Floyd Patterson

by W. K. Stratton

  In fact, Patterson had plenty of self-doubt. Within a few days, he arrived at an airport ticket counter wearing a fake beatnik beard and carrying a suitcase. He peered up at the departures board and saw that a flight for Madrid was leaving soon. Madrid seemed to be as good a place as any to escape to, so he purchased a ticket for the Spanish capital. In Madrid, he booked himself into a hotel under Buster Watson’s real name, Aaron Watson. He had decided to affect a limp to complement his disguise, so for the next few days he hobbled around the city’s poorest neighborhoods and took stock of the people who stared at him, this seemingly disabled black American with the odd beard. He was certain they thought him insane. He allowed himself to eat only soup, a dish he hated because he considered it fit only for old men. Why did he do all this? He later explained that it had to do with confronting a certain weakness that came out only when he was alone. “And I have figured out that part of the reason I do the things I do, and cannot seem to conquer that one word—myself—is because . . . is because . . . I am a coward.”6

  A coward in his own mind, perhaps. But he showed no cowardice as he agreed to a July 1963 rematch with the new heavyweight champion. And he showed no cowardice when he agreed to travel to the bloodied heart of the American civil rights movement in May 1963 to lend support to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. King welcomed Patterson’s backing, even as many of Patterson’s own backers were beginning to abandon him, John Kennedy among them. After Liston beat Patterson, Floyd learned that the president threw away an autographed photo of Patterson he kept in the Oval Office.

  In the spring of 1963 King organized a protest campaign to break down the walls of segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. The city’s police chief, Eugene “Bull” Connor, ordered that demonstrators were to be dispersed with fire hoses and vicious guard dogs. Americans outside the South registered horror as they watched TV news images of men, women, and children knocked from their feet by water blasts and attacked by snarling German shepherds. Officers arrested more than two thousand demonstrators, half of whom were jailed. Jackie Robinson, determined that something must be done about violence in Birmingham, organized an emergency meeting of civil rights supporters to raise money for King’s activities. The meeting took place at Sardi’s in New York and was attended by leaders and celebrities alike, including actresses Diahann Carroll and Ruby Dee. Patterson did not attend the meeting in person, but he agreed to travel to Birmingham.

  A year earlier, Robinson and Patterson had traveled to Mississippi to champion rights for African Americans. Also on that trip were Archie Moore and Curt Flood, of the St. Louis Cardinals. (Flood eventually played a pivotal role in establishing free agency in baseball, which freed players to negotiate with different teams once their contracts expired.) At a regional NAACP meeting in Jackson, Patterson spoke to four thousand attendees and faulted himself for staying in the North while blacks in the South sacrificed personal safety while fighting for racial integration. “I feel extremely guilty sitting there in the North,” said Patterson, “reading and hearing about the things you are going through down here. You people are the ones going through all the danger.”7

  But in May 1963, Patterson was ready to head south once again, even if it meant breaking training camp fewer than ninety days before his return match with Liston. When asked by a WSB-TV reporter why he was going, Floyd echoed the sentiments he expressed a year earlier: “Well, sitting up here in my training camp, watching television and reading the newspapers, I felt I wasn’t doing my job, at least my share of it anyway. And then I heard that Jackie Robinson was going down and I thought it was a good opportunity for me to go down with him. And when I go down there, I’m going down prepared to be arrested.” The TV reporter asked Patterson what he would do if he were arrested, and Floyd responded that he would go to jail. What if they turned the fire hoses or attack dogs on him? The hose was OK, Patterson said, “But an animal, it’s a dog, see? I’m not used to standing by like the people in the South, who are much stronger than I am when it comes to this type of thing. I can’t stand around and let an animal bite me. So I will have to do something.”8

  The situation in Birmingham was growing more dangerous by the day. Three weeks before Patterson and Robinson’s trip to Alabama, the Reverend A. D. King, Martin Luther King Jr.’s brother, had called for a nationwide boycott of stores operated by Sears, Woolworth, W. T. Grant, and Walgreens because of the segregation practiced by their southern stores. A. D. King topped the enemies list of many southern segregationists. Racists bombed King’s house and also the Gaston Motel, an all-black establishment that Martin Luther King used as his Birmingham headquarters. The explosives went off in the predawn hours of the very day Patterson and Robinson were to arrive in Birmingham.

