Sonny Liston: Baddest man ever.

[Words]

fuck Mike Tyson, Liston was from another world. Look at the guy, can you see the look of pain in those eyes?

[Only registered and activated users can see links]


Seriously, this guy was unreal. He absolutely annhilated Floyd Patterson, tore a hole through the heavyweight division despite no amatuer career. People talk about "Prime Tyson" being unbeatable, but I'm sorry, Prime Sonny Liston is on another level.

He lost to Cassius Clay, yeah but we all know styles make fights. Young Ali is probably the fastest and most elusive heavyweight who ever lived, a brawler like Liston would struggle with him. But ya wanna know something, Sonny Liston was born in 1927, not 1932 which the mafia said when the made up his birth certificate. By the time he fought Ali the second time he was 38 years old, and an OLD 38, with no amatuer background just a life of poverty, crime, incarceration and terrible hardship.


In his prime, had he not been run by mobsters, he could've been one of the best fighters of all time. Whatever you think of him, he was surely not a nice man, you have to have utter and total RESPECT for him as a fighter. Not to be fucked with.

[joe33]

My mum got his autograph in london when he came over when he was young,she said his hand was like a shovel,she sadly lost it years ago.

Does the dive though not piss you of a wee bit?,probaly not much he could have done about it if the mob ordered it,but whos to know for sure?

[Words]

It pisses me off A LOT, because its fucking corrupt obviously, but because if he hadn't been controlled by the mob he's have been a total monster. He was just unlucky to be caught up in all that shit.

He had the biggest hands of any heavyweight ever, 15inches around, and 84inch reach, which is longer than Lennox Lewis who was 6ft5 compared to Sonny's 6ft1. He was also a natural left hander who fought orthodox, and had such a pulverising jab he could KO people with it.

[GARCIA]

Untill Ali came along of course.

[kg0208]

Wonder how Liston would have fared with Foreman. I think he would have outboxed him to a decision.

[GARCIA]

Wonder how Liston would have fared with Foreman. I think he would have outboxed him to a decision.

I'd have to disagree with your there mate.

Foreman would bust that ass

:deal

[kg0208]

I'd have to disagree with your there mate.

Foreman would bust that ass

:deal

Liston has underrated boxing skills and a fantastic jab. Foreman crushed fighters who tried to swarm his or trade with him. Liston was bright enough not to do either IMO.

[Polymath]

Foreman said Liston was the only man who ever 'made him box'
(A young Foreman sparred Sonny)

[MSTR]

Liston doesn't look intimidating to me in the slightest. He just has a really droopy , slow looking face. To compare him to Tyson in terms of intimidation is quite simply ridiculous. Maybe as a figher yes, and I am sure his abilities intimidated people, but on looks alone Tyson>>>>>>>Liston.

[MSTR]

Liston has underrated boxing skills and a fantastic jab. Foreman crushed fighters who tried to swarm his or trade with him. Liston was bright enough not to do either IMO.

Foreman would have been the bigger fighter though, with the longer reach. And Foreman had an under rated jab also. I think Sonny would have been caught, and the bigger stronger more powerful man would simply have dominated.

[TRUEBELIEVER 66]

fuck Mike Tyson, Liston was from another world. Look at the guy, can you see the look of pain in those eyes?


[Only registered and activated users can see links]


Seriously, this guy was unreal. He absolutely annhilated Floyd Patterson, tore a hole through the heavyweight division despite no amatuer career. People talk about "Prime Tyson" being unbeatable, but I'm sorry, Prime Sonny Liston is on another level.

He lost to Cassius Clay, yeah but we all know styles make fights. Young Ali is probably the fastest and most elusive heavyweight who ever lived, a brawler like Liston would struggle with him. But ya wanna know something, Sonny Liston was born in 1927, not 1932 which the mafia said when the made up his birth certificate. By the time he fought Ali the second time he was 38 years old, and an OLD 38, with no amatuer background just a life of poverty, crime, incarceration and terrible hardship.


In his prime, had he not been run by mobsters, he could've been one of the best fighters of all time. Whatever you think of him, he was surely not a nice man, you have to have utter and total RESPECT for him as a fighter. Not to be fucked with.
A prime Tyson was NOT unbeatable :-( he was only 23 and in his Prime when Douglas Knocked him OUT:dead .
A prime Holyfield with his speed, endurance and iron will would have given Liston more hell than a prime Tyson..
Foreman would have KO'D LIston, so would a prime Lennox Lewis...

