Floyd Patterson

by W. K. Stratton

  The approaching Patterson-Ali fight generated hostility among fans unlike anything since the black champion Jack Johnson battled the “Great White Hope” Jim Jeffries on July 4, 1910. That fight led to race riots after the black champion Johnson handily defeated the past-champion Jeffries, who’d come out of retirement to attempt to win back the title for the white race. As his bout with Ali approached, Floyd feared that he might be shot by an irate Black Muslim in the audience. If not that, who knew what the contest’s outcome would ignite once the final bell sounded in Las Vegas, 272 miles across the desert from the burned-out hulks in Watts? But one thing was certain. The prefight brouhaha was translating into ticket sales, especially in the closed-circuit TV market.

  In the month before the fight, Dan Florio developed abdominal pain and sought out medical care. He underwent intestinal surgery in New York. A week later, to the shock of the boxing world, the sixty-nine-year-old Florio died from complications from the surgery. Suddenly, Floyd was without his trusted mentor—the man who had been with him since the very beginning of his professional boxing career, the architect of his comeback victory over Johansson. In recent fights, Patterson had even listed Florio as his manager of record. Floyd announced that he would not allow Florio’s passing to delay the Ali fight. But he had to find a new trainer to work his corner, and he had to do so fast. Patterson received a call from his biggest supporter, the Chairman of the Board, who recommended a friend of his, Al Silvani.

  At the time, Silvani was working for Sinatra’s production company, but he possessed plenty of boxing credentials. He learned the business at Stillman’s Gym under legends Whitey Bimstein and Ray Arcel—for the latter, he was said to have been his “right-hand man and left-hand man, too.”42 Silvani had trained champions Rocky Graziano, Henry Armstrong, and Jake “Raging Bull” LaMotta, among others. In the mid-1940s, Silvani met Sinatra, who asked the trainer to teach him how to box. Silvani took Sinatra to Stillman’s, where the young crooner began to learn the fundamentals of sticking and moving. A second career of training famous entertainers how to box began for Silvani. He prepped Paul Newman for his role as Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me and worked as an assistant director on the Elvis Presley boxing-themed film Kid Galahad. Still, Silvani was unknown to Patterson, and Floyd hesitated before agreeing that Al was the man.

  Silvani shortly discovered that he had more to deal with than he expected. From time to time, Floyd experienced pain from a slipped disc. It always seemed to go away or at least become tolerable. But as Floyd trained for Ali, he suffered a major flare-up. At times, the herniated vertebra made it all but impossible for Floyd to walk. It was apparent to everyone in his training camp that he was in bad shape, but Floyd refused to speak of his condition publicly. For him, the fight had to go on, regardless of the pain he suffered. It fell to Silvani to try to get Floyd in good enough shape to fight Ali, through stretches, massage, and manually popping the herniated disc back into place.

  When the two fighters entered the ring in November, Ali, at twenty-three, was seven years Patterson’s junior and in his athletic prime. He was the one heavyweight of the time who could match Patterson’s hand speed. Beyond that, Ali was faster than Patterson when it came to moving around the ring. He stood three inches taller than Patterson, possessed longer reach, and, at 210 pounds, weighed around 15 pounds more. Like the former light-heavyweight champion Tommy Loughran, Ali fought from the outside, circling his opponents, attacking them with slicing jabs, only Ali was much better than Loughran. It was a style guaranteed to cause many problems for Floyd, who was used to battling much more ponderous heavyweights.

  As the bout began in Las Vegas, Floyd seemed to match up well with Ali, catching jab after jab, with the resulting distinctive snap of leather on leather. Patterson also proved deft at slipping Ali’s punches, and he seemed aggressive, as if sensing he needed a quick knockout if he were to win. Meanwhile, Ali seemed more interested in talking than in hitting. His mouth never stopped flapping, taunting Floyd with “What’s my name?” and “Come on, White America.” He repeatedly called Patterson “Uncle Tom” and “White Man’s Nigger” when they were in clinches.

