Styles make fight overused.

Although I think you have a point when you say that styles aren't everything in a fight I don't think that the choice of Liston and Patterson is a good one to make your point. In the case of these two Patterson would always lose to Liston because he didn't have the fire-power, size or endurance to trouble him. Whatever style he had would be irrelevant because Liston would always walk him down at some point.
Styles obviously have some bearing and are usually decided by a fighters natural strengths in terms of power, size, speed and so on. Thus a master boxer will usually have an advantage over a powerful slugger but not as much against an aggressive swarmer. Equally the slugger would be more likely to land on the swarmer and therefore be more effective.

 

Possibly if Patterson slips on a banana peel while entering the ring. As the poster before you, not if your out gunned in every way. There is always that punchers chance especially at HW.

 

Styles is a HUGE component .. so is size, physical attributes and age .. ( Marciano excluded of course ) ..

 

If Liston beat Patterson 99 times out of 100 I'd say there was something about Liston's style that caused him a problem.

 

It is a good example of one fighter having things entirely his own way over another fighter though.

He did have the fire power. Patterson was a stunning hitter. He was smaller. He was out reached. He had been knocked down a lot if times before and he'd been knocked out. He had a whole lot of pressure stacked on him too. On one hand he wanted to defend Listons right to challenge him in the light that he was his most outstanding contender and on the other he was trying to motivate himself to beat a man bigger, stronger and better than he had ever faced before.

Patterson later had the same size and endurance questions to answer against Bonavena and Chuvalo. Granted, Liston Was better than both but if it was just a question of facing durable men with a style and size advantage Patterson would have lost those fights too.

Not if he walked onto the famous gazelle punch that flattened ingo Johansson. That punch would knock out even George Chuvalo and Ray Mercer. It was perfect but A career best punch. Obviously to orchestrate such a situation required Patterson to control the action, to have things entirely his way and time the opening to absolute perfection something he was unable to ever accomplish for a whole bunch of reasons against Liston. The first reason being that Liston was a better fighter than Ingo Johansson and was completely hungry for the title.

And level. And career timing.

The only one who has the advantage is the best man on the night.

In lay man's terms a boxer will beat a fighter because a boxer can always fight and as well as box. If a fighter can only fight he's limited. But that is talking only in black and white terms.

Among all time great fighters there are a lot of grey areas. Is Tyson a swarmer or a boxer? And what's Patterson? If Liston is a slugger why has he got such a great jab and skill set?

But when you are talking about all time great champions on their best night of either style ilk you are talking about exceptional men who can produce exceptions to the rule.

 

I think Patterson would be dead by about the tenth time they fought.

 

Christ, if ANY two world class fighters fought a 100 times, you would think the lesser of the two would win some ffs.

Not really a good example to use to try and debunk this old adage.

 

The Ali/Foreman/Frazier or Norton triangle is a good example of style mash ups.

Ali v Frazier/Norton - A war every time

Foreman v Frazier/Norton - A one sided slaughter every time

Ali v Foreman - A comprehensive convincing,but not one sided, beating every time on Ali's side

 

Of course that tired old cliche " styles make fights " is well over used. I find in a lot of cases if you you substitute " tactics " for styles you get nearer the mark.

Ali / Foreman is a perfect example of what I'm getting at.

 

Thankyou,
but it really is obvious. Great fighters adopt certain tactics to win fights against guys in which their normal MO wouldn't necessarily suffice.