It's sometimes said that Liston imagined everything would change after he got the title. Let's imagine it does. As soon as Liston beats Patterson, his hometown organizes a celebration in his honor. Crowds greet him on the way home to congratulate him. Kids pester him for his autograph. Celebrities want to hang out with him. The media writes wonderful puff pieces about him. Somebody wants to make "The Sonny Liston Story" into a feature film. How would it affect Liston's personality, behavior, personal life, and family life if the public had enthusiastically accepted him as a beloved champion? Assume that public goodwill will continue even if Liston loses the title. Everybody will continue to view a post-reign Liston with the kind of fondness they showed for Louis, Rocky, Patterson, and eventually a retired Ali. They'll even continue going to his fights. Everyone would want to see his comeback -- at least until his skills erode too much. (But they'll only stop coming eventually if Liston fights too long. Because they'll be too saddened to see their former hero getting beaten up.) Note that this change in attitude happens only after Liston gets the title. Before that, people treat him just like they did in real life. The change comes instantaneously. Just like Liston apparently thought it would. How do things go differently for Sonny? If at all.
Not sure it will change much, he will still lose to Ali in fight 1. Perhaps he does not have a early death is my guess.
If let’s say there was no mob connections involved in his life at all and only petty crime Liston would probably be about as popular Ezzard Charles was when he beat Louis. An air of “Meh” to him. A good fighter who beat a likeable champion.
I think he'd push himself more in the Ali fight 1, if you get my meaning. He'd fight for the title harder, he wouldn't want to give up that feel good feeling he's got, being champ. He'd still lose imo, but their d be no sitting down and saying stuff it. Good question CT!
That's probably true. But in this thread, Liston is more or less the beneficiary of outright magic. The public's adoration isn't limitless. Liston still can't go around murdering people and expecting to remain popular, for example. But short of extreme bad behavior, he's been given a golden ticket by the Boxing Fairy.
With the treatment he gets it’d only serve to enhance his image if he shot another boxer to death or something.
Though come to think of it, as a beloved champion, Liston would be too -- gasp! -- mainstream for BF24. He'd sink into Wlad/Lennox levels of underappreciation...back when they still were fighting.
Liston was as well received in Europe as any other HW champion would have been. Photos of him in the UK as champion and in Sweden as an ex champion show that he was always celebrated outside of America. so Liston still got a taste of what it would have been like as it was.
Sonny would probably have appreciated the fans..but at the end of the day he was institutionalized and grew up abused and damaged from an early age. He was backed by the mob and secrecy and intimidation go hand and hand. I don't think getting love from the fans would have been enough to lift all that darkness he was surrounded by since birth. The man couldnt even tell you the day he was born. Somebody marked it on a tree and the tree got chopped down. Liston was a sinner for sure but he was sinned against even more. In a nutshell I don't think that would fix everything.
Liston wasn't a boring fighter though. Those 2 guys quite often were though Lennox looks like Arturo Gatti compared to Wlad.
Sonny actually visited Helsinki, the city I was born and the capital of Finland in 1963, after his second bout with Patterson and before the first fight with Ali. He was welcomed here warmly, and he reportedly trained in front of a crowd of approx. 16 700 people, according to newspaper reports. He also gave a rare and brief interview after his plane landed, which can probably be found on the internet. He trained in a famous amusement park and broke the attendance record at the time (which I think hasn't been broken to this day, but I can't be sure) There are a couple pictures of Liston's training session, but sadly I don't have the rights to them, so if anyone is interested, you can find them from google if you search "Sonny Liston linnanmaki". In one picture he is signing autographs and in another, he is jumping rope. Not many great champions have visited Finland, so it was cool to find out that my all-time favorite fighter had been here. Joe Frazier also visited Finland in the year 2007 if my memory serves me right. From what I know, I also think that Liston was always celebrated outside America, at least like a heavyweight champion should have been.
He probably lives longer but his career is more or less the same. Maybe he gets into the tournament after Ali is stripped. He d wreck Jimmy Ellis in the tournament final for Ali's title then probably lose to Frazier just after.
Look at the way that Sonny Liston built his reputation, he broke bones for the underworld attempting to collect debts. Sonny laced a police officer upside down in a dumpster in the alley. As a youth, he was arrested for Armed Robbery and later he owned the yards in the correctional system. To be embraced, all of his past would have to be erased, he would have had to wear nickers, they would have had to call him Waldo. He would have had to be a subservient individual who was picked on as a child and adult. To me, that is hard to envision.
