The Patterson vs Johansson Fight That Could Never Happen Now as it Did Then

Published

6 years ago

June 20, 2019

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Dr. Margaret Goodman, the Las Vegas-based neurologist and former chief ringside physician for the Nevada State Athletic Commission, has never seen the tape of the first of three Floyd Patterson-Ingemar Johansson fights, which took place on June 26, 1959, in Yankee Stadium. But she has heard the details of the remarkable third round of that heavyweight championship bout and, as a tireless crusader for increased safety in boxing, she never does want to see it.

The mere idea of Patterson, the about-to-be-dethroned champ, being floored seven times in a single round, and clearly discombobulated after the first of those floorings, is enough to make the good doctor, recipient of the 2016 Boxing Writers Association of America’s Barney Nagler Award for long and meritorious service to the sport, cringe.

“Seven knockdowns in one round are obviously excessive,” she said. “Thank goodness times have changed, but I still see some fights now that I think should have been stopped a lot earlier. (Anthony) Joshua was knocked down four times against (Andy) Ruiz and he was quoted as saying he didn’t remember what happened after the second knockdown, or maybe it was the third.

“The standard for the way things were handled back then (1959) were different. There was a greater likelihood of allowing a fighter to continue taking that kind of punishment. How horrible is that?

“Is boxing safer today? I think maybe it is in some ways. Maybe we’re just more aware of what’s going on. I do wish fighters were evaluated more closely. And it’s not just the number of knockdowns that matter; one knockdown can be just as much of a concern in some instances. And so much depends on other factors. What is a fighter’s prefight history? Was he taking multiple shots in the gym that went unrecognized that might have contributed to his being knocked down more readily in an actual fight? Then there’s hereditary factors, genetic factors. There are a lot of questions that aren’t always answered. I’d much rather see a fighter quickly knocked out than to suffer blow after blow after blow to the head.”

This story was to have been a simple look back at a classic fight that is fast approaching its 60-year anniversary. Johansson – Sweden’s once-disgraced heavyweight silver medalist at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics – would ride the momentum of those seven knockdowns, squeezed into just 123 elapsed seconds of round three, into one of the most bountiful hauls of honors any fighter has ever received for a single performance. The handsome, charming 26-year-old, dubbed “boxing’s Cary Grant” by one publication, would be awarded the Hickok Belt as the top professional athlete of 1959 as well as being named Associated Press Athlete of the Year and Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year. His smiling face appeared on the covers of SI and Life magazines, the latter also adorned by Ingo’s smokin’ hot Swedish girlfriend, Birgit Lundgren. Johansson also snagged a role in a Hollywood movie, 1960’s All the Young Men, in which he played a U.S. Marine during the Korean War, albeit one with a distinctly Scandinavian accent, in support of leads Alan Ladd and Sidney Poitier.

There would be no such high-profile victory tour for the vanquished Patterson, but he would get the better of Johansson in two subsequent bouts, each by knockout. And although both men would go on to be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame, Patterson in 1991 and Johansson in 2002, the consensus among historians of the sport is that neither was as accomplished enough a heavyweight to be considered among the division’s all-time best. Patterson, a quiet and dignified gentleman outside the ring, and Ingo, the international bon vivant, were probably fortunate to have found each other during a comparatively fallow period for big-man boxing.

But one person’s snack is another’s feast, and especially so if the feaster is an 11-year-old boy whose dad, a former pro welterweight, was treating his only son to his first fight telecast at a closed-circuit venue, then the cutting edge of late 1950s technology. Instead of watching Patterson-Johansson at home on a small black-and-white television with a blurry screen, I got to see it in New Orleans’ magnificent Saenger Theater, in black-and-white on a much larger, blurry screen. When it was over and Ingo anointed as the new king of the heavyweights, the love affair I already had with boxing, which began years earlier with Friday night telecasts of the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports, had deepened into what would become a life-long obsession.

The way a child looks at something, however, often differs from the way an adult does, and maybe even more so when your grown-up self is a veteran sports reporter who is paid to look beyond the surface to discern some greater truth, if there is one. The adrenaline rush I got at 11 from seeing seven quick knockdowns has since been tempered by asking myself the type of questions Dr. Goodman wishes would be asked and answered before any fighter steps inside the ropes.

