Picture of Sonny Liston and Rocky Marciano

In head to head I've got Liston fairly high, Marciano in my opinion would have no chance against Sonny Liston ,getting ko'ed inside 3 rpounds

 

You can say the same about literally any great fighter, this guy took him this long and gave him this much trouble blah blah blah. Only one ever undefeated heavyweight champ though and he did it with a great KO percentage. Liston is taken to the cleaners here.

 

I don't see it.

 

No, definitely not taken to the cleaners. I'm positive Liston would knock Rocky down in the first few rounds. But if Rocky can hold on until later, I really don't see Sonny making it all the way.

 

A major part of the reason Liston had to wait so long to fight Patterson was because he was managed by Blinky Palermo who was part of the cadre of mob-connected managers assembled by Frankie Carbo. This was at the time when Carbo was being indicted, tried, convicted, and sentenced in 1961 to San Quentin federal prison. The various state boxing commissions weren't about to give Liston's manager a license until they were sure Sonny wasn't under the sub rosa control of the mob. For a short while, a guy by the name of George Katz took over as his manager, but that didn't help Sonny much because Katz had ties to the mob in the view of some commission authorities. It wasn't until Jack Nilon took over as Liston's manager in 1962 that Sonny finally had a manager who would be cleared by the commissions. So, while it is true that D'Amato used all this to delay a Patterson-Liston matchup, it is over-simplistic to say that he was the only obstacle to the match.

Let me reiterate that the question of how Liston would do against Marciano was not discussed in any depth at the time. The window for such a discussion closed when Sonny lost to Ali. You have to remember there was no Internet and no boxing forums around, so you didn't have casual discussions by ordinary fans about how the latest sensation would do against some past hero appearing the day after a big fight such as happens today (Wilder-Fury, for instance). What in-depth discussion there was usually appeared months or weeks later in such magazines as the Ring, Boxing Illustrated, Boxing and Wrestling, Boxing News, Sports Illustrated, etc. It usually took a few years before boxing writers at the time would get around to writing articles which reflected back on how a then present-era champion would do against past masters.

 

I know Ezzard Charles didn’t think much of Liston who was a former sparring partner of his. But to me that’s kind of unfair as I’m sure he wasn’t anywhere near the fighter he would later become

 

The press had built Liston up into a monster before he lost to Ali, and there were people prepared to pick him over anybody including Louis, though no doubt there were also dissenters.

Taking up the issue with the benefit of hindsight, I think that Marciano was the greater fighter, but I also think that Liston was all wrong for him.

 

Forget about all that and just ask Perry about his exercise routine videos

 

If you wanted to continue to sell newspapers, you would say Marciano.

If you wanted to be real... well, that's a different story.

 

I don't know who would win, but I do know that Liston's intimidation tactics (the stare, for example)
would not have worked on Marciano. It also didn't work on Ali, in fact, Liston was scared of Ali because he
thought Ali (Clay at the time) was himself crazy.

I'm thinking here about how Mike Tyson's opponents that were NOT intimidated did against him. They did
just fine. The scared guys (Bonecrusher Smith for example) had no chance.

 

Liston could not knock china chined Williams in less than 3 which Satterfield who was also LHW did!
Sonny could not Ko Besmanoff and Machen but Archie Moore and Ingo did!
Marciano is stronger than both of them and had iron chin!
Marciano would be the strongest man Liston ever faced!And Rocky with that iron chin,stamina and powe would not be intimidated by Liston!Fighter like Liston and Louis who were big and slow are easy for Rocky!But smaller quicker counterpunchers like Ezz and Wallcott are difficult for Rocky!

 

Marciano in picture with Liston looked Liston in eyes and had a little smile because he went threw hard childhood,war and after that fighting!Guy had helluva life fight hard fights and no one could scared him!He is tough strong minded like Frazier was!People like them are impossible to scare!They are tough and they could not be scared of anyone!Marciano not only trade eye contact with Liston but challenged him for fight right there which Liston declined because he knew Rocky was tough and could not be scared!
Fighters that are scared are assholes because few things!If I am well paid,trained hard and had helluva life how can someone scare me?If you are fighter you must be tough minded and impossible to be intimidated!Fighters who are intimidated do not deserve to be in the ring and fighting is not for them!

 

Very much the reverse I suspect!

Liston was drawing headlines, for all the wrong reasons, while Marciano was a distant memory!

 

Don't get Seamus riled up about this subject...it's not good for his heart and other internal organs.