Peter Rademacher

Education

Washington State University.

Career

Rademacher first began boxing as a form of rehabilitation during his recovery from Rheumatic fever, which he contracted in military school. In his amateur career, Rademacher had 79 fights, going 72-7. He also captured the Chicago Golden Gloves, the All-Army championship, and the Service championship in 1956, before qualifying for the Olympic team

In the Olympics, held in Melbourne, he captured a gold medal in the heavyweight division.

Olympic results

Defeated Josef Němec KO 2

Defeated Daan Bekker KO 3

Defeated Lev Mukhin KO 1

Rademacher also attended college, playing offensive line on the football team for Washington State. lieutenant is the only time to date that a fighter making his professional debut has challenged for the world heavyweight title.

Rademacher dropped Patterson in round two, but Patterson recovered and defeated him by a knockout in six. He lost to Moore, Folley and London but beat Chuvalo, Clark, and Turman.

After retirement, he went into business at McNeil Corporation in Akron, Ohio.

He retired as President in 1987. Rademacher is active in local politics in Medina County, Ohio. He is also well known in northern Ohio for the amazing gasoline-powered one wheel "unicycle" he rides in local parades.

Achievements

• He won a series of tournaments, including the 1949, 1951, 1952, and 1953 Seattle Golden Gloves (he lost in 1950 to Zora Folley, who he would face several times in his career), and the United States Amateur Championship as a heavyweight in 1953—avenging his earlier loss to Folley. After winning the gold medal, Rademacher started saying that he would be able to become world heavyweight champion in his first professional fight. He made his belief public and was able to lure world Heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson into defending his crown against the debutant Rademacher. The bout was refereed by former lightheavyweight champion Tommy Loughran, who himself had contended for the heavy crown once, versus Primo Carnera, in 1934. Rademacher fought Zora Folley, Brian London, George Chuvalo, Buddy Turman, and the former world light heavyweight champion, Archie Moore. His last bout was with former world middleweight champion Carl "Bobo" Olson, whom he beat by decision.