Was Ruby Goldstein, then 51 and a former fighter who was one of high-level boxing’s most distinguished referees, remiss for allowing a dazed and stumbling Patterson to keep being battered as if he were a human piñata? By today’s more stringent safety standards, absolutely. Johansson was a fighter of relatively limited skills, but he was possessed of an overhand right so powerful that it bore three nicknames – the “Hammer of Thor,” “Ingo’s Bingo” and, when spoken in English coated by Johansson’s Swedish accent, “Toonder and Lightning,” the toonder a reference to thunder. When the challenger came straight down the pike with that three-headed monster of a right and it landed flush to the jaw, Patterson went down as he were a ship at port’s dropped anchor.

Floyd beat the count, but he was so hurt and flummoxed that he thought the round was over. He turned to scuffle back to his corner, presenting the opportunity for Johansson to run up alongside him and score knockdown No 2 with an uncontested left hook to the side of the head, followed up by a right to the back of the head. After that the fight resembled a basketball game, with Ingo making like Boston Celtics guard Bob Cousy and bouncing Patterson up and down off the canvas. This went on until even Goldstein had seen enough and waved off the massacre after an elapsed time of 2 minutes, 3 seconds.

It should be noted that Goldstein, a 1994 inductee into the IBHOF, was the referee for the March 24, 1962, death match in which Benny “Kid” Paret, hung up on the ropes in the 12th round, was pummeled into unconsciousness by Emile Griffith’s blistering, two-handed attack. He remained in a coma until his death 10 days later. Goldstein, remorseful that he was slow to react to Paret’s fast-worsening circumstances, never again served as the third man in the ring. I wonder if, in retrospect, he had misgivings about allowing the third round of Patterson-Johansson I to continue past a point when it was obvious to everyone, even an 11-year-old boy in a movie theater in New Orleans, that the champion had nothing left to give, much less any hope of mounting a miraculous comeback.

You also wonder whether Patterson and Johansson, if they could have peered into the future and seen how their lives would eventually play out, would still have chosen to make their mark in a blood sport that demands so much, and sometimes all, of its participants. Probably they would have; asked the same question, Muhammad Ali, his voice all but stilled by Parkinson’s Syndrome, said he wouldn’t have changed anything about a life lived larger than most people could ever imagine. Told once that he held the dubious record of being knocked down 17 times in heavyweight title bouts, nine of those coming against Johansson, Patterson said, “That’s true, but I also hold the record for getting up the most times.”

Floyd Patterson was 71 when he passed away on May 11, 2006, in New Paltz, N.Y. A two-term head of the New York State Athletic Commission, he resigned that post years earlier when subordinates began to notice that their boss could no longer remember the name of his secretary, or even that of his wife. Alzheimer’s disease had had the chilling effect of erasing most of his memories even before prostate cancer served to hasten the 10-count he never received from the recalcitrant Goldstein that fateful summer night in 1959.

Johansson’s death, at 76 on Jan. 30, 2009, in a nursing home in Kungsbacka, Sweden, mirrored that of his onetime arch-rival. Like Patterson, he spent his earthly championship rounds in a sort of netherworld, slipping ever deeper into the dark cave of Alzheimer’s and dementia. Ingo was too ill to attend his IBHOF induction, and he was two years gone when his hometown of Gothenburg unveiled a statue of him in 2011, outside the Ullevi stadium where, on Sept. 14, 1958, he had earned the shot at Patterson’s title by scoring a first-round knockout of highly ranked American contender Eddie Machen, before 53,615 screaming Swedes.

It is a testament to the unifying bonds of boxing that two men who had taken each other to hell and back could later become fast friends, forever to be linked in death as they for so long were linked in life. That is not always the case, of course, but then almost from the beginning Floyd and Ingo seemed to recognize that they were more alike than different, two sides of the same coin, too similar in many ways to be separated by skin color, lifestyle or an ocean.

