Sonny Liston's Age

Discussion in 'Classic Boxing Forum' started by boxingforum24, May 10, 2021.



  1. boxingspitbucket24

    boxingspitbucket24 Active Member banned Full Member

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    Does anyone have accurate estimates of his age? I've tried Google, Wikipedia and searching Classic ESB but it all seems like guess work. Reason I ask is on Wikipedia there is an unsubstantiated claim that he was in his mid 40s when he won the title.

    Or must I resign to the fact that he could have been anywhere between 30 - 46 when he won the title and we'll never know?
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2021
  2. Unforgiven

    Unforgiven VIP Member banned Full Member

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    I've heard some claims that a census document proves he was born after 1929, but I'm not convinced at all. His early life is very obscure. His father was said to have sired twenty-five children. 'Sonny' was said to have had at least two brothers with the same name as him, Charles,and all his brothers and half-brothers were called 'Sonny'.
     
  3. Entaowed

    Entaowed Boxing Addict banned Full Member

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    This website has been over this many times.
    There is really no good reason to believe Liston was born before the early 1930's.
    You mentioned an unsubstantiated claim that he was essentially at least a dozen years older than he really was on Wikipedia-if this was true, there would be so much history we have no reason to believe was unaccounted for, & it does not accord with other dates & events in his life.
    Including what Liston said.

    Hell if he was so much older, all the history you will read below does not make sense.
    Instead of being 13 when living as a child with his Mother, he was really...In his late 20's?!?
    Which he would have to be if he was mid 40's when he won the title.
    So despite all other dates & history, he was living at home in a tortoruous environment waaaay into adulthood?
    From his Wikipedia page, & note it is heavily citationed:

    Date of birth
    There is no official record of Liston's birth. His family's home state of Arkansas did not make birth certificates mandatory until 1965.[url][9][/url] His family, but not one Charles (or Sonny) Liston, can be found in the 1930 census, and in the 1940 census he was listed as 10 years old.[url][9][/url][url][10][/url] It has been suggested Liston himself may not have known what year he was born, as he was not precise on the matter. Liston believed his date of birth to be May 8, 1932 and used this for official purposes[url][10][/url] but by the time he won the world title an aged appearance added credence to rumors that he was actually several years older.[url][10][/url][url][11][/url][url][9][/url][url][12][/url][url][13][/url] One writer concluded that Liston's most plausible date of birth was July 22, 1930, citing census records and statements from his mother during her lifetime.[url][13][/url]

    Youth in St. Louis
    Tobe Liston inflicted whippings so severe on Sonny that the scars were still visible decades later. "The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating," Liston said.[url][14][/url] In 1946, Helen Baskin, along with some of her children, moved to [url]St. Louis, Missouri[/url], to seek factory work.[url][15][/url] Liston—aged around 13, according to his later reckonings—remained in Arkansas with his father. The following year, Sonny—determined to reunite with his mother and siblings—thrashed the pecans from his brother-in-law's tree and sold them in [url]Forrest City, Arkansas[/url]. With the proceeds, he traveled to St. Louis to live with his mother. Liston tried going to school but quickly left after jeers about his illiteracy; the only employment he could obtain was sporadic and exploitative.[url][7][/url]


    Sooooo----> Despite all the evidence that Liston was going to school & otherwise was a child, not older than his early teens above...He was really an adult well past traditional college ages? He loved school so much despite the abuse that he managed to impersonate a young boy-although the size of a large man-& stay in school? A big LOL to that!

    We really need to drive a stake in the heart of the appealing fantasy that Liston was Methuselah!
    He looked older due to alcohol, lifestyle & genetics.
    Some folks look well into adulthood in their teens even before any dissolute living!
     
    Last edited: May 10, 2021
    Bokaj, rinsj, choklab and 3 others like this.
  4. Fergy

    Fergy Walking Dead Full Member

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    The mystery of Sonny's age goes back in to the mists of time. It will NEVER be totally proven how old he was.. NEVER!
     
