If Marciano had carried on, how much longer would he have ruled?

If it was ruled a knockdown ,Marshall is correct in his claim.

My query is was it a knockdown that saw Liston on the floor?
Any ideas why Box rec does not credit Marshall with a knockdown?
My understanding is it was not,but I'll try and get more detail on that, If I'm right I'll show it,if I'm wrong I'll man up and say I was mistaken .

Will that do for you?


Up date, this SI article says it was Marshall's left hand that broke Liston's jaw.



Sonny Liston is a proud man with a sense of history. He would like to be remembered as boxing's greatest heavyweight. It irritates him that his professional record is not perfect, that he was beaten by Marty Marshall. "That cat," says Sonny, "started hollering and whooping and I got to laughing. Then, boom! he caught me with my mouth open, and bam! he broke my jaw." Sonny's attempt to characterize Marshall as a clown and the defeat as a fluke is widely circulated and generally accepted—but not by people who saw the fight, and certainly not by Marty Marshall.
This is part of the Detroit Free Press account of the Marshall-Liston fight of Sept. 8, 1954: "Marshall, who fights from an extremely unorthodox style which finds him as a right-hander one minute and a southpaw the next, confused Liston through most of the bout.
"As the fight wore on, Liston became more and more disturbed by his inability to catch up with the ever-moving Marshall and the Detroiter took the play from him through the final three rounds to clinch his triumph.
"Liston suffered a possible fractured jaw in the fourth round."
Marshall was no clown. He was a very clever fighter who later that year knocked out Bob Satterfield and was ranked nationally. But all the more galling for Liston was the fact that Marshall was a blown-up light heavyweight, an after-hours fighter, a ring moonlighter with nine children and a fulltime job with the Acme Quality Paint Co. Inc. that he has held for 13 years.
Invariably, Marshall agreed to fights on short notice, taking off from work only the day of the fight and then reporting for work the morning after. Marshall accepted the second Liston match three days before the fight. For the third, he had six days' notice. "That's how Marty kept his budget going," says Al De Napoli, Marshall's manager. "I never wanted him to take those quick fights, but he insisted. Six days before the Harold Johnson-Liston match [Pittsburgh, March 6, 1956], Johnson comes up with a shoulder injury. Liston is without an opponent, and the fight is off, unless they can come up with a substitute."
They offered me $750 to fill in," says Marshall, "but I said no. The minute they upped it to a thousand I went into training." When Marshall signed to meet Liston for the first fight, he knew nothing about Sonny except that here was a big, powerful heavyweight who outweighed him by 25 pounds. "Sonny didn't know nothing about scaring people then." says Marshall, "but he was trying. We got to the middle of the ring and Sonny grabs my hand and puts his other hand on my head, pulling my head down. He was smiling all the time, as if to say, 'Too bad, little boy, but I'm going to demolish you.' "
It was Liston who was almost demolished. In the course of the fight, Marshall couldn't remember being touched by a jab at all. "It is a strong punch, all right," he recollected, "but it's so long that it is easy to slip. It was the right hand that I remember—if I didn't remember, my stomach would. He always keeps the right ****ed, so whenever I'd slip the jab I'd keep thinking, here comes the right, and I was prepared." Most of the time Marshall chose to parry the left and counter. If he slipped the jab, he went to the outside, away from Liston's right-hand power. (Patterson, on the other hand, twice slipped jabs to the inside, then was clubbed by right hands.)
Marshall gave Liston plenty to puzzle over. He was never idle. He faked and moved and varied the sequence of his punches, much the way Jersey Joe Walcott did in 1947 when he almost took the title from Joe Louis. (Liston's stalking style is, in fact, reminiscent of Louis', and Marshall, with his skittering, crablike mannerisms, is not unlike Walcott.) He wheeled his hands up and down in an attitude of careless defense, but one hand was always up to protect his head, and if he threw the left he brought the right over to cover.
His punches rained on Liston from every angle. Sometimes he brought the fist down in what he calls his "hammer punch," other times he used an up jab. The jab was just flicked out, merely intending to touch Liston, "to keep nagging him." In the fourth round Marshall suddenly changed direction, began to move around Liston counterclockwise, all the while feinting right-hand leads. Liston had just adjusted his body position when Marshall switched direction again, and in the same motion threw an open glove right in front of Sonny's eyes. Behind it rode the left, and this was the punch that broke Sonny's jaw.
"But I never knew he was hurt," says Marshall. "You hit him with your Sunday punch but he don't grunt, groan, flinch or blink. He don't do nothing; he just keeps coming on. He's discouraging that way. After the fight Liston came back to my dressing room. I noticed he was holding his jaw funny, but he didn't say nothing about it. All he says is: 'You fight good. I'd like to get you again." I told him, 'Anytime.










The S I article is the only one that mentions Liston being knocked down but I'm going to keep looking. I can't see why Box rec doesnt acknowledge it?:huh

 

Liston lost to Marshall by a split decision in his eight pro fight .. Marshall had over 22 fights at the time with an overwhelming winning record .. your idol's opponent in his eight pro fight had a 1 - 4 record. Let's try to keep some perspective.

Liston didn't just defeat Patterson he destroyed him like no one did before or after. Saying he froze , twice, is calling Floyd a coward and you're wrong. He simply got crushed. By the way, funny how Floyd froze twice but Machen didn't once against the vastly inferior Ingo ..