  Thousands of enraged African Americans took to the streets and battled hundreds of city police, firemen, state highway patrolmen, and county sheriff’s officers. It was the worst violence of the crisis. Authorities used an armored car and police dogs to no avail to disperse the crowd near the motel and Kelly Ingram Park, a half block away. One police officer was stabbed in the back, and others were injured by the showers of bricks, rocks, gravel, and bottles as the crowd chanted, “Kill ’em, kill ’em!” With violence-deafened ears, the rioters even refused to heed Dr. King’s executive assistant, Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker, who implored them to disperse. Walker’s own wife was clubbed with a rifle butt by a policeman.

  Walker called Robinson, who was in New Jersey, to tell him what to expect in Birmingham. Walker also asked Robinson if he could persuade the White House to offer assistance to prevent another assassination attempt. Robinson agreed to contact a Kennedy aide he knew. That afternoon Patterson joined Robinson and eleven others at the airport in Newark for the flight to Birmingham. They were greeted in Alabama by Walker, who told them that death threats had been issued from white citizens against Robinson and Patterson.

  While in Birmingham, Floyd and Robinson spoke at two Baptist churches, eliciting joyful responses from the crowds. They also toured the city and saw the dynamited house. At one point, they came across a set of drinking fountains, one marked “colored” and the other marked “white.” Floyd drank from the latter, then turned to some whites watching him and said, “Tastes like the same water.”9 Patterson and Robinson spent the night at the Gaston Motel, in rooms that had not been damaged by the earlier bomb attack. They departed the next day.

  The trip was applauded by most supporters of the civil rights movement. One black activist, Mable Roberson from San Antonio, sent a telegram to President Kennedy urging that he include Patterson and Robinson among the personal representatives he planned to send to Birmingham. “The Negroes of America feel one or both of these men will represent them with dignity,” she said.10 But the trip also received a fair amount of criticism. The New York Daily News questioned its wisdom. Conservative blacks like Olympic hero Jesse Owens wondered if the appearance of Patterson and Robinson had only stirred up more trouble for Birmingham. On the other end of the political spectrum, Nation of Islam minister Malcolm X criticized the two men as being dupes of white liberals.

  But Patterson didn’t have time to pay much heed to Malcolm X and those who were then commonly called the Black Muslims. Now that the trip was history, Floyd returned his focus to regaining his crown. “My chances of winning the title are good,” he said. “The chances of my putting up a better fight are better. If I go down again, I will be able to get up proudly this time.”11 Floyd believed the pressure would be on Liston this time. “All that good guy versus the bad guy stuff,” Patterson said. “Everybody was pulling for me and I felt it. That’s over with. Now Liston is the champion and the weight is all on his shoulders this time. Now he has to make the fight.”12

  Sonny Liston was of a mind to make the fight. He had intended to carry himself as the world champion in much the same way that Joe Louis and Patterson had. But Liston was not treated to cheering crowds at airports or plaudits from politicians. His public image hardly improved after he beca
me the champion. To the minds of most people, he remained some kind of dangerous beast. So Liston retreated into anger and booze. He was asked once if he planned to go south like Floyd to show support for the civil rights movement. His famous response was, “I ain’t got no dog-proof ass.”13 Instead, he set his sights on crushing Patterson once more.

  The fight would take place in Las Vegas, and the location itself became one of the most significant things about the rematch. “Where else but in that razzle-dazzle capital of Suckerland,” wrote Budd Schulberg, “could you fill a large hall for a rematch of the felling of an apprehensive, thoroughly rehabilitated delinquent by a very tough prison-hardened man?”14 The second fight between Patterson and Liston was the first heavyweight title fight ever held in the city. It allowed Las Vegas to begin to stake its claim as the boxing capital of America. The city went all out to promote the venue. Its brand-new, spic-and-span, $6 million domed Convention Center and Exhibit Hall was futuristic in design by 1960s standards, with palm trees out front and eighty-five hundred seats inside. It was a far cry from the dingy, often rat-infested halls and arenas that played host to bigtime matches on the East Coast.

