Sport: Right Makes Might

When he considered his right-hand punch, Ingemar Johansson spoke in terms of muted and mystical awe that such a thing could be. “The arm works by itself,” said he. “It is faster than the eye. When I hit any man, he cannot stand up.”

But the fight experts only grinned and shrugged off Challenger Johansson, 26, as a good, clean-cut Swedish kid, an import of blue-eyed, dimpled innocence who would be diced into smorgasbord by the flashing attack of Heavyweight Champion Floyd Patterson. Nobody was impressed by the fact that Johansson was undefeated in his 21 fights, last year had demolished No. 1 Contender Eddie Machen with the very same right. European heavyweights, however upright their intentions, traditionally have been horizontally inclined against American champions. And Patterson, 24, camping in a grubby New Jersey shack, grimly punishing himself in training with everything but a hair shirt, was determined to prove to detractors that he deserved the title.

Innocents Abroad. In sharp contrast, Johansson had turned his training into what often seemed like a lark in the country. He moved into a $100,000 cottage at the celebrity-wooing Grossinger’s in the Catskills. From Sweden he imported his parents, his brothers, his sister, his brother’s fiancee and his own fiancee of five years’ standing-in-waiting, Birgit Lundgren, a comely and compact brunette of 23. With Birgit on his mighty right arm, Johansson even made occasional forays into the nightclub whirl of Manhattan. In the gym Johansson worked hard on the bags, but treated his sparring partners with loving consideration. None seemed worthy of his right hand, and nobody even saw it in action. Self-appointed experts began to doubt that it had ever existed. JOHANSSON TALKS A GOOD FIGHT, sneered the New York World-Telegram and Sun.

By fight time, Patterson was a solid 5-1 favorite despite the nagging fact that he had been open to right hands throughout his coddled career, had been decked by the powderpuff blows of Roy Harris and Pete Rademacher. In fact, since he won the title in 1956 by defeating Archie Moore, Patterson had fought no competent heavyweights.

Tip-Off; Take-Off. At the bell in Yankee Stadium last week, the jug-eared, roundheaded Johansson pawed tentatively with a left jab, kept his right cocked to launch the big punch. He did not seem too heavily muscled, but the tip-off of his power came late in the first round when he threw his very first right hand. Though it was a glancing blow, the 182-lb. Patterson blinked.

With classic simplicity, the end came in the third round. Johansson flicked a textbook left hand, then let loose the punch he had been talking about for months: a straight right hand backed up by all the power in his broad-shouldered, 196-lb. body. With devastating accuracy it found a small opening between Patterson’s raised gloves, caught him squarely in the face (see cut). Patterson literally rose six inches into the air before thudding to the canvas on the seat of his white satin pants. He wobbled up at the count of nine, and stared bewildered in the direction of the Yankee bleachers. Johansson did not wait for him to turn around. He clipped him with a left hook, then smashed a right over the ear. Patterson fell. Five times more Patterson lurched gamely to his feet, and five times more Johansson smashed him down. At last Referee Ruby Goldstein called off the slaughter, and the freshest grin in boxing flashed over the unmarked face of Johansson.

Whooping Swedes swarmed toward Johansson, Birgit sobbed prettily at ringside, and in Sweden happy millions poured into the streets to pour victory toasts of aquavit by the dawn’s early light. For Johansson, the victory was especially sweet: it erased forever the disgrace he suffered at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki when he was disqualified in the heavyweight finals for “not trying.” More important, Johansson needed no manager to tell him the value of the world’s richest boxing title—or how to exploit it. The son of a stonecutter, he was a gifted street brawler as a youth, got married at 17, fathered a son and daughter and was later divorced. But Johansson has long since settled down, is now a shrewd investor of his fight earnings, owns profitable construction and fishing companies in Sweden. For working 8 min. 3 sec. last week, Entrepreneur Johansson earned an estimated $250,000 (v. Patterson’s $600,000).

With an even rosier future in the boxing business, Johansson was understandably in high good humor after the fight. “You see, it is a right hand,” he cried. “It was no fantasy.” Fantasy or no, Johansson’s tremendous punch against Patterson had already become as much a part of boxing lore as “the long count” that saved the championship for Gene Tunney in his 1927 fight with Jack Dempsey. And by any standard, Johansson’s right hand is the biggest thing to hit boxing in years.