Liston did destroy Williams twice ( and destroy is the word ) , Valdez, DeJohn, Folley and soundly defeated Machen. He also rematched and defeated Marshall twice .. the man was ducked for years and cleaned out the division ..

You want to build a fictitious dream of how a small, slow, cut prone fighter that won in an era of faded small heavyweights by wearing them down and over powering them would use his "something extra" to defeat a much bigger, stronger, faster starting, harder hitting boxer puncher with a huge reach advantage and a killer jab, whatever. Just try and stick w some sort of reasonable facts .

 

Careful ,you'll be accused of having a shrine to Liston.:nono

 

I dont have faith in Sonny's heart, he quit and tanked against an alpha dog Ali. Sonny was jaw-broken in 1st, dropped in 2nd fight by an 180lb guy (Marshall) that was already KO'd in 4 of his 5 losses to young prospects 10-fight Bob Baker and 11 fight Huss and others. I know you try and make Big Cat a beast but it does not really show up once he moved up in class and he is known for his Ko losses to Satterfield, Liston and Ali among others and the one fighter that fought Big Cat and Marciano was Keene Simmons who said Marciano hit much harder than Big Cat

The thing that bothers me is that Sonny gave up 2x to Ali and sorry if you think I should disregard that. I just wonder what Sonny would do if he got hit on the chin by a guy that could hit harder than Leotis Martin or Ali, oh yea I forget Leotis weighed 6 lbs more than Marciano

 

The fact that his jaw was broken in the 4th round of a fight and again ,in a different place in the 6th round ,yet he continued to lose a split decision speak volumes about his heart imo.

I just wonder what Marciano would do if he was floored by a prime 212lbs Liston instead of an ancient heavyweight,and an even older lhy who according to Rocky ,dazed and hurt him badly ,a lhvy who was 24lbs lighter than Liston and whose Mother said was 40 years old?:think

 

to be fair he was kinda lucky he remained unbeaten towards the end.


he retired a little bit too late even.

 

there is a fighter by the name of Burt Whitehurst who between the years of 1954-1958 fought Sonny Liston and Archie Moore 2X each and it was Moore who KO'd Burt 2x while Burt heard the final bell with Sonny x 2.....**** happens

 

Look, there is no doubt, no matter how one justifies it that the Ali fights tarnish Liston .. I absolutely cannot argue that but try to look deeper than a line on Boxrec ( as do you , just my vision )

Liston was older, inactive, overconfident, under trained and in against a stylistic nightmare and one of the greatest heavyweights that ever lived .. true Ali was not in his prime yet but he was still an astonishing athlete ... Liston was shocked, Liston was getting diced up, running out of gas , likely did hurt his shoulder and simply packed it in .. other fighters have done it when getting beat up .. I remember seeing Chavez do it in the De La Hoya rematch .. Baer did it against Louis .. guys decide when they don't have it and pack it in ..

Liston and Marciano came from two different planets .. Liston was a street guy .. for him there was no glory, just money, just a business ... he knew he was getting whipped, knew he was not the same guy and packed it in .. I agree that this leads to the question would he have done it as a younger man and in a life or death he may not have had the heart of a Marciano, a Dempsey , a Braddock or a Frazier but that does not take away from the fact that only very few guys had the talent to bring a prime , hungry, focused, properly trained Liston to that point .. with all due respect to Rocky, I simply see Liston as a stylistic nightmare for him and that he was not the guy to bring Sonny to that spot .. a prime Louis, a Lennox Lewis, a Tyson maybe but those are al different match ups ..

AS far as the second fight, to me that was obviously a tank job and who knows why .. ?

 

Agreed and styles make fights .. look at the different results Moore and Liston had against Patterson ..

 

Nah, Bummy and I go at it but I do respect the guy .. he's old school, he sees it his way, I see it mine but for the most part he seems to chuckle it off when guys like me get hot from time to time .. some of the other guys are cry babies but not Bummy from my experiences .. I say that knowing I'm not his favorite but it is what it is ..

 

where on boxrec would it tell me about the intangibles and Liston's heart and mentality so that was a passive/aggressive comment. I remember the era, I was alive and a big Liston fan and thought he was going to kill Clay/Ali......Ali was the best fighter Liston fought but also a fighter that did not fear him.

You dont have to be an apologist for Liston. You can see it your way and I can see it my way. The way I see it is Sonny quit the 1st fight and tanked the 2nd fight. Based on that I really could not be confident that Sonny would be victorious over an ATG puncher with zero fear of him, he was dropped when young and Ko'd when old by a 180lb guy and a 195lb guy, both guys did not fear him but Marshall was already KO'd 4 out of his 5 losses to young 10 fight and 11 fight prospects.

You say Sonny was old when he fought Ali but he was fresh off his best 2 wins over Patterson strait to his worst 2 performances to Clay/Ali (can not have it both ways) so I really can not except age as an excuse and I have to weigh in attitude and lack of fear as an important element in the Clay Ali fights and I see Sonny's crack in the armor as a bigger intangible then his wins over Patterson and Big Cat

 

I like you He Grant and even though we come from different side of the opinion pond from time to time, I got to laugh because you are just as opinionated as me but you bounce back and we do agree from time to time:good
Thank You for keeping me on my toes:good

 

true :good

 

Back at ya ! :good

 

Now this is what it's all about. It's nice to see some of us can disagree and it is not personal. Power to the both of you. :good