Cus D’Amato is famous for letting Mike Tyson loose on the path to stardom, but decades prior he said that another of his heavyweight charges changed the sport with sheer skill.
Born in 1908 and naturally drawn to boxing as a way of defending himself in the Bronx, D’Amato – who died on this day in 1985 – had a brief stint as a fighter before injury forced him to turn his hand to training.
His famously obsessive study of fighters and psychology saw him build young men into champions, most notably Floyd Patterson, José Torres and Mike Tyson.
While D’Amato’s name is synonymous with that of Tyson’s, his first success story was Patterson. Together, the pair achieved Olympic Gold in 1952 and then, in ’56 when Patterson was just 21 years old, the heavyweight championship of the world.
After that title-winning victory over the resilient Archie Moore, D’Amato predicted Patterson’s legacy would be unmatched.
“When Floyd came back from the Olympics. I told him that before he was through he would be chosen ‘rookie of the year,’ ‘fighter of the year,’ would become the youngest heavyweight champion of all time and would be the greatest fighter of all time. Now only one of these remains to be realised.”
Patterson – born in 1935 in North Carolina – had trained with D’Amato since he was a teenager. He made four successful defences of his titles before being dethroned by Sweden’s Ingemar Johansson, only to win them straight back in the rematch one year later, making him the first man in history to regain the heavyweight championship.
Against the fearsome Sonny Liston, he was not so lucky. The technically masterful champion was blitzed by Liston’s aggression on two occasions back-to-back. He would build up some impressive wins before losing to Muhammad Ali in 1965, later also falling short in their 1972 rematch.
Though not as discussed as some of the more commanding presences the heavyweight division has hosted in the times before and after, gentleman Patterson is an all-time great. In fact, his blend of speed, defence and ring savvy all delivered within D’Amato’s peek-a-boo style led the trainer to brand him boxing’s answer to revolutionary physicist Albert Einstein.
“You know why Patterson is a great fighter? It’s because he has taken the leap. All great men take a big leap forward. I sometimes compare Floyd to Einstein because they have done the same thing.
“Before Einstein came along we lived in one kind of world. We had only a little knowledge of what the world was like and we thought that was everything. But Einstein didn’t let that stop him. He leaped and he carried the whole world along with him. That is what Floyd has done in boxing. Some day they will know how great he is.”