Word: pattersons
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...season for reruns. Last fall in Chicago, it took Charles ("Sonny") Liston 2 min. 6 sec. to pluck the heavyweight crown from Floyd Patterson. Last week in Las Vegas, Liston spent 2 min. 10 sec. pounding Patterson into boxing oblivion. Like a man killing a rabbit with a stick, he clubbed the hapless challenger to the canvas-gracelessly and methodically, his sulphur-and-obsidian eyes betraying neither pleasure nor anger. "It was just something I had to do," grunted Sonny, whose mind was obviously on something else...
That something else was Cassius Clay. For his night's work on Patterson, Liston collected $300,000 of a $1,600,000 gate; with Clay, the gate might go to $8,000,000. It was a casting director's dream: Liston, the ex-con, scowling, surly, somnolent; Clay, the will-o'-the-wisp, gaudy, gay, garrulous, boastful, poetic. This time there would be emotion enough for everybody. People hate Liston and he hates them right back. People hiss at Clay and he laughs in their faces...
...Patterson eluded his 215-pound foe for a minute, and then Liston connected with a pair of vicious right uppercuts, followed by a virtual sledgehammer blow to the head. Patterson went down for the first time. Liston then backed Patterson against the ropes, pummeled him across the ring, and floored the broading boy from Scarsdale, N.Y. with a solid left...
...Dazed, Patterson staggered up once again, only to meet a left to the stomach and a brutal left to the head, which sent him to the canvas for the last time...
...fight could mark the end of Patterson's ring career, for he'll certainly never get another shot at Liston's crown. Floyd was probably crying all the way to the bank; he earned $330,000 for his effort, which comes to $9,138,461.53 per hour...