NEW PALTZ, N.Y. -- Former heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson died at his New York home Thursday. He was 71 years old.

Patterson was suffering from Alzheimer's disease and also had prostate cancer in his latter years.

In a stellar pro career that began in 1952 and ended with a loss to Muhammad Ali in 1972, Patterson finished with a record of 55-8-1 with 40 knockouts. He was also the first boxer to regain the heavyweight title after losing it.

Patterson, an Olympic middleweight gold medalist at the 1952 Games in Helsinki, was at his peak in the late 1950s and early '60s.

He beat Archie Moore in 1956 for the vacant heavyweight crown, then made four successful title defenses before his legendary trio of bouts with Ingemar Johansson.

Johansson earned a TKO in the third round of the first fight on June 26, 1959 in New York City to claim the title, knocking Patterson down seven times in the last round. Patterson, though, came back with a fifth-round knockout a year later at the Polo Grounds in New York City.

The two met again in March of 1961 in Miami and Patterson rebounded from a pair of knockdowns in the first round to knock Johansson out in the sixth.

After a victory over Tom McNeeley in December 1961, Patterson took on Sonny Liston 10 months later and was knocked out in the first round at Comiskey Park in Chicago.

Liston duplicated the feat with a first-round knockout in July 1963 in Las Vegas.

Patterson continued to fight over the next nine years and had another shot at the title in 1965 against Ali, losing on a TKO in the 12th round. Seven years later, Ali posted a seventh-round TKO at Madison Square Garden to send Patterson into retirement at the age of 37.