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Ringside at the Fontainebleau where Mikaela Mayer Won her Rematch with Sandy Ryan

Published

2 days ago

March 30, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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LAS VEGAS, NV — The first meeting between Mikaela Mayer and Sandy Ryan last September at Madison Square Garden was punctuated with drama before the first punch was thrown. When the smoke cleared, Mayer had become a world-title-holder in a second weight class, taking away Ryan’s WBO welterweight belt via a majority decision in a fan-friendly fight.

The rematch tonight at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas was another fan-friendly fight. There were furious exchanges in several rounds and the crowd awarded both gladiators a standing ovation at the finish.

Mayer dominated the first half of the fight and held on to win by a unanimous decision. But Sandy Ryan came on strong beginning in round seven, and although Mayer was the deserving winner, the scores favoring her (98-92 and 97-93 twice) fail to reflect the competitiveness of the match-up. This is the best rivalry in women’s boxing aside from Taylor-Serrano.

Mayer, 34, improved to 21-2 (5). Up next, she hopes, in a unification fight with Lauren Price who outclassed Natasha Jonas earlier this month and currently holds the other meaningful pieces of the 147-pound puzzle. Sandy Ryan, 31, the pride of Derby, England, falls to 7-3-1.

Co-Feature

In his first defense of his WBO world welterweight title (acquired with a brutal knockout of Giovani Santillan after the title was vacated by Terence Crawford), Atlanta’s Brian Norman Jr knocked out Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas in the third round. A three-punch combination climaxed by a short left hook sent Cuevas staggering into a corner post. He got to his feet before referee Thomas Taylor started the count, but Taylor looked in Cuevas’s eyes and didn’t like what he saw and brought the bout to a halt.

The stoppage, which struck some as premature, came with one second remaining in the third stanza.

A second-generation prizefighter (his father was a fringe contender at super middleweight), the 24-year-old Norman (27-0, 21 KOs) is currently boxing’s youngest male title-holder. It was only the second pro loss for Cuevas (27-2-1) whose lone previous defeat had come early in his career in a 6-rounder he lost by split decision.

Other Bouts

In a career-best performance, 27-year-old Brooklyn featherweight Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington (15-0, 9 KOs) blasted out Jose Enrique Vivas (23-4) in the third round.

Carrington, who was named the Most Outstanding Boxer at the 2019 U.S. Olympic Trials despite being the lowest-seeded boxer in his weight class, decked Vivas with a right-left combination near the end of the second round. Vivas barely survived the round and was on a short leash when the third stanza began. After 53 seconds of round three, referee Raul Caiz Jr had seen enough and waived it off. Vivas hadn’t previously been stopped.

Cleveland welterweight Tiger Johnson, a Tokyo Olympian, scored a fifth-round stoppage over San Antonio’s Kendo Castaneda. Johnson assumed control in the fourth round and sent Castaneda to his knees twice with body punches in the next frame. The second knockdown terminated the match. The official time was 2:00 of round five.

Johnson advanced to 15-0 (7 KOs). Castenada declined to 21-9.

Las Vegas junior welterweight Emiliano Vargas (13-0, 11 KOs) blasted out Stockton, California’s Giovanni Gonzalez in the second round. Vargas brought the bout to a sudden conclusion with a sweeping left hook that knocked Gonzalez out cold. The end came at the 2:00 minute mark of round two.

Gonzalez brought a 20-7-2 record which was misleading as 18 of his fights were in Tijuana where fights are frequently prearranged. However, he wasn’t afraid to trade with Vargas and paid the price.

Emiliano Vargas, with his matinee idol good looks and his boxing pedigree – he is the son of former U.S. Olympian and two-weight world title-holder “Ferocious” Fernando Vargas – is highly marketable and has the potential to be a cross-over star.

Eighteen-year-old Newark bantamweight Emmanuel “Manny” Chance, one of Top Rank’s newest signees, won his pro debut with a four-round decision over So Cal’s Miguel Guzman. Chance won all four rounds on all three cards, but this was no runaway. He left a lot of room for improvement.

There was a long intermission before the co-main and again before the main event, but the tedium was assuaged by a moving video tribute to George Foreman.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

Published

2 days ago

March 29, 2025

David A. Avila

William Zepeda Edges Past Tevin Farmer in Cancun; Improves to 34-0

No surprise, once again William Zepeda eked out a win over the clever and resilient Tevin Farmer to remain undefeated and retain a regional lightweight title on Saturday.

