June 26, 1959

Swedish challenger Ingemar Johansson insisted he had a powerful right hand, though he refused to display it before reporters in training sessions. Tonight at Yankee Stadium, Johansson shows he wasn't lying. He displays the hammer of Thor in his right hand, much to the chagrin of heavyweight champ Floyd Patterson.

In the third round, a booming right stuns Patterson, knocking him to the canvas. Patterson staggers to his feet at the count of nine, but six more times the 196-pound Johansson decks the dazed 182-pound champ. Finally, after the seventh knockdown, referee Ruby Goldstein stops the fight at 2:03 of the round and peace-loving Sweden has its first heavyweight champ in the 26-year-old native of Goteborg.

"It was a bolt out of the blue," says Cus D'Amato, Patterson's trainer, about the first knockdown punch. "Floyd never saw it coming, so he can't describe it. But I did. It hit him flush and high on the face."

Patterson has more success in his next two fights with Johansson, knocking out the Swede both times.