Sonny Liston's record from 1960-1969

Just think; he did all that as a senior citizen.

 

Liston was born in 1928 ( he said so himself) it is amazing at how great he was considering his age.

 

I thought Liston's best was actually 1958-1959 on film...against Wayne Bethea and Bert Whitehurst. Also blew away big punchers Mike DeJohn, Cleveland Williams and Nino Valdes during this period. He definitely recorded his best wins in 1960 though. An all around very underrated resume. Liston defeated all of the men who Cus Damato wanted no part of during Patterson's title reign. Liston ranks in my top 5 all time comfortably.

 

:goodAgree 100%

There is no doubting Liston has proved to have been a beter heavyweight than floyd and therefore ingo but that posibly wasnt realised until Liston- patterson I.

I keep hearing people call Liston an uncrowned champion who took out all the top contenders from 1957 until he landed floyd n 62' but Im not so sure this could have been established opinion until then.

Even had sonny landed a fight with machen before ingo would he have won in one round? I think what ingo did to machen blew listons later points win out of the water. Liston could not have proved to have been beter than either champion until he beat them.

Until Liston fought for the title it was tied up between a guy who beat machen quicker than he could and another guy tied to rematches he had not fought yet.


I think Listons "run" was more like 1959- 1960. During this spell wiliams, folly, harris and machen were at least winning fights when liston fought them, though all had been knocked out quite recently by other fighters. These were his most worthy wins but he recorded them during the ingo-patterson triangle and its only one year.
Its not quite "cleaning out" all the contenders over a number of years.


The bunch of guys Liston fought earlier, ben wise, daniels, ernie cabb, mederos, whitehurst, bethea, valdez, besmanoff, howard king and wesphal were losing fights at the time Liston squashed them, each lost their previous fight coming in against liston. Even dejohn had lost 2 of his last 4 fights. This cant qualify as cleaning out a division.

1961 liston did not fight a rated guy but maybe there was nobody better left.

 

Your ridiculous bro, lay off the crack pipe

 

The Liston pendulum sways far and wide from over to under rating in the general consensus. I have taken this ride myself. Lately, I have come round to rating him higher, around number 9 for me.

 

so sonny listons ATG status was realised before he met patterson?

 

:good good list.

 

I dont rate him that high, but, Liston is one of only about a dozen men who could arguably be the greatest fighter of all time! His biggest downfall is his outclassing by cassius clay. But, it is rarely mentioned just how old and therefore presumably past prime he was for these fights. In contrast to say Tunney Dempsey, where Tunney gest virtually no credit. If a prime Liston could lift enough to beat clay and his dominant record suggests he might, then it could drastically alter the current consensus rankings.

 

Maghoo,

nice list but I think you got Walcott too low. Patterson is rated way too close to Liston, Liston was overwhelmingly better and accomplished far more.

 

A lot of people in retrospect think Sonny should of received a "Charles RSVP" invite to enter the Ali exile tournament, - but there was perhaps a fear ....he might of won it !!??

its interesting to speculate who might of stopped him winning ?

Leotis Martin a year - 18 months before he actually beat him ?.
Patterson ? could he have got past the first round and grew confident enough to prosper ?
Spencer ? Mildenberger ? Terrell ?
Tough Guys Quarry or Bonavena ?
or Ellis with his movement and combinations ?

Without Ali and his unnerving Bombast Sonny may not of been that big an underdog against any of them.