JOHANSSON AND PATTERSON : These Days, They’re Doing Road Work as a Running Team

Remember the toonderbolt? It was what Ingemar Johansson called his right hand, the one he used to knock Floyd Patterson down seven times and win the heavyweight boxing championship more than 27 years ago.

After June 26, 1959, toonderbolt inspired fear throughout boxing. No one had ever seen anything like it. It was fast, powerful and punishing. Everyone feared the toonderbolt.

You should see the toonderbolt today. It hasn’t lost any of its speed, but now Johansson has brought the toonderbolt’s fingers into the act.

There goes the toonderbolt for more gravy. There it goes for the potato salad. Wow, look at that quickness!

Now the toonderbolt flashes across the table for more pasta. There it is again, snatching some more biscuits. Now the toonderbolt has seized another slice of meat loaf. Yes, the toonderbolt will have more stroganoff, thank you. More cheesecake? No problem for the toonderbolt.

“Ingo, how much do you weigh?” Johansson was asked the other day.

“About 250,” he said.

Floyd Patterson, sitting next to Johansson, couldn’t hold it back. A snicker escaped his lips. Johansson looks closer to 300. Everywhere, buttons strain.

Patterson can afford to snicker. He weighs 180, or about 10 pounds less than his fighting weight of 25 years ago. Patterson, 51, says he stays trim by working out with the boxers he trains at his gym in New Paltz, N.Y. He looks as if he could be a light-heavyweight contender right now. Johansson, 54, who lives in Pompano Beach, Fla., looks as if he hasn’t stopped eating since he beat up Patterson.

By the way, if your dishes start to rattle a little this morning, not to worry. It’s not the Big One. It’s Ingemar. He’s running in the 8-kilometer Foot Locker Partners race in Griffith Park, starting at 8. So is Patterson. They’re teammates, in fact. They’re almost a cinch to win the ex-heavyweight champions’ division.

Publicist Al Franken is Johansson’s and Patterson’s host during their L.A. stay. He had lunch Tuesday and dinner Wednesday with the two former champions and took careful notes.

“Ingo had lunch Wednesday at Lawry’s and had an appetizer, the Diamond Jim cut, salad and dessert,” Franken said.

“We had dinner at the Century Plaza Thursday, and Ingo had a big steak. My wife, Shirley, couldn’t finish her second lamb chop, so Ingo ate it. He also had a salad and strawberry cheesecake.”

Two thoughts occur when you see Johansson and then imagine him running in any race longer than a buffet line at Caesars Palace:

--This man should not be running at all.

--Forget the toonderbolt, this man has the greatest knees in history.

“Have any doctors suggested that you shouldn’t run when you’re this heavy?” he was asked.

“Doctors don’t know (bleep),” he said. “I don’t run at a hard pace, and my stamina is good. I’ve run in 10 marathons. I’ve run in the New York Marathon, and in December I plan to run in the Honolulu Marathon. My best time is 4 hours 20 minutes. If I were to lose 10 kilos (22 pounds), I could take an hour off of that.

“I feel wonderful after running 26 miles. How could it be dangerous?”

In other words, minus 10 kilos, Ingo could beat Patterson, who says his best time is 3:34.

“I run every day when I’m home--about five to eight miles,” Patterson said. “But Ingo’s right about doctors. I’m 51. If I went to a doctor he’d tell me to stop running. I’ve been running and sweating since I was 14 years old. If I stopped running, I’d probably drop dead a week later. What would the doctor say then?”

Johansson and Patterson appear together often, at major boxing shows and distance races, and seem to be warm friends nearly three decades after fighting three times for the title. Patterson became the first man to regain the heavyweight championship when he knocked out Johansson in the fifth round of their 1960 rematch. Patterson then won on a sixth-round knockout in the 1961 rubber match.

Seated around a poolside table on the roof of a West L.A. hotel the other day, they talked about boxing, today and yesterday.

On today’s crop of heavyweights: Patterson: There are only two heavyweights around who are really good, in my opinion--Mike Tyson and Trevor Berbick. They fight next month, so I’m anxious to see that one. If Tyson gets by Berbick, he’ll go through Michael Spinks like a hot knife through butter.

On how good the 20-year-old Tyson is: Patterson: He’s very strong, and very good. I’d like to see him throw better combinations now instead of trying to take guys out with one punch. He’s young, he’ll get better.

Johansson: Tyson is an unusually hard puncher. He knocks people cold with one punch. How many guys are there who consistently do that? He’s also very fast. Any time you have a fighter who’s that fast and who hits that hard, you’ve got something special. And he gets off first almost all the time, which is one of boxing’s golden rules.”

On the state of boxing today: Patterson: There are so few good fighters today. Tyson, (Mark) Breland, Berbick, (Tim) Witherspoon, (Marvin) Hagler . . . those guys come immediately to mind. But when I think back to my era and remember Sugar Ray Robinson, Kid Gavilan, Johnny Saxton . . . I don’t see those kinds of skills today. If you looked at the backgrounds of a lot of trainers today, I’d think you’d find a lot of them never boxed themselves. I don’t think that was true 30 years ago.

Johansson: There are too many people in boxing who don’t know anything about boxing. In Sweden, the national trainer for Sweden’s amateur boxing program knows absolutely nothing about boxing.

On taking too many punches for too many years:

Patterson: I boxed for 22 years and took a lot of shots and finished up with no brain damage. Until about three years ago, I was boxing the equivalent of 20 to 40 rounds a day in my gym, teaching young kids, and taking a few punches. One day I thought, “Wait a second, maybe I’m pressing my luck.” So I don’t get in the ring anymore. I just run to stay in shape.

On being a Swedish heavyweight champion of the world: Johansson: It was great . . . while it lasted. I traveled almost continuously around Sweden that year, putting on exhibitions. I made good money doing that, but I fell into some sloppy habits in the ring against guys who couldn’t fight and it hurt me in the two rematches.

On carrying a “glass chin” rap: Patterson: It’s true I was down a lot. Some writer wrote that I was down more than any other heavyweight champion, but I don’t know if that’s true. If you’re going to say I had a glass chin, then how come it never broke? I mean, if I was down more than anyone else, I must’ve gotten up more than anyone else, right?

When I fought Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali, Patterson’s last opponent, in 1972) my back hurt so bad I couldn’t throw punches and I couldn’t bob and weave. I kept thinking, “Man, I’ve gotta go down and stay down.” But when he finally did knock me down, I got right back up. And when the ref stopped the fight, I begged him not to.

You know, when Johansson knocked me down the first time in that first fight, I had no immediate memory of it. When I got up, I heard the referee say, “Neutral corner!” He was talking to Ingemar, but I thought he was talking to me. That’s why I was walking to the corner when Ingemar came after me again.

Johansson: Floyd was always in tremendous physical condition. You might knock him down, but you knew he’d always get up and come after you.

On too many champions: Patterson: There are too many boxing federations and too many weight divisions. There’s something like 54 world champions today. Every time you turn on the TV, there’s a championship fight. There ought to be one American-controlled boxing federation. Why not? The money in the sport is right here. It’s our money, our TV and our boxers.