[Toopretty]

Liston was a big country motherfucker. Always scary.

[TRUEBELIEVER 66]

If he was born in 1927 that would have made him only 43 when he passed away:-( so young to go..
But a lot of guy's GO young when they get caught up with the mob..

[chimba]

Liston has underrated boxing skills and a fantastic jab. Foreman crushed fighters who tried to swarm his or trade with him. Liston was bright enough not to do either IMO.

Liston was probably the greatest heavyweight technician ever.

[brownpimp88]

tysons run from 86-89 was more impressive than listons run from 59-63

[Holmes' Jab]

tysons run from 86-89 was more impressive than listons run from 59-63

You're right with this point. Whilst I'd agree with that, however I reckon Liston would be the more formidable head to head force and would prevail in a fantasy matchup between the two.


Ps: I'd favour Liston against Foreman as well, providing he boxes smartly behind what is one of the best jabs in HW history.

[ron u.k.]

liston was a real intimidating presence,a real uncompromising tough bastard.however he certainly wasn't a brawler,he had really good all round boxing skills,had one of the best jabs ever,a devastating left hook and put his combinations together really well.also his chin was solid.to know what listons about,people should largely ignore the ali fights,instead go onto you tube and see both of his fights against a hard punching and young cleveland williams.it's great stuff.

[ChrisPontius]

Liston did have an amateur career. According to most sources he was born in 1932.

And it's a bit disappointing that "the baddest man ever" quits on his stool after 6 rounds of moderate punishment against a not so hard puncher, in the very next fight after his peak win.

Give me a 'not so bad' man who at least finishes fights when faced with adversity any time of the day.

[The Kurgan]

My mum got his autograph in london when he came over when he was young,she said his hand was like a shovel,she sadly lost it years ago.


She lost his hand?! How did she remove it? Did she actually use it as a shovel?

I've never thought Liston looked intimidating out of the ring personally. Most of the time he just looks like you've stolen his pudding and he's upset. Now, in the ring, he looked supremely intimidating because of the cold perfection of his performances. It's similar to Joe Louis: not an intimidating guy out of the ring, but a cold ruthless destroyer outside of it.

Now, Bennie Briscoe looked like serial killer's worst nightmare, inside and outside of the ring.

[PATSYS]

fuck Mike Tyson, Liston was from another world. Look at the guy, can you see the look of pain in those eyes?

[Only registered and activated users can see links]


Seriously, this guy was unreal. He absolutely annhilated Floyd Patterson, tore a hole through the heavyweight division despite no amatuer career. People talk about "Prime Tyson" being unbeatable, but I'm sorry, Prime Sonny Liston is on another level.

He lost to Cassius Clay, yeah but we all know styles make fights. Young Ali is probably the fastest and most elusive heavyweight who ever lived, a brawler like Liston would struggle with him. But ya wanna know something, Sonny Liston was born in 1927, not 1932 which the mafia said when the made up his birth certificate. By the time he fought Ali the second time he was 38 years old, and an OLD 38, with no amatuer background just a life of poverty, crime, incarceration and terrible hardship.


In his prime, had he not been run by mobsters, he could've been one of the best fighters of all time. Whatever you think of him, he was surely not a nice man, you have to have utter and total RESPECT for him as a fighter. Not to be fucked with.

So what if he annihilated Patterson? Patterson is significantly smaller than Liston and had terrible chin. Tyson terrorised much better fighters in Spinks, Holmes, Tucker, etc.

[Bigcat]