There were no knockdowns in this rematch.

The Mexican punching machine Zepeda (33-0, 17 KOs) once more sought to overwhelm Farmer (33-8-1, 9 KOs) with a deluge of blows. This rematch by Golden Boy Promotions took place in the famous beach resort area of Cancun, Mexico.

It was a mere four months ago that both first clashed in Saudi Arabia with their vastly difference styles. This time the tropical setting served as the background which suited Zepeda and his lawnmower assaults. The Mexican fans were pleased.

Nothing changed in their second meeting.

Zepeda revved up the body assault and Farmer moved around casually to his right while fending off the Mexican fighter’s attacks. By the fourth round Zepeda was able to cut off Farmer’s escape routes and targeted the body with punishing shots.

The blows came in bunches.

In the fifth round Zepeda blasted away at Farmer who looked frantic for an escape. The body assault continued with the Mexican fighter pouring it on and Farmer seeming to look ready to quit. When the round ended, he waved off his corner’s appeals to stop.

Zepeda continued to dominate the next few rounds and then Farmer began rallying. At first, he cleverly smothered Zepeda’s body attacks and then began moving and hitting sporadically. It forced the Mexican fighter to pause and figure out the strategy.

Farmer, a Philadelphia fighter, showed resiliency especially when it was revealed he had suffered a hand injury.

During the last three rounds Farmer dug down deep and found ways to score and not get hit. It was Boxing 101 and the Philly fighter made it work.

But too many rounds had been put in the bank by Zepeda. Despite the late rally by Farmer one judge saw it 114-114, but two others scored it 116-112 and 115-113 for Zepeda who retains his interim lightweight title and place at the top of the WBC rankings.

“I knew he was a difficult fighter. This time he was even more difficult,” said Zepeda.

Farmer was downtrodden about another loss but realistic about the outcome and starting slow.

“But I dominated the last rounds,” said Farmer.

Zepeda shrugged at the similar outcome as their first encounter.

“I’m glad we both put on a great show,” said Zepeda.

Female Flyweight Battle

Costa Rica’s Yokasta Valle edged past Texas fighter Marlen Esparza to win their showdown at flyweight by split decision after 10 rounds.

Valle moved up two weight divisions to meet Esparza who was slightly above the weight limit. Both showed off their contrasting styles and world class talent.

Esparza, a former unified flyweight world titlist, stayed in the pocket and was largely successful with well-placed jabs and left hooks. She repeatedly caught Valle in-between her flurries.

The current minimumweight world titlist changed tactics and found more success in the second half of the fight. She forced Esparza to make the first moves and that forced changes that benefited her style.

Neither fighter could take over the fight.

After 10 rounds one judge saw Esparza the winner 96-94, but two others saw Valle the winner 97-93 twice.

Will Valle move up and challenge the current undisputed flyweight world champion Gabriela Fundora? That’s the question.

Valle currently holds the WBC minimumweight world title.

Puerto Rico vs Mexico

Oscar Collazo (12-0, 9 KOs), the WBO, WBA minimumweight titlist, knocked out Mexico’s Edwin Cano (13-3-1, 4 KOs) with a flurry of body shots at 1:12 of the fifth round.

Collazo dominated with a relentless body attack the Mexican fighter could not defend. It was the Puerto Rican fighter’s fifth consecutive title defense.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 319: Rematches in Las Vegas, Cancun and More

Published

3 days ago

March 28, 2025

David A. Avila

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Rematches are the bedrock for prizefighting.

Return battles between rival boxers always means their first encounter was riveting and successful at the box office.

Six months after their first brutal battle Mikaela Mayer (20-2, 5 KOs) and Sandy Ryan (7-2-1, 3 KOs) will slug it out again for the WBO welterweight world title this time on Saturday, March 29, at the Fontainebleau in Las Vegas.

ESPN will show the Top Rank card live.

“It’s important for women’s boxing to have these rivalries and this is definitely up there as one of the top ones,” Mayer told the BBC.

If you follow Mayer’s career you know that somehow drama follows. Whether its back-and-forth beefs with fellow American fighters or controversial judging due to nationalism in countries abroad. The Southern California native who now trains in Las Vegas knows how to create the drama.