  Norman Mailer and his newest wife arrived in razzle-dazzle land at the end of a cross-country drive. Mailer was in the process of writing his first novel in years, An American Dream. His early designs called for the book to be structured around the second Patterson-Liston fight. Once in Vegas, Mailer gave Patterson proofs from a collection of his journalism called The Presidential Papers, which included his account of Patterson’s first fight with Liston. Mailer regretted that he’d done so. He said, “I was glad to hear that Floyd had never read it, because I felt spooked by the Las Vegas fight, as if Floyd had read it, and it had gotten him thinking of other things . . .”15

  Ever the good reporter, Mailer kept thorough notes about his time in what Schulberg called “Syndicateville, U.S.A.” Mailer ran into Cus D’Amato, now all but completely squeezed out of Patterson’s team. D’Amato told him, “Everything points to an upset. The other man is casual, Patterson has been working hard, all the signs are there.”16 Mailer scribbled this down and perhaps believed it. No one else was holding out much hope for Floyd.

  Patterson was training hard at his makeshift camp outside Las Vegas at Hidden Well Ranch, a getaway catering to celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher. Hidden Well Ranch may have been a movie-star retreat, but Floyd didn’t indulge himself in much luxury there. Instead he practiced the asceticism he learned from D’Amato all those years ago. He rose at 4 A.M. to get in his roadwork, running with two German shepherds while tossing a red rubber ball ahead of himself. “It’s nice for a change,” Patterson said, “to have police dogs on your side.”17 When Mailer paid Patterson a visit, he noticed that Floyd ate steak and liver for breakfast. “He hates it but does it,” Mailer recorded in his notes.18

  Patterson promised that he’d fight better than he did in Chicago. “I’m not making excuses for that other time,” he said. “I’m in just as good physical condition and, as I told you, more mentally alert.”19 Yet Floyd’s psychological state was hardly picture-perfect. Howard Cosell and his wife, Emmy, visited Patterson at Hidden Well Ranch a few days before the fight. They spent an hour with Floyd, and Cosell was struck by the former champ’s lack of confidence. Floyd had a hangdog air about him. It wasn’t the first time Cosell noticed it. Cosell believed that the defeated expression was on its way to becoming a Patterson trademark. When two visitors departed, Emmy said to Cosell that she thought Patterson seemed already beaten. “He is,” Cosell said.20

  Liston, meanwhile, spent a good deal of his training time gambling and drinking hard at the casino tables, scowling at anyone who interrupted him. Most people kept their distance. There were exceptions, of course, and one of them was notable. Past champions and top contenders typically are invited to title bouts, and Cassius Clay, as one of the latter, was in Vegas. He realized that Liston would be the man he would have to defeat someday to become champion. Clay saw Liston at the Thunderbird Hotel craps table. The champ was on a losing streak, so he was already steaming when Clay spoke up after Sonny threw craps and watched a pile of his chips raked away. “Look at that big ugly bear; he can’t even shoot craps,” Clay said. Liston turned and glared at the young fighter, then picked up the dice and proceeded to roll another craps. “Look at that big ugly bear. He can’t do nothing right.” Liston slammed down the dice, walked over to Clay, stuck his face in Clay’s face, and said, “Listen, you nigger faggot. If you don’t get out of here in ten seconds, I’m gonna pull that big tongue out of your mouth and stick it up your ass.” Clay was truly frightened.21

  Such was Liston’s psychological state on July 22, 1963, as he fought Floyd for the second time. In the first round, Liston smashed a seemingly defenseless Patterson with a right uppercut, followed by a left hook. Then he put Floyd down with a right cross. The referee sent Liston to a neutral corner and asked a dazed Patterson if he wanted to continue. Patterson nodded. The fight resumed with Patterson trying to clinch Liston. The champ used his free right hand to pound Floyd’s kidneys. After the ref broke them apart, Liston had his way with Floyd. Liston staggered Patterson with an enormous roundhouse left. Somehow, a wobbly Patterson remained on his feet. Liston unloaded shot after shot, then floored Floyd with a massive right to the temple. During the mandatory eight count, the ref asked Patterson again if he wanted to continue. Floyd again said yes. Liston next hit Patterson with a paralyzing left to the body, then slammed him with a right followed by a crisp left hook to the head. Again, Floyd fell. As the referee signaled a knockout, Floyd pushed himself to his feet and went into a boxing stance. That he was beaten registered with Floyd only when Liston embraced him. It was all over in two minutes, nine seconds—just three seconds longer than the Chicago fight had taken.

