Summary of David Remnick's King of the World

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Heavyweight Champion of the world, Floyd Patterson, packed a loser’s suitcase. He was champion, the youngest man ever to win the title, but he was also doubt-addled. He knew he had to beware: Liston’s left jab was as powerful as another man’s cross.

#2 Floyd was backed by the media and public, who thought he would beat Liston. However, he was extremely nervous and afraid of losing. He was a champion in the sense that Chester A. Arthur had been president.

#3 Floyd was prepared to lose the fight with Liston. He had lost before, first to Joey Maxim in 1954, and then to Ingemar Johansson in 1959. He had no great advantage he could call his own. He had never deserved any recognition or belonging in the first place.

#4 Floyd Patterson was afraid of getting hurt, but he was terrified of losing. He was one step closer to the slum he came from.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jul 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822544604

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Insights on David Remnick's King of the World

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Heavyweight Champion of the world, Floyd Patterson, packed a loser’s suitcase. He was champion, the youngest man ever to win the title, but he was also doubt-addled. He knew he had to beware: Liston’s left jab was as powerful as another man’s cross.

#2

Floyd was backed by the media and public, who thought he would beat Liston. However, he was extremely nervous and afraid of losing. He was a champion in the sense that Chester A. Arthur had been president.

#3

Floyd was prepared to lose the fight with Liston. He had lost before, first to Joey Maxim in 1954, and then to Ingemar Johansson in 1959. He had no great advantage he could call his own. He had never deserved any recognition or belonging in the first place.

#4

Floyd Patterson was afraid of getting hurt, but he was terrified of losing. He was one step closer to the slum he came from.

#5

Floyd Patterson was the first professional athlete to reveal his fears so openly. He was also the first to receive the modern treatment of Freudian sportswriting.

#6

Floyd had a difficult time in school, but he eventually went to Wiltwyck School for Boys, a farm for troubled youngsters in upstate New York, where he was sent when he was ten. He was never a good student, but at least now he could function in the world.

#7

D’Amato’s philosophy was that a fighter must understand himself or else he would lose. He said that fear was natural, and that it was normal for a fighter to have fear. Without fear, we would not survive.

#8

Floyd Patterson was a quick fighter with a good left hook. He could sneak inside his opponent’s jab and, with a combination, take him out. He was a middleweight champion in 1952, and in 1961 he came back to avenge his humiliating seven-knockdown loss to Johansson.

#9

On December 4, 1961, President John F. Kennedy watched a televised boxing doubleheader in different cities: Patterson’s fourth-round knockout of Tom McNeely in Toronto and Liston’s first-round destruction of the fighter he called Albert Quick Fall Westphal in Philadelphia.

#10

The civil rights movement was gathering momentum in the South, and leaders were worried that they would lose a