Sonny was the sweetest man outside the ring and a complete loving family man, but if when Geraldine was out of town and he had access to liquor then he was buck wild, he had a habit of driving drunk and antagonising cops late in the evening just for kicks which is largely why they picked on him.. I was fortunate to look at some of Listons family photo albums with Johnny Tocco just before he died , i never saw so many smiley pictures of sonny in all of my life, he was uncle to a lot of neighbourhood kids because he had none of his own (only a daughter , not by Gerry). Tocco had a speed bag that sonny used to hit and that thing was hammered, not the bag itself because he went through 1 every 3 weeks but the board which was an overturned casino 21 table sawn down.. it had a thick crimson ring running around the swivel through constant slamming of the leather. One thingh was very striking wheni saw old gym footage though, he was a fast mother who had a trick that he pulled over every sparring guy he went at it with, he would feint the jab then in a heart beat double and treble the jab a the most ferocious speed it was superhuman.. The house he and Geraldine lived in was on the old part of the desert inn golf course and country club and was initially bought by his so called friends .. Ash Resnick and Frank Palermo... he and Davey Pearl would meet for coffee at a place called bagel mania in las vegas and joke around before training .. We often don't associate laughter or fun around Sonny but he was a very fun guy, if you ever spoke to Hank Kaplan he would tell you about his dry humour , he was fucking prankster .. Sonny always looked moody because his better known pictures are press photos and he hated being stalked by the press.. or police pictures.. Sonny and George would have been a great fight, he was a hard puncher George, His trainer confedent Doc Broadus was longtime friend of sonnys but only occasionally allowed them to spar, he said to me Sonny used to trip off George, he was a brash kid who like a young puppy would argue back at sonny when on trips abroad, Sonny would put up with Georges youthful adolecent outbursts purely because it reminded him of his youthful former self.. I wish i had the chance to meet sonny .. but i doknow most of his old time frinds that remain.. God bless...

[Dorfmeister]

Someday they're going to write a blues song just for fighters. It will be for a slow guitar, soft trumpet and a bell. -- Sonny Liston

Late Jack Newfield stated on ESPN and concerning the 1962 Patterson-Liston bout that neither Sonny nor Floyd were the persons the media made them to be. Stereotypes that's all they were - fixed impressions, exaggerated or preconceived ideas about particular social groups, usually based solely on physical appearance:
Sonny Liston was the big black N***o in every white man's hallway, waiting to do him in, deal him under, for all the hurts white men have been able to inflict on his world. Sonny Liston was "the huge N***o," the "bad n****r," a heavy-faced replica of every whipped-up woogie in the world. He was the underdeveloped have-not (politically naive) backward country, the subject people, finally here to collect his pound of flesh.

The mock contest between Liston and Patterson was a "brushfire" limited war. Neo-Colonial policy to confuse the issue. Patterson was to represent the fruit of the missionary ethic; he had found God, reversed his underprivileged (uncontrolled) violence, and turned it to work for the democratic liberal imperialist state. The tardy black Horatio Alger offering the glad hand of integration to welcome 20 million into the lunatic asylum of white America....

[C Basilio]

Dorfmeister your copy and paste comments are from the black racist radical Leroy Jones/Amiri Baraka not Jack Newfield.

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

[Dorfmeister]

Dorfmeister your copy and paste comments are from the black racist radical Leroy Jones/Amiri Baraka not Jack Newfield.

[Only registered and activated users can see links]

Jack Newfield said in ESPN classic that Sonny Liston was not the baddest man ever and Floyd Patterson was not the family man, the Gent that they were stereotyped to be - the black activist quotations portray those stereotypes and the contest between them in short manner and that is the link. My post is about Jack Newfield's position on these matters and the Sonny Liston stereotype ( in parallel to Floyd Patterson's) and it is not to be understood as a black racist, radical position of my own - I can not confirm that I have used these knowing to be Leroy Jones' or that I know this individual in case the same has some relation with the truth. I am not supposed to believe you are Carmen Basilio just cuz you use the nickname C Basilio, am I wrong?

[inchpunch]

Sonny Liston was great in his own time, but get real, he was a big HW in his era at 218 pounds and fought guys like Patterson who would be cruiserweight today. What would the Lewis/Klitschko HW's be if their best opponents were cruiserweights? Undefeated legends. This glorification of the past is unique to boxing, every other sport accepts that modern athletes are superior to greats from the past. Is there a sport that requires tremendous athletic skill were anybody from 1960 could compete with today's best? Exactly.

[ron u.k.]

Sonny Liston was great in his own time, but get real, he was a big HW in his era at 218 pounds and fought guys like Patterson who would be cruiserweight today. What would the Lewis/Klitschko HW's be if their best opponents were cruiserweights? Undefeated legends. This glorification of the past is unique to boxing, every other sport accepts that modern athletes are superior to greats from the past. Is there a sport that requires tremendous athletic skill were anybody from 1960 could compete with today's best? Exactly.here we go size,size,size.

[LennoxGOAT]

Any great heavyweight over 6'3 owns Liston. Frazier, Louis, Tyson, Holyfield, and Marciano all would beat him. Spinks, Byrd, and a few others are a pick'em.

Liston is the most overrated HW great of all-time.

