Floyd Patterson vs Pete Rademacher

Heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson retained his title against Pete Rademacher at Sicks’ Stadium in Seattle on 22 August 1957, knocking out the challenger at 2 minutes 57 seconds of the sixth round. Patterson weighed 187lb to Rademacher’s 202lb and was making the second defence of the championship he had won from Archie Moore the previous November. Rademacher, the 1956 Olympic heavyweight gold medallist, was making his professional debut, the first and only occasion on which a boxer has challenged for the world heavyweight title in his first paid contest. Former light-heavyweight champion Tommy Loughran was the referee. Rademacher had assembled a group of 22 businessmen to guarantee Patterson a $250,000 purse, while his own purse was reported at $10,000. The match was widely condemned as a mismatch, with former champion Joe Louis among its strongest critics, and Patterson was quoted as a 10-1 favourite on the eve of the contest. A crowd of 16,961 produced a gate of $243,030.

Rademacher nevertheless began with considerably more assurance than the circumstances suggested. He had won 72 of 79 amateur bouts and had knocked out all three opponents on his way to Olympic gold in Melbourne, and in the opening round he used his jab freely and was the busier man. Patterson, only 22 but already an experienced professional with 33 previous contests, appeared content to examine the newcomer rather than immediately force matters. Rademacher was physically the larger man, taller and some 15 pounds heavier, and his right hand carried enough authority to command respect. The challenger’s confidence increased during the second round as Patterson remained comparatively passive. Rademacher caught him with a right, then, after Patterson was knocked off balance, followed up with another right that put the champion on the floor. Patterson landed on his side but rose almost immediately, before Loughran had progressed far with the count. For a few seconds the improbable possibility of a championship changing hands to a debutant no longer seemed entirely fanciful.

The knockdown altered Patterson’s approach. He began punching with greater purpose and closed the distance more quickly, forcing Rademacher into exchanges at a pace quite different from the three-round amateur contests to which he had been accustomed. In the third, Patterson caught the challenger with a combination and later put him down with a right to the head. Rademacher rose and continued to fight, but the initiative had changed. The fourth round was less eventful. Rademacher still attempted to bring the right hand into play and was sufficiently active to keep the contest competitive, while Patterson showed no inclination to waste punches. By this stage, however, the difference in professional experience was becoming increasingly important. Rademacher had already gone beyond the length of any contest of his previous career, while Patterson was accustomed to conserving himself and applying pressure over longer distances.

The fifth brought the decisive change. Rademacher managed to drive Patterson backwards with a right hand and stepped forward in an effort to follow it, but the champion caught him coming in with a fast left-right combination and sent him down. Patterson now attacked systematically. Rademacher was floored four times during the round, repeatedly getting to his feet despite increasingly uncertain legs. The champion’s speed was too much for him at close range, and Patterson was able to punch before Rademacher could properly set himself. The challenger’s strength and determination kept him in the contest, but by the bell his condition was plainly deteriorating. Where Rademacher’s early attack had been built upon confidence and the possibility of landing another heavy right, he was now reacting to Patterson’s punches rather than initiating his own. The fifth had removed most of the remaining uncertainty from the result.

Rademacher came out for the sixth and immediately attempted to get close, leaning his head against Patterson’s chest as though trying to deny the champion room to punch. Patterson found the necessary space and drove a short right to the jaw, putting him down again. Rademacher dragged himself upright at nine and, remarkably, attempted to attack, throwing a right hand which missed. Patterson resumed the pressure and sent him to the canvas once more near the end of the round. Contemporary and later records differ slightly in the way the knockdowns are counted, but BoxRec’s fight record credits Patterson with seven knockdowns in all. With Rademacher exhausted and badly beaten, his corner called for the contest to be stopped. Loughran completed the count as the official ending was recorded at 2:57 of the sixth. The referee later praised Rademacher’s courage, describing him as one of the most courageous fighters he had encountered.

Rademacher’s challenge had been unusual enough to attract considerable criticism before the first bell. The National Boxing Association initially objected to an unrated professional newcomer receiving a heavyweight championship opportunity, although the Washington authorities sanctioned the contest and the championship remained at stake. There was no live radio or television broadcast, and proposed closed-circuit coverage was abandoned. The attraction, therefore, depended heavily on the novelty of the match and Rademacher’s Olympic reputation. He justified the spectacle better than most critics had expected. He won the opening exchanges, knocked down the heavyweight champion in the second round and remained competitive until Patterson’s greater professional experience, speed and accuracy began to tell. He did not possess the pacing, defence or seasoned balance of a leading professional heavyweight, but neither did he behave like a man overwhelmed by the occasion.

For Patterson, the contest provided an unexpectedly awkward passage before ending in a decisive victory. He had defended against Tommy Jackson only 23 days earlier, stopping him in ten rounds, and later acknowledged that returning so quickly had not been ideal. Once Rademacher’s knockdown brought him fully into the fight, however, Patterson established the difference between a first-class amateur and an experienced world professional. Rademacher’s achievement remained extraordinary even in defeat: he had gone directly from Olympic champion to a challenge for the most important title in boxing and had put its holder on the floor. He would continue professionally, eventually compiling a 15-7-1 record and defeating such men as George Chuvalo and Bobo Olson, but nothing in his subsequent career matched the singular circumstances of that Seattle night. Patterson, meanwhile, left Sicks’ Stadium with his championship intact after a contest that began as a curiosity and briefly threatened to become one of the most improbable upsets heavyweight boxing had seen.

This was one of the maddest world heavyweight title fights ever made. Pete Rademacher had not had a single professional contest, yet there he was challenging Floyd Patterson after winning Olympic gold in Melbourne. Joe Louis called it a dreadful mismatch, and on paper he was right. Patterson was 22, already world champion and had just stopped Tommy Jackson. Rademacher was stepping straight from three-round amateur boxing into a 15-round title fight.

Yet Rademacher nearly made everyone swallow their words. He dropped Patterson in the second round, and that tells you he was no publicity stunt. He could punch, he had nerve, and he genuinely fancied the job.

Then the professional difference showed. Patterson settled himself, shortened the distance and started getting there first. Once he had Rademacher hurt, the speed and combinations became too much. Patterson put him down repeatedly before finishing him at 2:57 of the sixth.

I give Rademacher enormous credit because he came to win, not survive. But there is a reason fighters serve an apprenticeship. Amateur class and professional seasoning are different things, and Patterson proved it brutally once the early surprise had passed.