BoxRec

could he have made the limit long enough to get a title shot?

I think he would have done well at this weight, though small as a heavyweight I think his body was as such that it wanted a bit more weight on it, I guess he is one of the reasons why we have a cruiser weight div.

Though he did very well at LHW. The Maxim fight could be argued either way.

"...The Maxim fight could be argued either way." - Robinson

It really couldn't. Maxim was outclassed, no two ways about that fight, IMO.

On point, Patterson was never a natural Heavy, so making weight wouldn't have been an issue. He was, in truth, a natural Light-Heavy, & I can't help but feel had he resisted the formidable dual temptation of money & glory, such as the unique kind the HW division offers, we might be talking about him as one of the great Light-Heavies in history &, dare I say it, an all-time great fighter, rather than the average Heavy champion we usually speak about.

Think about it --- if someone like Conn & Charles can be considered amongst the great Light-Heavies (& to a lesser extent in Conn's case, among the greats, period) someone like Patterson, who did so well at Heavyweight, could certainly figure. As it was, he is still a record-breaking & record-setting HW champion (youngest to win the title, first to re-claim it) who beat many bigger men most Light-Heavies would've fallen against.

He was a good Heavyweight champion --- he would have made a great Light-Heavyweight champion.

I think he wuld have been an awesome LHW, but maybe a better 'cruiser' had they existed.

I have only seen a compressed version of the Maxim fight...I thought Patterson looked in control BUT have read and heard that it could have gone either way....by those having seen the full fight.

I am a big floyd fan, I still watch him vs Liston, Ali etc and try willing him to win.

If Patterson could have made the weight comfortably, he may have been the greatest light heavy of all time. With his combination of speed and power, I don't see any light heavy in history beating him.

theone wrote:If Patterson could have made the weight comfortably, he may have been the greatest light heavy of all time. With his combination of speed and power, I don't see any light heavy in history beating him.

Definitely agree with that.

Here are Floyd’s weights for all of his title fights:

v. Moore = 182¼
v. Jackson = 184
v. Rademacher = 187¼
v. Harris = 184½
v. London = 182½
v. Johansson I = 182
v. Johansson II = 190
v. Johansson III = 194½
v. McNeeley = 188½
v. Liston I = 189
v. Liston II = 194½
v. Ali = 196¼
v. Ellis = 188

I wonder if Floyd could have made the light-heavyweight limit and kept his strength, particularly as he got older. Patterson photos I have seen show him in excellent shape and certainly not fat by any definition. Losing even seven pounds could have been too much.

By the 60s, I don’t think there is anyway he could have done it, and kept his strength.

theone wrote:If Patterson could have made the weight comfortably, he may have been the greatest light heavy of all time. With his combination of speed and power, I don't see any light heavy in history beating him.

???

I don't agree with this at all. Patterson was a small HW, but he also had a less than granite jaw (although not as bad as advertised) and holes in his technical makeup, which would've been exploited by many light HWs throughout history. He would've been very very good, but not an automatic number 1 by a long shot.

Regardless, Patterson wouldn't have been able to dry down to 175 and be healthy. He was extremely cut and trim in the upper 180s. Naturally he just was in that zone where he was too big for light HW and rather small for a HW. But he still won the Heavyweight title with several title defenses, and beat some fine fighters after he lost the title. Not too shabby at all. To me that helps prove why the Cruiserweight division is a complete sham. A 186 lber has more hills to climb, but with skill, power and conditioning can beat 200 plus lbers. That's why you have basically any cruiserweight worth a buck putting on lbs and moving up to the $ at HW. And they often have a lot of success. I believe the likes of Toney, Jirov, Chagaev, Ibragimov, Byrd etc. would have/would be faring even better in the HW division weighing closer to 190-200. But they just don't put in the roadwork/diet.

Here's a UP account of the Patterson-Maxim fight:

I agree with dempsey that Patterson wouldn't be an automatic #1, but I agree with theone that if he had been capable of making weight that he very arguably could have been the best at that weight. And I think his chin likely would have been fine at 175. He got dropped/knocked out a lot at Heavyweight, but he wasn't a natural Heavyweight and most of his opponents were bigger than him. I think it would have been different if he had been able to stay at 175, which I suppose he probably wouldn't have been able to.

But, I think when people suggest that Patterson wasn't a great, they forget that he was really an ex Middleweight and ex Light Heavyweight fighting at Heavyweight. He wasn't simply a mediocre Heavyweight champion, as some portray him, he was a smaller Heavyweight doing a lot for a small Heavyweight. Kind of like Charles.

Patterson would have been a great Cruiserweight champion. Maybe one of the problems with the Heavyweight division is that its filled with overweight, lazy big men, while the Cruiserweight division has the more athletic, in shape big men; guys who are the same size as Patterson, Dempsey, Marciano, Louis, Frazier and others were in their primes, but who today would be closer to the Cruiserweight division. Maybe the talented big men, yesterday's Heavyweight champions, are in that division.

Patterson-Charles, I do believe, would have been a great fight, as would a Tunney-Patterson bout...though personally, as much as I would like to speculate, Patterson wasn't at the weight long enough in my opinion to really wonder what if...Tunney for my money, is behind Charles and Moore as the best Light Heavyweight of all time, despite never winning that title.

