BoxRec

Don Grant was a very promising light heavyweight during the 1950's fighting out of the Los Angeles area. Grant was on a collision course with a young Floyd Patterson and had a record of 15 wins and 1 loss. I read somewhere that if Grant beat Patterson, then he would have been in line for a shot at light heavyweight champion Archie Moore. Don Grant had fought some pretty good fighters in his 16 fights, so he did not build up his record with a string of easy fights, or stiffs as some would say.

I also read someplace that some in Patterson's camp did not think that Floyd was ready for Grant, who was a couple of years older than Patterson (22 to 20), so they did not want Floyd to take the fight. Cus D'Amato thought Floyd was ready so the fight was arranged. The fight was in Brooklyn which probably was an advantage for Patterson.

Anyway, Patterson won and looked very good in the fight with a stoppage in the 4th round. The fight was kind of a turning point in both boxer's careers as Grant went downhill after that and, of course, Floyd became the youngest heavyweight champion less than 2 years later.

So, being that Don Grant started his pro career so well, winning 15 of his first 16 bouts, it seems like he must have had some kind of amateur experience before turning pro. I have not been able to find any kind of amateur record on Don Grant. I wonder if anyone here knows anything about Grant's amateur record or where I can find out about it?

BTW, the Patterson/Grant fight is on You Tube. Floyd Patterson was just a little over 20 years old in this fight, but he looks sensational.

I think that I have an idea of what happened to Don Grant's boxing career. Grant was sailing along with a 15 and 1 record, his only loss being a close split decision to Esau Ferdinand, who had a record of 40-12-8 at the time. Grant had previously beat Ferdinand with a unanimous decision about 10 months before his first loss.

Anyway, Don Grant was 15 and 1 with 8 KO's to his credit, and he wasn't fighting just easy opponents. Ten of his opponents had winning records like Billy Corbett (55-19-2), Jesse Fuentes (13-2), Esau Ferdinand the first time (39-9-8), Fuentes again (14-5), Charlie Green (32-15-3), Ferdinand again (43-12-8), and Eusebio Hernandez (41-20-5) and another fighter who's record was not available.. So, he wasn't building up his record fighting nothing but losers as so many do.

Don Grant must have been full of confidence at that point. He probably felt like he could beat anyone and was really on his way up. Then came Floyd Patterson.

It wasn't like Grant lost a close decision. Patterson completely dominated Grant, beating him to the punch time after time. And Floyd had just turned 20 years old (Grant had just turned 22). The fight was stopped in the 5th round. His own corner wanted to stop the fight and the referee concurred, but said that the stoppage was his own idea.

Anyway, the loss not only might have hurt physically, but it probably destroyed his confidence, to think that he was the best around only to be handled like he was by a 20 year old kid.

I think that his manager should have given Grant a rest and then given him some easy fights in order to restore his confidence and hopefully resume where he left off before the Patterson fight, like Angelo Dundee, who gave Jimmy Ellis eight straight easy fights after his loss to Muhammad Ali.

Instead, Grant was given a fight just about a month and a half later with Charley Green (32-16-3), which he lost. Grant only had about 5 more fights, and never did live up to earlier expectations. As mentioned before, Grant would have been in line for a shot at Archie Moore's light heavyweight title with a win over Patterson.

Don Grant is mentioned on another thread here. For those interested in Grant, or just want to know who he was, here is just about everything you might want to know about his boxing career on this old thread.