  After the first two rounds, Patterson’s back started to spasm. Between rounds, Silvani and Buster Watson began playing amateur chiropractors. “So I just snapped his back into place,” Silvani said. “He couldn’t sit down.”43 But the tricky disc refused to stay put. To Silvani and others at ringside, it quickly became clear that Patterson had no business being in the ring. His back injury prevented him from punching effectively, and he appeared at times to be all but defenseless. Yet Floyd remained on his feet, puzzling those who’d seen him fall so easily at the hands of Roy Harris, Ingemar Johansson, Sonny Liston, and even Pete Rademacher. Ali later claimed that through the first six rounds, he threw “everything in the book but [Floyd] just wouldn’t fall.”44

  After the sixth round, Patterson was scarcely able to move. Ali believed the referee would call a stop to the contest, but it continued. Ali decided that the immobilized Patterson was at risk for serious injury, so he contained whatever aggressive impulses he felt and backed off for the rest of the fight. “When a man is whipped and in the physical shape [Patterson was] in now,” Ali told Howard Cosell during a largely overlooked postfight interview, “it’s just not worth the money [to harm him]. I don’t want to hurt nobody. Patterson’s a nice fellow, a clean-living fellow.” After the eleventh round, Patterson’s back was so tight he had to hobble to get to his corner. Some perceptive sportswriters at ringside picked up on the problem, but most thought Ali was slowly and methodically beating Floyd into submission. In the twelfth round, Patterson was tottering, but, as Ali said, “He still was ducking many of my jabs. I have to say, he took a lot from me. He was really determined.”45 At long last, the ref stopped the bout and awarded Ali a TKO. But Floyd shook his head no: “I really was protesting his stopping those punches. I wanted to be hit by a really good one. I wanted to go out with a great punch, to go down that way.”46 But it was not to be. Patterson left the ring unmarked and surprised. He couldn’t understand why Ali had not knocked him out. In his years as a prizefighter, Floyd had never felt such soft punches.47

  The fight began to take on the stuff of legend the next day, when Robert Lipsyte’s account of it ran on the front page of the New York Times. Lipsyte likened Ali to a little boy pulling off the wings of a butterfly piecemeal. Lipsyte wrote that Ali “mocked and humiliated and punished” Floyd.48 The next week Life called the match a “sickening spectacle” in a headline, and said that Ali had delivered on a “promise to degrade the former champion and ‘make him suffer.’”49 After that, the bout became a keystone in the mythology of The Greatest—it was the fight in which Ali cruelly tortured Patterson for round after round for Floyd’s sin of refusing to call him Muhammad Ali. Few accounts since have mentioned Floyd’s slipped disc.50

  Patterson appeared at the press conference the next day and saw Gay Talese among the reporters. At the time, Talese was working on the celebrated article that would be published in Esquire as “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” which is often referred to as one of the best magazine articles ever written by an American writer. Patterson asked Talese if he’d ever been able to get an interview with Sinatra. Talese was surprised that Floyd would have that on his mind, given all Patterson had just gone through the previous night. Talese said he had not been able to interview Sinatra. Patterson said he planned to see Sinatra later and that he’d put in a good word for him.51

  But Patterson never had a chance. As soon as Sinatra admitted Floyd to his suite, Floyd could tell that the Chairman of the Board was no longer his biggest fan. Patterson apologized for letting Sinatra down, but Sinatra didn’t want to hear it. He silently turned his back on Floyd and walked to the other side of the large room, too far away for Patterson to talk to him. Patterson understood the message. After a few awkward moments, Floyd left the suite.

  Although Sinatra gave Floyd the cold shoulder, the man who
had publicly called him an Uncle Tom and the White Man’s Nigger began to treat him cordially. When Patterson met up with Ali in New York to pose for photos for Esquire a few months after the fight, it was as if two old friends had come together. “He gave me a big bear hug,” Patterson said, “when I walked to the door, had a big smile on his face, and there was real warmth there.” They discussed the possibility of an exhibition tour with Ali, Patterson, and Liston to make some extra money. Ali said he needed money because he had alimony and other debts to settle. To Patterson he seemed like the lovable teenager he’d known in Rome during the 1960 Olympics, not the man who delivered the ugly verbal barrage in Las Vegas. “He was very polite and gentle through the evening,” Patterson remembered.52 This, Floyd would say, was the real Ali.

