Floyd Patterson (left) and Ingemar Johansson
March 13, 1961: For the 3rd time, Floyd Patterson and Ingemar Johansson fight for the Heavyweight Championship of the World.
Johansson was born on September 22, 1932 in Gothenburg (or Göteborg), Sweden's 2nd-largest city behind its capital, Stockholm. Patterson was born on January 4, 1935 in Brooklyn. At the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland, Patterson won the Gold Medal for the U.S. in the Middleweight division, while Johansson won a Silver Medal for Sweden in the Heavyweight division.
Johansson became the Scandinavian heavyweight champion, but mandatory military service and a broken hand kept him from fighting for a year. But in 1956, he won the Heavyweight Championship of Europe, and knocked out American contender Eddie Machin in 1958, earning him a shot at the world title.
When Rocky Marciano announced his retirement as Heavyweight Champion of the World on April 27, 1956, Patterson was one of the fighters entered into a unification tournament. On November 30, he won recognition as Champion by beating Marciano's last opponent, the man then Light Heavyweight Champion, Archie Moore, knocking him out in the 5th round at Chicago Stadium.
A few weeks short of his 22nd birthday, Patterson was the youngest Heavyweight Champion ever. His trainer was Constantine "Cus" D'Amato. Cus would later take another troubled kid from Brooklyn, Mike Tyson, and make him a great professional fighter. Cus died in 1985, so he didn't live to see Tyson break Patterson's record as the youngest Heavyweight Champ.
Patterson had beaten Tommy "Hurricane" Jackson in his last match before facing Moore, and won a rematch against him with a knockout. He then knocked out Pete Rademacher, won a decision against Roy Harris, and knocked out British contender Brian London. Next on his schedule was Johansson, who had become the Number 1 contender according to The Ring magazine, a.k.a. "The Bible of Boxing." Johansson was 21-0 as a professional; Patterson, 35-1, his only loss being a decision to former Light Heavyweight Champion Joey Maxim in 1954.
"Ingo" spoke English, and, to the American press, he called his right hand "Thunder" -- or, in his accent, "Toonder" -- and his left hand "Lightning." (His right was also nicknamed "Ingo's Bingo," and, in a nod to his Scandinavian heritage, "The Hammer of Thor.") When he climbed into the ring at Yankee Stadium on June 26, 1959, he showed everyone, especially Patterson, what he meant. He knocked Floyd down 7 times, before referee Ruby Goldstein, himself once a welterweight contender known as "The Jewel of the Ghetto," mercifully stopped the fight in the 3rd round.
The sports world was stunned. Floyd hadn't been considered unbeatable, but nobody expected Ingo to dispatch him so easily. Sports Illustrated named him its Sportsman of the Year, and he received the Hickok Belt as athlete of the year.
The S. Rae Hickok Professional Athlete of the Year award, known as the Hickok Belt, is a trophy that was awarded from 1950 to 1976. It was created by Ray and Alan Hickok, in honor of their father, Stephen Rae Hickock, who had died unexpectedly in 1945, and had founded the Hickok Manufacturing Company of Rochester, New York, a leather-producing company that made belts, hence the choice of a belt for the trophy. The winners were limited to 4 sports, and that's if you count golf as a sport, which I don't:
Boxing: Marciano in 1952, Carmen Basilio in 1957, Johansson in 1959, and Muhammad Ali in 1974.
Baseball: Phil Rizzuto in 1951, Allie Reynolds in 1951, Willie Mays in 1954, Mickey Mantle in 1956, Bob Turley in 1958, Roger Maris in 1961, Maury Wills in 1962, Sandy Koufax in 1963 and 1965, Frank Robinson in 1966, Carl Yastrzemski in 1967, Tom Seaver in 1969, Brooks Robinson in 1970, Steve Carlton in 1972, and Pete Rose in 1975.
Football: Otto Graham in 1955, Jim Brown in 1964, Joe Namath in 1968 (probably awarded after Super Bowl III in January 1969), O.J. Simpson in 1973, and Ken Stabler in 1976
Golf: Ben Hogan in 1953, Arnold Palmer in 1960, and Lee Trevino in 1971.
No European had taken the Heavyweight Championship from an American since Primo Carnera beat Jack Sharkey in 1933. Johansson remains the last European to be the undisputed Heavyweight Champion of the World -- unless you count British fighters as "European," in which case it's Lennox Lewis. Johansson is also the last white man to be the undisputed Heavyweight Champ.
At that point, no former Heavyweight Champion had ever regained the crown. Many had tried, including Jim Jeffries against Jack Johnson in 1910, Jack Dempsey against Gene Tunney in 1927, Max Schmeling against Joe Louis in 1938, Louis against Ezzard Charles in 1950, Jersey Joe Walcott against Marciano in 1953, and Charles against Marciano twice in 1954.
