By John F McKenna (mcjack): How is a great fighter measured? What yardstick is used to differentiate a great fighter from a good fighter? Despite all the hype that we have been bombarded with over the past few years, there are not a lot of fighters that fall into the great category. It is terribly difficult to separate ones own feelings and emotions when we are discussing our favorite sport stars, in this case fighters. Nationalistic pride and personal preferences oftentimes get in the way of sound reason when gauging the greatness of a fighter. I learned an unpleasant, but valuable lesson as an 18 year old kid. Floyd Patterson was my favorite fighter. After all, he had KO’d the legendary Archie Moore in 1956 in an elimination bout to determine the successor to Rocky Marciano as Heavyweight Champion. Patterson was only 21 years old at the time, which made him the youngest man ever to accede the crown. Joe Louis had previously held the distinction of youngest Heavyweight Champion when he knocked out Jimmy Braddock in 1937 at the age of 23 years old. Patterson had blazing speed, the fastest hands I had ever seen in a heavyweight and his left hook was awesome. He had lost the crown to Ingemar Johansson in 1959, but won the title back a year later, with a chilling KO over Johansson in the fifth round. Ingemar (A.K.A. Ingo) lay on the canvas unconscious for several minutes with his leg twitching as his handlers attempted to revive him. Patterson became the first man to regain the heavyweight championship. Quite a feat, since no champion had been able to win back the title in the history of the heavyweight division, which dated back to the 1880’s.
At the time, I thought Patterson was invincible. Sonny Liston would come along in 1962 to destroy my personal myth of Patterson’s invincibility in less than one round. A year later Liston would again KO Patterson in one round. The painful lesson I learned from watching my idol get beaten so easily was to never again let my heart overrule my head. I vowed that I would not let my emotions separate me from reality and to look at an upcoming boxing match with reason and not wishful thinking. Patterson’s one glaring weakness that I had overlooked was that he had a glass chin. He was knocked down 19 times in his career, a record for a heavyweight champion. I decided at that point to have criteria for what attributes a great fighter should have. My list is not an end all and I welcome dialogue and feedback from boxing fans as to what they consider the attributes of a great fighter to be.
Listed below are some of the attributes that I came up with:
Courage
Confidence
Intimidation Factor
Dominance over Opposition
Killer Instinct
KO Power
The Ability to take a punch
Reaching Beyond Normal Ability
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