For female fighters self-promotion is a necessity.

Most boxing promoters refuse to step out of the usual process set for male boxers, not for female boxers. Things remain the same and have been for the last 70 years. Social media has brought changes but that has made promoters do even less.

No longer are there press conferences, instead announcements are made on social media to be drowned among the billions of other posts. It is not killing but diluting interest in the sport.

Women innately present a different advantage that few if any promoters are recognizing. So far in the past 25 years I have only seen two or three promoters actually ignite interest in female fighters. They saw the advantages and properly boosted interest in the women.

The fight breakdown

Mayer has won world titles in the super featherweight and now the welterweight division. Those are two vastly different weight classes and prove her fighting abilities are based on skill not power or size.

Coaching Mayer since amateurs remains Al Mitchell and now Kofi Jantuah who replaced Kay Koroma the current trainer for Sandy Ryan.

That was the reason drama ignited during their first battle. Then came someone tossing paint at Ryan the day of their first fight.

More drama.

During their first fight both battled to control the initiative with Mayer out-punching the British fighter by a slender margin. It was a back-and-forth struggle with each absorbing blows and retaliating immediately.

New York City got its money’s worth.

Ryan had risen to the elite level rapidly since losing to Erica Farias three years ago. Though she was physically bigger and younger, she was out-maneuvered and defeated by the wily veteran from Argentina. In the rematch, however, Ryan made adjustments and won convincingly.

Can she make adjustments from her defeat to Mayer?

“I wanted the rematch straight away,” said Ryan on social media. “I’ve come to America again.”

Both fighters have size and reach. In their first clash it was evident that conditioning was not a concern as blows were fired nonstop in bunches. Mayer had the number of punches landed advantage and it unfolded with the judges giving her a majority decision win.

That was six months ago. Can she repeat the outcome?

Mayer has always had boiler-oven intensity. It’s not fake. Since her amateur days the slender Southern California blonde changes disposition all the way to red when lacing up the gloves. It’s something that can’t be taught.

Can she draw enough of that fire out again?

“I didn’t have to give her this rematch. I could have just sat it out, waited for Lauren Price to unify and fought for undisputed or faced someone else,” said Mayer to BBC. “That’s not the fighter I am though.”

Co-Main in Las Vegas

The co-main event pits Brian Norman Jr. (26-0, 20 KOs) facing Puerto Rico’s Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) in a contest for the WBO welterweight title.

Norman, 24, was last seen a year ago dissecting a very good welterweight in Giovani Santillan for a knockout win in San Diego. He showed speed, skill and power in defeating Santillan in his hometown.

Cuevas has beaten some solid veteran talent but this will be his big test against Norman and his first attempt at winning a world title.

Also on the Top Rank card will be Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington and Emiliano Vargas, the son of Fernando Vargas, in separate bouts.

Golden Boy in Cancun

A rematch between undefeated William “Camaron” Zepeda (32-0, 27 KOs) and ex-champ Tevin Farmer (33-7-1, 8 KOs) headlines the lightweight match on Saturday March 29, at Cancun, Mexico.

In their first encounter Zepeda was knocked down in the fourth round but rallied to win a split-decision over Farmer. It showed the flaws in Zepeda’s tornado style.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy Promotions card that also includes a clash between Yokasta Valle the WBC minimumweight world titlist who is moving up to flyweight to face former flyweight champion Marlen Esparza.

Both Valle and Esparza have fast hands.

Valle is excellent darting in and out while Esparza has learned how to fight inside. It’s a toss-up fight.

Fights to Watch

Fri. DAZN 12 p.m. Cameron Vuong (7-0) vs Jordan Flynn (11-0-1); Pat Brown (0-0) vs Federico Grandone (7-4-2).

Sat. DAZN 5 p.m. William Zepeda (32-0) vs Tevin Farmer (33-7-1); Yokasta Valle (32-3) vs Marlen Esparza (15-2).

Sat. ESPN 7 p.m. Mikaela Mayer (20-2) vs Sandy Ryan (7-2-1); Brian Norman Jr. (26-0) vs Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1).

Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank

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