[SevenSamurai]

Liston did have an amateur career. According to most sources he was born in 1932.

And it's a bit disappointing that "the baddest man ever" quits on his stool after 6 rounds of moderate punishment against a not so hard puncher, in the very next fight after his peak win.

Give me a 'not so bad' man who at least finishes fights when faced with adversity any time of the day.

Dont play the idiot with me.

FIXED FIGHT.

[ron u.k.]

Any great heavyweight over 6'3 owns Liston. Frazier, Louis, Tyson, Holyfield, and Marciano all would beat him. Spinks, Byrd, and a few others are a pick'em.

Liston is the most overrated HW great of all-time.he's a "great" but overrated? a little bit of a contradiction in terms?

[Bigcat]

There were too many fights surrounding mob related fighters at that time that i sometimes have trouble watching the fights seriously, Liston v Clay , and the Liston Ali fight are sketchy for me.. I have no DOUBT AT ALL saying the Liston v Ali fight was fixed (shabbilly) and the Marciano v Moore fight was completely fixed.. It would not be surprised if the Clay fight was a set up too.. I wish i could have the truth on hand but something tells me that the mob got to liston for both fights.. Tocco and Davey Pearl saw and heard too much that they became suspicious of Sonnys behaviour around that time.. The night he faced Wepner i think sonny lost the mob money by rebelling and thrashing Chuck although advised to lose convincngly.. Johnny Tocco told me before he passed away that Sonny had met with Carbo & Palermo prior to the Wepner fight but didn't take well to being told that he was to act upon mob advice, I personally think Ash Resnick saved Sonnys life by paying them off after a solid monitary loss.. I wish i knew for sure... Its so interesting.

God bless..

[ChrisPontius]

Dont play the idiot with me.

FIXED FIGHT.

Yeah, right. I guess that's why Liston was swinging with HARD punches that missed Ali's chin by an inch. Remember that at this point, Ali was seen as having a weak jaw: Banks, a light hitter, knocked him down, 180lbs mediocre Cooper knocked him down badly. Everyone thought Liston would murder him with the first punch that connected. Do you really think Liston would risk 6 rounds of attempts of landing hard punches to make it look 'real'?

And if it was a fix, why would he quit in between rounds? Surely that's a huge risk to take if they bet their house on TKO6 or TKO7.

And why would they try to blind Ali if they were fixed to lose anyway?


If you want to see a fix, see the second fight.

[McGrain]

Both Ali fights were fixed IMO

[Dorfmeister]

ESPN Classic special on the two Liston-Clay fights ( Miami Beach, Fl 1964 and Lewinston, Maine, 1965) with Brian Kenny, Bert Sugar and Jerry Izenberg, broke it down without a shadow of a doubt - Sonny couldn't land a jab on Clay in Miami until the fourth round and just was successful at pounding on him in the fifth due to that Monsel solution and Clay's momentary blindness... And as Liston was reaching with the left lead and Clay evading it with subtle head movement and smoothly on his toes, the "Louisiana Lip" was pounding back on the Bear with two fisted attacks, fast, hard shots, and as soon as the end of the first, the second but specially the third... Liston would say to Joe Louis that he had a shoulder injury and Clay would say that Liston stole a lil bit of his greatness for not coming out in the seventh and get stopped in the eight like he predicted, LOL... The second fight was not fixed, there are tapes that show Clay landing a short twisting right arm punch and there is no doubt that Sonny was hurt n wobbling, just that Jersey Joe Walcott lost the count and later Sonny would tell Izenberg that the count keeper costed him the fight.

[ron u.k.]

i don't think the 1st fight was fixed at all.a labouring liston simply could hardly land a blow on ali,although he did land 2 or 3 big shots which ali took really well.i think by that stage of his career sonny was simply on the slide.
the 2nd fight i think for whatever reason liston lay down.all the nonsense about the phantom punch was just that,nonsense.if ali could produce a punch like that against a granite jawed fighter like liston,why didn't he do it throughout his career against other opponents? also to me the proof is in ali's reaction when sonny goes down.he immediately gestures to liston to get up and shouts "get up ya bum".

[Bigcat]

I would like to think that the first fight wasn't fixed but i have heard too much bullshit about the people involved controlling Sonnys every move around that time..I would like to think that the mob wanted Sonny to win the first and then lose the rematch shockingly , offering the mob a larger return cash wise....... I like to think Clay pulled off a hreat win.. i hope that was the case......