I Feel Fine wrote:
Patterson would have been a great Cruiserweight champion. Maybe one of the problems with the Heavyweight division is that its filled with overweight, lazy big men, while the Cruiserweight division has the more athletic, in shape big men; guys who are the same size as Patterson, Dempsey, Marciano, Louis, Frazier and others were in their primes, but who today would be closer to the Cruiserweight division. Maybe the talented big men, yesterday's Heavyweight champions, are in that division.

They aren't fighting at Cruiserweight, they are getting overweight and fighting at Heavyweight. Cruiserweight is a dead zone financially. Naturally small Heavyweights (like Ibragimov and Chagaev) limit the running, don't keep a strict diet, and voila they are in the 220s.

Cruiserweight is tradtionally filled not with naturally smaller Quarry sized HWs, but with 175 lbers who muscled up/couldn't sustain the discipline to cut down to the more lucrative and deeper Light Heavyweight division (O'Neil Bell, Mormeck, Hill, Thompson, Adamek, G. Jones, U. Grant, Csyz etc. . . .all guys who were weighing 175 or less in their mid-late 20s and then went up to cruiser). They don't baloon up to HW b/c they know the natural size advantage is far too great to get beyond the journeyman level.

Cruiserweight isn't filled with small Heavyweights, it's filled with large Light Heavyweights. Small Heavyweights put on pounds and follow the $ up at Heavyweight.

When I worked corners in an amateur show in Paramus, NJ in the mid seventies I met Patterson for the first of three similar times. He seemed very small and when I asked him if he was still a heavyweight he told me his walk around weight was around 180, He seemed very fit and I believe he could have made 175 but whether he would be strong at that weight is just speculation.

He was a very nice, soft spoken man.

dempseyfire wrote:

I Feel Fine wrote:
Patterson would have been a great Cruiserweight champion. Maybe one of the problems with the Heavyweight division is that its filled with overweight, lazy big men, while the Cruiserweight division has the more athletic, in shape big men; guys who are the same size as Patterson, Dempsey, Marciano, Louis, Frazier and others were in their primes, but who today would be closer to the Cruiserweight division. Maybe the talented big men, yesterday's Heavyweight champions, are in that division.

They aren't fighting at Cruiserweight, they are getting overweight and fighting at Heavyweight. Cruiserweight is a dead zone financially. Naturally small Heavyweights (like Ibragimov and Chagaev) limit the running, don't keep a strict diet, and voila they are in the 220s.

Cruiserweight is tradtionally filled not with naturally smaller Quarry sized HWs, but with 175 lbers who muscled up/couldn't sustain the discipline to cut down to the more lucrative and deeper Light Heavyweight division (O'Neil Bell, Mormeck, Hill, Thompson, Adamek, G. Jones, U. Grant, Csyz etc. . . .all guys who were weighing 175 or less in their mid-late 20s and then went up to cruiser). They don't baloon up to HW b/c they know the natural size advantage is far too great to get beyond the journeyman level.

Cruiserweight isn't filled with small Heavyweights, it's filled with large Light Heavyweights. Small Heavyweights put on pounds and follow the $ up at Heavyweight.

I'd say it's a mix of the two. The fact is nowadays nearly all the top fighters weight drain, including the Cruiserweights, who may weigh in at 200 lbs. or less but will wind up coming into the ring at 205-215+ and still be basically solid body-wise. Sometimes the fighters there may have been ex-LHWs, but Oscar De La Hoya is an ex-Super Featherweight who now fights at Light Middle, but that's largely because that was when he was in his early 20's versus now being a fully-grown adult. People just naturally outgrow weight classes especially as they age, so if they started off at LHW already and were weighing in at 175 then coming to the ring at 185-190 at age 23, then it's perfectly understandable that in optimal fighting shape at 30 they'd be at 190-200 and would be better suited not draining so much and just fighting at CW. The best CWs may mostly be the 200-230 lb. chubby HWs, but you got guys like Haye and Bell who are naturally very muscular fighters who come into the ring at 210+ anyway and simply drain down to 200 for their weigh-ins

just saw film of Patterson holding mitts for Ruddock when he was Razor's trainer. Now he looked small there.

Patterson always seemed to stay in good shape it seemed up until his death.

I think had Patterson stayed at Light heavy he would have been top 5 at that weight look who he would have fought and most likely beaten at that weight Moore, Foster, Johnson, Pastrano, Tiger, Torres and Scholz.

I love floyd so maybe a little bias but i think he would have been one of the greatest light heavies of all time.

Have a look at him on you tube for his amateur at the olympics. he fought at middleweight and was still fast.

He was a quick heavyweight and also powerful so he would have been so powerful against light heavyweights. He could have made the weight but money is better at heavy so many fought their.

Look at what he did to archie moore. even marciano struggled with moore in the beginning.

patterson was the first two time heavyweight champion. he also should have been the first three time when he outclassed and knocked down jimmy ellis only too lose a decision. he gets criticised because of liston but he was scared stiff of him i don't know why he fought him twice.

as aforementioned he was a good heavyweight, so he would have been an amazing light heavyweight.