patterson with two hooks to the head and the title was his.
Some people suspected that the fight was fixed. It was reported that Patterson left Comiskey Park in Chicago wearing sunglasses and a fake beard.
The rematch, in Las Vegas on 22 July 1963, lasted only four seconds longer than their first fight. Patterson was knocked out again and again went into depression.
He tried again to regain the title when he fought Muhammad Ali in November 1965. Ali stopped him in the 12th round.
Patterson also lost a highly disputed decision to Jimmy Ellis in a fight for the WBA heavyweight title.
His last fight, when he was 37 years old, took place on 20 September 1972. He fought Ali for the NABF heavyweight title and was stopped in the seventh round, finishing with a record 55-8-1, with 40 knockouts.
CHAIRMAN PATTERSON
Patterson later became chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. He lived in New Paltz, New York, where he trained young boxers. His adopted son, Tracy Patterson, won an IBF super-featherweight title.
It became apparent in 1998 that there was a mental problem when, as boxing commission chairman, Patterson was delivering a videotaped deposition about martial arts contests, which were banned in New York at the time. As the attorneys grilled him, his memory “collapsed”.
Later he could not even remember beating Archie Moore and failed to recall his secretary’s name.
Patterson suffered from Alzheimer's disease and prostate cancer in his final years and died at his home in New Paltz, on 11 May 2006, at the age of 71.
He was buried at New Paltz Rural Cemetrey in New Paltz, Ulster County, New York.
Patterson also visited South Africa, and I was privileged to meet the humble and courteous man, whose neat handwriting appears on a photograph that he inscribed and signed for me.