  The photo shoot was held to secure illustrations for a cover piece that eventually ran in the August 1966 issue of Esquire. The article was called “In Defense of Cassius Clay,” and it was one of the earliest major media pieces to present a somewhat sympathetic view of the postconversion Muhammad Ali. Its author was none other than Floyd Patterson, who’d written it with the assistance of Talese. Ali was extremely unpopular in the United States, receiving resounding boos every time he was introduced at an American boxing event. Patterson called on Americans to try to understand Ali and to stop heckling him. “Right now,” Floyd said, “the only people in America who are not booing him are the Black Muslims, and maybe that is one reason he prefers being with them. Maybe if there were a few cheers from the other side of the fence, and a little more tolerance, too, people would realize that Cassius Clay is not as bad as he seems.”53 Floyd had not changed his mind about the Black Muslims in general, but he believed that Ali should be allowed the freedom to speak as he pleased. However much it might have stung inside, Patterson was conceding that Ali had, in his own way, proved to be the man who had actually won the title for America.

  14

  A Boxing Man

  BY 1966, FLOYD WAS thirty-one years old, with fourteen years of prizefighting behind him. He was on the downhill side of his career. He certainly was not the fighter he’d been at the time of his second fight with Ingemar Johansson, let alone what he was against Archie Moore. It seemed like an appropriate time to retire. He could perhaps defeat other contenders and pick up a paycheck here and there, but as for being able to best Ali—well, that was something else entirely. Still, he needed to earn a living, and boxing was what he knew. By his own description, he was a boxing man. So he kept on training and looked for the next fight.

  Sandra Patterson, however, had had enough. She had been raising their four children in the relative affluence of, first, Yonkers, living in a big house surrounded by manicured lawns and white neighbors who had never accepted them—an environment Floyd didn’t particularly like—and then Great Neck. Floyd stayed at training camps for weeks on end, and Sandra was on her own. She was an attractive woman who drew the attention of other men. A grocer made a pass at her. A dishwasher repairman called her “baby” when he worked at their house. Floyd warned Sandra about white men who just wanted a “good time”—they’d never commit to a relationship with an African American woman.1 Floyd shared his concerns with Gay Talese. “I think Sandra really resented Patterson,” Talese said, “and you could well be on her side, to a degree, because I think a prizefighter is not going to be ideally suited to be a husband.”2

  It was uncommon for a Catholic couple to divorce at the time, especially when small children were involved. So Sandra officially ended the marriage in Mexico. The house in Great Neck went up for sale. Sandra and the children moved to Springfield, Massachusetts.3 Floyd later admitted that, although he did not regret marrying Sandra, he felt that they wedded too young, when neither of them was capable of giving serious thought to the future. As time went on, Floyd and Sandra discovered that they were different sorts of people. “My former wife, Sandra,” he said, “is an outgoing type who loves crowds and parties. I’m exactly the opposite. It was a matter of an introvert being married to an extrovert. It was doomed to fail. There was never any viciousness in our marriage or divorce because we realized our differences and couldn’t help how we felt.”4

  Though he chose not to discuss it publicly for two more years, Floyd got married again around this time, to the woman who had been working as his secretary, Janet Seaquist. The dates of the divorce and remarriage are murky. Julius November maintained that Sandra’s divorce from Floyd was finalized in Mexico in July 1966.5 Floyd told Jet magazine in 1968 that he had wed Seaquist in February 1966. Floyd indicated to other publications in 1968 that the marriage occurred in the summer of 1966.6 “We definitely haven’t been secretly married,” Floyd said.7 But neither did he and Janet seem eager to let the world at large know that they’d tied the knot.

  Given the tenor of the times, it was a marriage that could have provoked controversy. Janet was white. Muhammad Ali and the members of the Nation of Islam would not have approved, nor would the followers of the segregationist George Wallace, nor would much of middle-class white America. Janet was born to Swedish immigrants in Rosedale, New York, and grew up in Greenwood Lake. For years, writers repeated the falsehood that she herself was from Sweden.

