Patterson, Floyd, 1935–2006, American boxer, b. Waco, N.C. He was brought up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and was sent to the Wiltwyck School at Esopus, N.Y., an institution for emotionally disturbed boys, where he first began to box. As an amateur he won 40 of 44 fights, climaxing his career by winning (1952) the Olympic middleweight championship. As a professional, he lost only one fight before knocking out Archie Moore Moore, Archie, 1913–98, American boxer, b. Benoit, Miss., as Archie Lee Wright. He claimed to have been born in 1916 in Collinsville, Ill. He first boxed professionally as a middleweight in 1935 or 1936, winning his first 13 matches by knockouts.
..... Click the link for more information. (1956) to become, at 21, the youngest man to win the heavyweight title. He successfully defended his title four times before losing it to Ingemar Johansson, of Sweden, in 1959. Patterson knocked out Johansson a year later to become the first man ever to regain the heavyweight title. In Sept., 1962, Patterson lost the championship to Sonny Liston Liston, Sonny (Charles Liston), 1932–71, American boxer, b. Little Rock, Ark. While serving a sentence for robbery at the Missouri State Penitentiary, Liston became interested in boxing. In 1953 he began his professional fighting career.
..... Click the link for more information. by a first-round knockout. Despite the defeat, Patterson continued to box, finally retiring in 1972. Once director of New York state's off-track betting, he became a trainer in the 1990s.

Patterson, Floyd

(born Jan. 4, 1935, Waco, N.C., U.S.—died May 11, 2006, New Paltz, N.Y.) U.S. boxer. Patterson grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y. As a middleweight amateur fighter, he won the New York Golden Gloves championship in 1951 and 1952 and won an Olympic gold medal in 1952. As a professional, he moved up to heavyweight and in 1956 succeeded Rocky Marciano as world heavyweight champion by knocking out Archie Moore. He lost the title to Ingemar Johansson in 1959, regained it in 1960 (becoming the first to hold the heavyweight championship twice), and lost it again in 1962 to Sonny Liston.

Patterson, Floyd (1935– ) boxer; born in Waco, Texas. He grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., and ended up in a correctional institution where he took up boxing. He won the gold medal in the middleweight class in the 1952 Olympics. Turning professional, he knocked out Archie Moore in 1956 to take the heavyweight title (vacated by Rocky Marciano). He successfully defended it four times before losing it to Ingemar Johansson of Sweden in 1959; he knocked out Johansson in a bout in 1960, thereby becoming the first heavyweight champion to regain his title. He defeated Johansson again in 1961 but lost the title for good to Sonny Liston in 1962. He continued to box for another decade.