  Patterson again left boxing experts scratching their heads. “He made no use of those skills he had,” commented columnist Melvin Durslag of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “and he gave a performance that was scandalously unsatisfactory.”22 Even more critical was matchmaker Teddy Brenner, who was a true believer in Floyd back in the early days. In Patterson’s dressing room that night, Brenner unloaded: “Any man on that card tonight—from welterweight up—could have taken Patterson. The man just doesn’t know how to fight anymore.”23

  This time, there would be no clandestine escape for Patterson after his failure in the ring. Floyd dutifully arrived at the press conference at eleven the next morning. He appeared to be still addled from the previous evening’s beating as he uttered sentences that confounded the assembled reporters. There was a general agreement in the room that Floyd should not postpone retirement. Later in the day, Patterson left Vegas on a private plane. The plane overheated not long into the flight and had to return to the airport. Floyd booked passage on a commercial flight. The airport was crowded with departing fight fans. Try as he may, Floyd couldn’t hide from their prying eyes.

  That fall, Ebony published its list of “America’s 100 Most Influential Negroes,” and Floyd’s was among the names. He no doubt appreciated the honor, but the words written about him had a valedictory air: “Unlike many fellow celebrities who have lent their support for the betterment of the race as ‘checkbook citizens’ from behind the scenes, Floyd not only gave freely of his money but also of his effort and time.” The editors lauded him for his trips to the South on behalf of the civil rights movement. They especially gave him credit for demanding that the seating in Miami Beach for the third Johansson fight not be segregated and for having African Americans seated at ringside “where I can see them.”24 But the magazine also judged Patterson to be finished as a fighter of prominence.

  Over the span of just a few months, Floyd had gone from being a symbol of the successful “Negro” in America to a relic of a bygone time. As Patterson prepared to fight Liston in 1963, America seemed to be coming apart at the seams. There was the violence in Birmingham, followed by the June assassination of NAACP fie
ld secretary Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi. The idealism of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered at the March on Washington a month after Floyd lost in Las Vegas, was shattered in September when four young black girls died in a hideous church bombing in Birmingham. Then, on a sunny Friday in November, an assassin’s bullet blew the side of President Kennedy’s head off in Dallas, a city rife with reactionary hatemongering. With the racial strife, the nation’s growing military presence in Vietnam, and the continuing cold war, America appeared headed toward some sort of Armageddon. A respectable, well-spoken hero like Floyd Patterson suddenly seemed out of place. This was a time for angry stridency. In the months to come, Floyd would find new purpose in the boxing ring as he took it upon himself to silence the shrillest voice coming from this America in turmoil.

  13

  A Title for America

  “SAY, AREN’T YOU Floyd Patterson?” asked the driver of the car that pulled over. Floyd, trotting along a country road outside Highland Mills at dawn, insisted he was not the ex-heavyweight champion of the world, that he was in fact Raymond Patterson. The car moved on. A while later, another man stopped him. “Hey, Floyd Patterson!” Patterson again said no, he was the boxer’s brother Raymond. The man didn’t buy it and told him so. He asked for an autograph. Patterson accepted the paper and pencil that was offered, and signed it “Raymond Patterson.”

  The incident occurred while Gay Talese was shadowing Floyd, gathering material for a profile to run in Esquire. Talese found a fighter who was frustrated and bewildered by what had happened during his two encounters with Sonny Liston. He did not want a rematch—“Who would pay a nickel for another Patterson-Liston fight?”1—but he wished for a way for him and Liston to square off where no one would see them, a fight in which Floyd would be free of all the pressures he had felt going into their two meetings. In this fantasy fight, Patterson did not want to find out if he could win. He just wanted to find out if he could get past the first round.