Referee Ron Lipton had this to say about the late Floyd Patterson: "Moments ago I learned of Floyd's passing.  I have done so many personal things with him I am grief stricken to the core at this loss.  He gave me all my big fights in the Garden, and stood by me until the people around him at the Commission turned on him and tried to manipulate him out of his job. I stood by him in televised interviews, articles saying he was always the most
qualified to know what was best for the fighters.  We worked an amateur fight show involving Poughkeepsie Police officer Brian Burke in New Hampshire together, me and Floyd, and there is a picture that was taken showing us walking out of the dressing room together.  I rode up to New Hampshire with him from New Paltz that day and spent every second with him talking boxing whenever we were together. I was with him every day at his gym in New Paltz in 1991-92, hours upon hours every day.  I saw him training as a young man in the Gramercy Park gym in New York around the corner from my Dad's store in the 50's and we stayed friends. He was so loyal to his wife Janet, he was such a man of principal and honor and my own father's hero, so my heart is really broken by this news. Floyd sat at ringside watching me referee the big fights on HBO and always came over to me afterward and told me I did a good job. Then he started to slip mentally in the late 90's it was so sad to me.  He was so sick. I loved him very, very much and always will."