Word: florio
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...projector, threaded the film himself, and took his first and last look at the pictures of his humiliation in the first Johansson fight. From then on, often working out late at night to protect his secret, Patterson remade much of his boxing style under the canny eye of Dan Florio, an oldtime bantamweight and one of the best trainers in boxing...
Stable Stance. Florio began with Patterson's stance. In his much-and justly-criticized peekaboo defense, with his feet squared and his gloves held high about his head as though clutching a toothache, Patterson had no foundation for absorbing a punch, much less for launching one. Florio got Patterson to revert to the classic, stable stance, with the left foot in front, the right foot in back. To increase Patterson's ability to take a punch Florio strengthened his neck with special exercises that expanded his collar size from 16½ to 17. A diet of steak, lamb...
...facts spotted in the first fight: offensively, Johansson needed to get set to throw his paralyzing right hand; defensively, he moved back quickly from an attack. To keep Johansson from getting set, Patterson planned to press him constantly, throwing a stinging left jab from his new stance. Warned Florio: "Leave Johansson alone in the center of the ring, and he'll knock your head off." In close, Patterson hoped to lower Johansson's guard with flurries of body punches, then use left hooks to catch up with the retreating champion and finish...
...Ronda, Patterson's life is monas tic. Says his trainer, Dan Florio: "Even his wife can't go upstairs to his room." In his tiny, pink-walled room, equipped only with necessary furniture, a crucifix and a certificate naming him an honorary Fairfield County deputy sheriff, Patterson gets up at 6 a.m. He puts on khaki pants a leather jacket, paratrooper boots and a cream-colored cap, runs from three to five miles before breakfast. He chops wood, skips rope, works for hours on the bags. In the dance-floor ring, he takes out his frustrations...
Upstairs & Down. When he came home Patterson promptly turned pro, with D'Amato as his manager. He was sent to Trainer Dan Florio at Stillman's Gym for advanced instruction. Today, at 21, Patterson is known as a "fellow who will leave you for dead. He is a good-looking six-footer with lean hips, long arms and broad shoulders powered by slabs of smooth muscle ... he fights with the violent gracefulness of a large cat hunting its dinner. He is a rarity-a good boxer with a knockout in either fist . . . He is hard...