School me !! on Sonny Liston

Well … He was well polished in overall boxing skill. Prime in '59 '60 … One of the best jabs of all time, powerful. Power in both gloves with a vicious hook. Probably the most intimidating boxer of all time. He started boxing around age 20 and got his title shot late... He made short work of Patterson twice and Williams twice which he doesn't receive enough credit for.. He is a H2H monster imo .. You are not alone as some here feel the same as you that he is over ratted.. But with Almost every boxer there is that element. People start picking apart Liston at age 34 and 35 when he faced Ali and after that on into his late 30's.. Liston was 11 years older than Ali and Ali was an Athletic freak of nature starting to come into his Prime. Hell it's Ali we are talking about...Well if someone starts picking apart a boxer when he is 35 years old, doesn't that tell you how good he really was?

 

I think there’s a reason Liston was so feared and revered. His prime was also before he won the title were he beat a pretty good pool of heavyweights and in dominant fashion. I think the nature of the Patterson fights cause them to be underrated. Patterson did some excellent things after he got destroyed twice by Liston.

Head to head is all speculation and I am not a particularly huge fan of it especially with different eras but I’ve often thought there’s not many guys I’d pick to beat Sonny at his best. Ali? Sure. I think he’d be a bit of a nightmare for Frazier and could take him out in a firefight. He’d stick around long enough to take Foreman out. Holyfield is in trouble against him as is Lewis. I think Holmes probably would be ever so slightly favored and you’ve generally got to give Louis the benefit of the doubt in most cases but I think I like him against all but that trio.

As far as his all-time heavyweight ranking? I think I have him around 8 or 9 so I think his career is probably lesser than what I perceive his talent level to be.

 

With 5 titles today and 5 champions you could argue one defense is the equivalent of 5 and beating one champion is the equivalent of 5.

Sometimes a lot of solid work is done in pre title reign in past eras too especially the one belt era. ****, there’s guys like Charley Burley or Sam Langford with all-time legendary talent and resumes who didn’t even get a title. Is Gary Russell a better Featherweight than Jose Legra because he made more defenses?

 

Liston was an ass kicking monster.

 

Great fighter. Mob controlled, which people tend to ignore entirely unless they're focusing on the Ali fights. People tend to ignore the mob's influence on the sport in the classic era as a matter of convenience on here unless it's regarding very specific fights and fighters.

Personally I think it's too good a business for the mafia not to have rigged certain outcomes on the way up as well on the way down, as it'd have been extremely easy to do with someone who could fight and punch like Sonny could. Nobody would question it if a guy people figured Sonny would knock out anyways fell in the 3rd or 8th round.

 

I have no idea what to think lol. I lean towards no on the first and yes (in some fashion) on the rematch, but I don't think we'll ever know for sure 100%.

 

With wins over Dejohn, Williams x2, Nino, Machen, Harris, Folley, Floyd x2, Clark, Rischer, Wepner, whitehurst, Bethea and more his record is impressive. Especially considering the time it took him to KO his victims. I don’t think anyone did it quicker against very good opposition. His opponents were on the smaller side so there is that “knock” against him. But he was able to KO all kinds of opponents from slick boxers to sluggers like Williams.
He was Tyson before Tyson. I know people think he “only had one defense” “mob owned” but that demeans his accomplishments. Idk what fights can be proved were “mob controlled fixes” if someone knows please state which ones if any. One of the strongest fighters to ever lace them up with one of the best jabs to boot. A H2H monster in his prime.

 

I think Liston's jab is only behind Ali and Holmes' in the heavyweight division. It wasn't as vicious as Larry's, and not quite as powerful as Foreman's (and nowhere near as fast as Ali's). But it was still a sick bludgeon of mammoth proportions.

His jab is the thing I most want to watch when I watch his fights. He had such a good reach and huge hands. Like Holmes, Liston's jab most obviously discouraged a good deal of his victims early on. They must have thought "omg if this is his jab then I'm gonna get poopy poked".