  5. Unforgiven

    Unforgiven VIP Member banned Full Member

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    But where's the evidence that any of that occurred, in the years you state ?
    It all seems to come from Liston's own accounts (or his press manager's), and the dates often change.

    An arrest record for early 1950 has him listed as age 22, which would put him at about 19 in 1947 anyway, too old for school.
    He may have been older or younger, we don't know.
     
  6. boxingspitbucket24

    boxingspitbucket24 Active Member banned Full Member

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    An extract from another article online. It starts by discussing his age for the first Ali fight:

    His official age on his boxing license was 32, but that was certainly wrong. His age according to his arrest records and the Missouri Department of Corrections was at least 36. According to his sister and recent research by Paul Gallender in Sonny Liston - The Real Story Behind the Ali-Liston Fights Sonny was born in 1919, and was 45 when he fought Ali.

    Arrest and prison records make it a certainty that Sonny was at least 36 for the first fight, and 37 for the second. His sister, who he was extremely close to, and who remembered his birth - he was much younger than she was - said he was born the year after the Great War, (World War I) which would have made him 45 when he fought Ali the first time.
     
  7. Unforgiven

    Unforgiven VIP Member banned Full Member

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    Sonny Liston was completely unreliable and inconsistent in his story. There is no real answer to this.
     
  8. SolomonDeedes

    SolomonDeedes Active Member Full Member

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    Although it's true that his age on his arrest in 1950 was given as 22, this doesn't make anything a "certainty", for the simple reason that the police would have had no way of knowing his true age.

    I've never seen anything to make me doubt the 1930 and 1940 censuses which indicate that he was born, at the earliest, in late 1930.
     
  9. 70sFan865

    70sFan865 Boxing Junkie Full Member

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    One thing is sure - his age shouldn't change any perspective of his boxing career. He wasn't world level until 1958 and he was the best HW in 1959-63 period. Then after Ali fight he was still dangerous opponent, but he wasn't among the best fighters in the world either.
     
  10. swagdelfadeel

    swagdelfadeel Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Yeah agreed. Censuses are hardly reliable proof as is, let alone when you have 25 kids. Mistakes are bound to occur. That being said, I doubt he was in his 40s when Ali beat him though, I wouldn't be overly shocked if he was. He looked like a man in his 40s. 1928 sounds good to me.
     
  11. choklab

    choklab cocoon of horror Full Member

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    This guy wrote a book based on an interview with the ghost of Sonny Liston.
     
  12. Richard M Murrieta

    Richard M Murrieta Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Like I previously posted last year, when I woke up in ICU after my open heart surgery, double by pass to replace my Aortic Valve on Jan 21 2020, the Tech that yanked me up in bed looked like the spitting image of Charles Sonny Liston, he gave me that cold stare, then winked at me, then left. I said to myself, I hope I am not in a place that I think I am in, I was fully awake at the time. Never saw that Tech again. I asked the other staff who that Tech was, they did not know.
     
  13. choklab

    choklab cocoon of horror Full Member

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    Well done for pulling through.

    takes a lot to keep a good man down.
     
  14. Richard M Murrieta

    Richard M Murrieta Obsessed with Boxing Full Member

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    Thanks my friend, it was a tough surgery, my arteries were 90 percent clogged.
     
  15. choklab

    choklab cocoon of horror Full Member

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    “Let's see, my mother had either 12 or 13 children," Sonny recalls. "No, I'm sure it was 13." He, however, can only account for nine. "E. B. Ward, he's the oldest, a boy child almost 40 years old now. It's been a good while since I seen him. Next comes J. T. I always call him Shorty, and he's close behind E. B. After J. T. there's Leo and then my sisters Clarety, Annie and Alcora, Curtice, me and Wesley. Annie and me was closest, and I see a lot of her. She always kids me because I was bigger than her, yet she would rock me to sleep. Curtice and J. T. get together with me sometimes, and I saw Wesley, the baby, in '58 or '59, but the others have wandered off someplace." - Gilbert Rogan Sports illustrated.