He was a pretty thick guy, roughly Tyson's size, a little taller than Tyson with a much longer reach. I know everyone talks about his 84" reach... I don't believe it, but he did have a long reach for a man of his height. I'll give him 80", that's very long. Lewis would have the longer arms though. Even if it was 84", Lewis also has an 84" reach to go with his 77" height. Liston would look outsized in the ring with Lewis but that doesn't mean that Lewis would manhandle him. I think it would be a good fight but the whole, "if McCall and Rahman could stop Lewis, Liston would kill him" argument doesn't hold water. McCall fought a pre-Steward Lewis, as a matter of fact he had Steward in his corner and they trained specifically for the counter that put Lewis away. Lewis barely trained for Rahman and paid the ultimate price for it, Lewis stopped Rahman in the 4th round of their rematch. Lewis went 41-2-1 (32) and was stopped twice. He avenged both of those losses and the draw. He went 15-2-1 (10) in HW World title fights. Lewis was only down twice, both times he was stopped. He took good shots from Bruno, Morrison, Mercer, Briggs, Holyfield x2, Tyson, and V. Klitschko and did not go down. He didn't give Ruddock, Golota, Grant, or Tua much of a chance to land anything significant. I actually thought Akinwande should have been credited with a knockdown of Lewis but Lewis really was not hurt. Liston went 50-4 (39) and was stopped 3 times. He avenged one of the losses, but not the KO losses. He was down twice, both times he was stopped (laid out just once though). He went 2-2 (2) in HW World title fights. He took good shots from Cleveland Williams in their two fights and did not go down... for a total of less than 5 rounds. Liston's chin really wasn't tested too much. I really can't say with confidence that Liston could take a better shot.
Why so? Liston was only legit knocked out once when he was over 49 and had the flu. That combo would've taken out anybody.
Lennox easily whether he KOs him early or whether Liston quits mid rounds after being dominated and hurt
Very good ****ysis in terms their chins. Whether or not their chins are on par with each other, they're both pretty good. Lewis gets much maligned for being dropped twice and not getting up, but the flip side is despite all those heavy punchers he faced he was only down twice, and the McCall fight, was a borderline premature stoppage. (not worth debating but given that he was the defending heavyweight champion, he probably should have been given a chance to continue) Most everything else favors Lewis.
The problem with banking on Liston pulling a Rahman or a McCall is that assuming we're taking Lewis at his best and also assuming that he takes sonny seriously, it isn't likely happening.. Oliver McCall was able to upset Lewis before he hired a trainer that sealed up the cracks in his game and furthermore in all probability took Oliver lightly... That fight was also arguably stopped prematurely when Lewis was on his feet and just seconds away from the bell sounding..hindsite certainly revealed what Lennox went on to do later...Rahman on the other hand fought Lewis when he was 35 years old and while Lewis was screwing around and lackadaisically following hasim around the ring... We all saw what happened in the rematch.. It's also not unreasonable to say that Liston was of comparable size to Chris Byrd which some have protested to.. They were about the same height and in fact, Byrd even weighed more for some of his better fights than Liston did for his ( sonnys best weight was around 210-212.) only significant difference was liston's uncharactoristically long reach for a man of six foot. But some of that arm length was negated by his apparent lack of speed... If both men show up well trained to wage war and treat this like the fight of their lives, then I honestly believe it to be a mismatch.. Place Liston in the ring with 6'5", 240 lbs two time Olympian with manny steward in his corner and a blend of speed, skill, power and durability and sonny probably loses the fight before the weigh in..
I don't get all these excuses about Lewis getting knocked out just because he didn't take fights seriously. He was wobbled plenty of times in his career, Holyfield hurt him, Briggs did. If Liston catches him right he's going down no doubt about that.
I take the opposite view, doesn't matter if you've been wobbled, especially against all the big punchers Lewis faced. Fact is the guy's only been down twice, which equals how many times Foreman was down in one fight, and is far less times than Tyson was in his career. In fact, Liston himself was stopped more than Lewis was. Look at this another way. Lewis fought over 40 fights, on average he was probably hit with power shots 50 times a fight, so that's 2,000 power shots he received of which 2 stopped him. that's .1% good luck hoping those odds kick in. Even if you go by fights that's still 2 losses out of 44 fights which is 4%. Still not good odds.
But when Lewis went down he was gone, one time basically unconscious. Saying that Liston was knocked cold, my point was Lewis didn't need to be unfocused or undetermined to get knocked out.
Without even touching a weight , not to mention a huge reach .. He was much more the size of Ray Mercer but much better ..
You really include the second Ali fight? Please don't tell me you're implying Lewis had a better chin than Liston?
And my point was that it's a very rare occurance and based on his career represents a 4% likelihood of happening, (or less depending on what criteria you use). Not good betting odds in my book.
Lewis could very well have a better chin than Liston. Liston wasn't in the ring with Vitali, Ruddock, shot Tyson, (who for 2-3 rounds was dangerous), Tua, Morrison. etc. But how good one's chin is doesn't much matter unless you can land something meaningful and the guy who has more tools to do this is clearly Lewis. So to use a baseball ****ogy, it's not just about catching, it's also about pitching.
You just started whining about not making any excuses for Lewis, so fine, the same applies to Liston. Like I've said, I personally don't put a lot of stock in the outcome solely depending on who has the better chin.