Boxing HEAVY-WEIGHT TITLE

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29238, 23 June 1960, Page 9

Boxing HEAVY-WEIGHT TITLE

Return Bout Likely Soon

(N.Z. Press Association-Copyright) NEW YORK, June 21.

A return bout between Floyd Patterson and Ingemar Johansson within four months seems almost certain. Patterson, who last night became the first man in ring history to regain the world heavyweight title, told reporters that he was ready to fight Johansson again within the 120 days stipulated by the re-match contract. Johansson, showing the scars of his fifth-round knock-out last night, told reporters he wanted to meet his conqueror again, and saw no reason why it should not be within 120 days. “This is the way I look at it,” said Patterson. “In the first fight I definitely underestimated him, In the second fight, Johansson more or less underestimated me. “The third fight should decide the championship. I would like to fight him again.” Patterson said he had been worried that he might have seriously hurt Johansson when he saw the Swede stretched out prone on the canvas after being hit with a tremendous left hook in the fifth round. “I was looking at his face,” said Patterson. “I noticed that the referee had finished counting and that Johansson’s leg was shaking. I was worried because I thought I might have really hurt him, but I think it was the nerves in his leg.” Did he think Johansson was an overrated champion?

“Definitely not,” Patterson snapped back at the questioner. “I would not say that. Even if he was, I would never say that about any fighter.” Patterson admitted that Johansson’s first right-hand punch in the second round “shook me up enough.” Patterson said that, after the right, he knew he was going to win. The way he had taken the right was “one of my tricks that I had worked on in training. I saw the right coming this time. Last year I didn’t see it," he said.

Request Declined. —The Christchurch Drainage Board declined a request by the Canterbury Amateur Sports Federation for assistance in sending Canterbury athletes in category B to the Olympic Games. The board’s policy has been to decline such applications, as any donation given by it would overlap that given by ,the territorial local authorities and come from the same set of ratepayers.