A Tiger Without Claws
Floyd Patterson began his boxing career in the 1950s and was the youngest to hold the heavyweight title at the time. However, Patterson was small for his weight class; he weighed only 185 pounds and had a very short reach. This forced him to rely on his speed and a type of fighting dubbed “peekaboo boxing style.” [1] Not only was he a shy and relatively quiet person, but he also lacked the right physique for the sport. The meagerness of his personality and physical appearance work to construct Patterson as a foil to Cassius Clay’s aggression and arrogance described in the 1963 article “A Rueful Dream Come True.”
The article begins by describing Patterson’s fight against Eddie Machen as “12 rounds of boxing that would never frighten Cassius Clay back into training.” [2] This direct contrast between the two fighters highlights Patterson’s inability to finish his enemies and establishes Clay’s robust boxing techniques as proper displays of athleticism. The article goes on to describe his numerous wins, including jumping from seventh to second place, but they are all undercut by his niceness and helplessness in the ring. The author, Tex Maule, goes so far as to state that Patterson “still lacks the egocentric concentration of the true athlete, the single-minded aggressiveness of the great fighter, the consuming need to conquer or destroy everything in his way.” [3] Patterson was not a real athlete. He was an athlete who was just good enough, and got off easy by playing by the rules, staying out of the view of the cameras and letting his sensitivity dictate his fighting.
This tenderness that made Patterson unfit for the athletic world is evident in the picture included with the text on the first page of the article. The closeup of his face shows sweat dripping down his forehead contrasted by the small, timid smile playing on his lips. The photo was taken after his fight against Machen. The sweat proves that he worked hard but his smile is too weak for someone who just won a boxing match. If it were a picture of Clay, he most likely would have a huge smile on his face and be posed with his arms raised into the air. Instead of showcasing extreme pride and arrogance, Patterson often opted for a quieter, more humble display of satisfaction. Patterson stood out on the boxing world not for his impressive amount of wins or his fighting style, but for his lack of pompousness and brute force. He was a man in tune with his emotions who walked among dominant, egotistic, muscular boxers in an attempt to pass as one of them.
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1. "Floyd Patterson". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 06 Nov. 2016
<https://www.britannica.com/biography/Floyd-Patterson>.
2. 3. Tex Maule, "Still Too Tender to be a Tiger," Sports Illustrated, July 13, 1964, 20.