  In Janet, Floyd found a romantic partner who took a more active role in his boxing career than Sandra ever had. Patterson eventually established a training gym at the rural home they purchased outside New Paltz, New York, so he did not have to leave home to train. Most important, Janet and Floyd had similar temperaments. “She doesn’t care for publicity at all,” Floyd said, “and just wants to live a quiet life. So, the fewer people who come up our driveway, the better we feel. She’s a financial whiz and was quite well off when we met. So she watches the financial end and I take care of the boxing part.”8

  For his first post-Ali fight, Patterson signed to meet a boxer who lacked nothing when it came to moxie or his ability to spill blood—especially his own. Henry Cooper was enormously popular with UK fight fans as the first British boxer to seriously contend for the heavyweight title in a half century. The high point of his career came in 1963 when he came close to derailing Muhammad Ali’s climb to the championship.9 During the closing seconds of the fourth round of their fight in 1963, Ali was showboating, his hands down at his side, daring Cooper to hit him. Cooper, who seemed to be out on his feet from the pummeling Ali had already given him, suddenly clubbed The Greatest with a left hook to drop Ali. Ali seemed unlikely to answer the count. But then the bell rang to end the round, saving Ali from being counted out. Ali’s trainer, Angelo Dundee, was able to work his magic in the corner to revive his fighter. Ali was able to end the fight in the next round, but Cooper had come close to knocking Ali out.

  So “Our ’Enry,” as Cooper’s cockney fans called him, was a threat to a boxer like Patterson, who had a history of allowing himself to be hit. “’Enry’s ’Ammer” had led him to some quality wins, including victories over Zora Folley and Brian London. But Cooper had lost to Ali a second time in May 1966. To get his career back on track, he needed to score a win. Patterson told reporters that he would retire if he lost to Cooper, and he seemed to mean it.

  Staged at Wembley Stadium in London, the September 1966 contest had respectable marquee value. Cooper remained the British champion, and he had been ranked as the number eight contender by The Ring, even after his loss to Ali. Patterson was the number nine contender, according to the sanctioning organization known as the World Boxing Association (WBA), which did not rank Cooper. Patterson entered the fray as a two-to-one favorite.

  This was a rare fight for Patterson in that he didn’t surrender a weight advantage to his adversary. He weighed 193 pounds to Cooper’s 191¾. Patterson’s back didn’t seem to bother him at all as he danced around the ring, adopting the old peek-a-boo style from time to time to block Cooper’s hard shots. In the third round, Patterson dropped Cooper with a left hook. Patterson floored him again in the fourth round, smashing his nose. Cooper arose one more time, but Patterson knocked h
im flat again with a deft combination of punches. That was it for Our ’Enry. True to form, Floyd helped Cooper up from the mat after the referee called an end to the bout. Floyd was apologetic about the cut he gave Cooper on the side of the nose, but he also believed he had redeemed himself after the Ali fight fiasco. Patterson hoped his performance might help get him a rematch with the champ down the line. “I hope I’m one step closer toward Cassius Clay,” Floyd said. Ali agreed that Floyd was just that. “He is another step closer,” the champ, who had expected Cooper to win, said. He declared that Floyd had been “impressive” in defeating the British battler.10 Floyd dropped any talk of retirement, and Ali said he would be willing to negotiate with Patterson for a rematch, but soon, events beyond Floyd’s control rendered moot any talk of Ali-Patterson II. At least for the time being.

  Even as talk made the rounds about an Ali-Patterson rematch, Cus D’Amato was back in the news. Like Floyd, Cus was eyeing Ali’s title. Though he remained unlicensed to manage boxers in New York, Cus had entered into an agreement to prepare a man-mountain of a fighter named Buster Mathis for a possible title shot. As he had with José Torres, D’Amato functioned as Mathis’s de facto manager. Mathis was a somewhat promising young heavyweight. He had won the 1964 Olympic trials, but a broken hand prevented him from representing the United States in the games; instead, alternate Joe Frazier fought in the Olympics, winning the heavyweight gold medal. In January 1967, his broken hand a distant memory, Mathis was an experienced pro ready to contend for a title. His career was under the control of a syndicate of young, rich men, none of whom was out of his twenties. The syndicate brought in D’Amato to prepare Mathis for a title shot and did so with a media splash. D’Amato set about getting the three-hundred-pound Mathis ready for the big time, putting him on a diet. D’Amato told the press that he was confident that a slimmed-down Mathis would destroy top contender Smokin’ Joe Frazier, and then, in the fall of 1967, be ready to knock out Ali to claim the heavyweight title. But Mathis would have no more chance of fighting Ali that year than Floyd did. And Cus’s involvement with Mathis did not last long. Shortly Cus would leave the city to live in obscurity in a small upstate town.