On June 23, 1960, Patterson got a rematch against Johansson, at the Polo Grounds in Upper Manhattan, across the Harlem River from the site of his defeat. This time, with what boxing historian Bert Randolph Sugar called the greatest left hook anyone had ever thrown before Joe Frazier, Floyd walloped Ingo in the 2nd round, and left him sprawled on the canvas. Floyd saw Ingo's leg twitching, and thought he'd killed him. It took 5 minutes for Ingo to regain consciousness. Floyd hadn't killed him, and had regained the title.
So there had to be a 3rd fight. This one wouldn't be in New York City. It was set for March 13, 1961, at the Miami Beach Convention Center. The action started right away, with Patterson seeming to jump at Johansson in the 1st round, and Johansson knocked him down. Patterson got up at the count of 3. and later in the round, Johansson knocked him down again. He got up at the count of 2. Under today's rules, 2 knockdowns in 1 round would have meant, for the fighter's own safety, the fight was over.
But just 14 seconds after Patterson got up, he threw the left hook, and Johansson went down. He got up at the count of 2, and it was no longer clear that Ingo had won the round.
Things settled down a bit, but Floyd dominated the 4th and 5th rounds. Still, Ingo opened a cut over Floyd's left eye. At 1:52 of the 6th round, a left and a pair of rights put Ingo down, face-first, and he couldn't get up. Referee Bill Reagan counted him out, and Floyd had won.
At the time, a standard heavyweight prizefight was limited to 15 rounds. These 2 great fighters fought 3 times, and they totaled less than 11 rounds.
While SI named Ingo, a white man, its Sportsman of the Year for 1959, it did not name Floyd, a black man, for 1960 or 1961. However, 1960 was an Olympic year -- but, instead of Floyd, or any of the many black people who starred at the Olympics in Rome, they gave it to a white golfer, Arnold Palmer. And while they could have given their 1961 award to Floyd, or to home run record-breaker Roger Maris, who was white, they gave it to Jerry Lucas, a white college basketball star, who'd led his Ohio State team to the National Championship the year before, but, this time, had lost the NCAA Tournament Final.
Johansson fought only 4 more times, finishing 26-2, his only losses being to Patterson. Patterson kept going, and successfully defended the title once more, beating Tom McNeeley. But on September 25, 1962, Sonny Liston destroyed Patterson in the 1st round at Comiskey Park in Chicago, and took the title. Nine months later, in Las Vegas, Liston did it again: 1st round.
Patterson won 5 straight fights, then faced Muhammad Ali in Las Vegas in 1965. Ali had taken the title from Liston in Miami Beach, then beat him again in Lewiston, Maine. Patterson decided to turn Ali's famed mind games around on him, publicly referring to him by his birth name, Cassius Clay. It worked: Ali was really mad.
But it also backfired: Instead of going for the early knockout, like he usually did, Ali carried Patterson, pounding away but refusing to throw a genuine knockout punch, all the while asking him, "What's my name, fool?" Finally, the referee stopped the fight in the 12th round. Both men came away looking worse: Ali looked like a bully, Patterson like, as Ali put it, a fool.
Patterson kept fighting, until September 20, 1972, when, at age 37, he fought Ali for a 2nd time. In his interregnum between stripped of the title and regaining it, they fought at Madison Square Garden, and, seeing a bad cut over the eye of a heavily overmatched Patterson, the referee stopped the fight in the 7th round. Patterson retired at 55-8-1.
Patterson and Johansson remained friends, and occasionally flew across the Atlantic Ocean to visit each other. Patterson was named Chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission, which oversees boxing in the State. By an odd coincidence, Tom McNeely once held the accompanying position in Massachusetts. And McNeely's son, "Hurricane" Peter McNeely, fought Tyson, who had broken Patterson's record for youngest Heavyweight Champion.
Patterson ran the 1983 New York City Marathon in 3 hours and 35 minutes, an extraordinary time for a 49-year-old man. He adopted a son, Tracy Harris Patterson, who won the WBC Super Bantamweight title in 1992, holding it for a little over 2 years; and the IBF Junior Lightweight title in 1995, holding it for 5 months. Although not biological, they were the 1st father & son to both be recognized as World Champions by at least one major boxing organization.
Unfortunately, boxing took its toll on both Johansson and Patterson. They both suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Patterson died on May 11, 2006; Johansson on January 30, 2009. Patterson lived his adult life in the Hudson Valley suburb of New Paltz, New York, and New Paltz High School named its stadium for him. A statue of Johansson stands outside the Ullevi Stadium in Gothenburg, which, in 1958, hosted not only one of his fights, but 7 games of the World Cup.
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March 13, 1961 was a Monday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. And no games were scheduled by either the NBA or the NHL. So there were no scores on this historic day.
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