Looking up that high is not going to intimidate AJ, Liston was the same height as me, I`ve met a guy that`s 6'5 and broard, he was huge, AJ is broarder and taller, his size alone would intimidate Liston.
This is an absurdly non well thought out comment. Liston beat some of the best HWs ever. Even if some would be cruisers today they were still amazing fighters. Machen and Folley and Patterson are top thirty HWs ever. Nino is in the top 50. Williams was good as well and he destroyed them. Not only that but his stamina, power, boxing ability doesn’t change if an opponent gets bigger. I don’t think Joshua makes the top ten in the fifty’s and sixties without the aid of steroids. With steroids he is a beast however. That being said i still take Liston at his best.
I'm glad you met a guy 6-5 and you are an astute bodybuilding judge. This is boxing/fighting. Keep focusing on the wrong things. Intimidate Liston? He might make him horny but 0 chance Sonny is gonna let her worry him. In general if Liston "prayed on smaller guys" what were the DeJohn, Valdez and Cleveland Williams 2X fights? He also accepted the challenge of Clay who was taller and not exactly small.
I think he meant with day before weigh ins. Let's face it, AJ would be mercilessly roasted if his best wins were all cruisers and light heavies who weren't even bulked up. Floyd Patterson, his top win, would be like RJJ if he fought in the modern era. Starting off at SMW and likely capturing light heavyweight titles and cruiser titles and probably a belt at heavy. Patterson was one of the best lb for lb fighters of all time, hands down. But he'd struggle among modern day heavies.
Ali was far smaller and slimmer than AJ he also didn`t have AJ`s KO ratio at that stage of his career.
Patterson would have been too small to beat AJ but he was far more skilled than anybody AJ has beaten.
Liston stepped in with his jab much, much more than nearly any heavyweight. He got an astonishing amount of leverage behind it, and it had a lot to do with setting up his power punches. That was one of the things that most separated him from later sluggers like Iron Mike and Ken Norton...they both had very good jabs, they just didn't use it as much as they should, nor to their best advantage.
If Liston gets credit for beating Valdez, then Archie Moore should as well. He tends to get less credit as a round about way of discrediting Marciano. DeJohn, likely could have made cruiser with day before weigh ins. And Williams, he was decent and hit hard, but there are more recent contenders who you can likely favor to beat him. People like Lyle, Pinklon Thomas, maybe Mike Weaver, Tim Witherspoon, Ray Mercer, Bert Cooper, Michael Moorer, Trevor Berbick etc. While you can dispute it, the mere fact that any one of them could likely be favorite over prime Williams means that you didn't need to be an ATG heavyweight to beat him.
