Luis Ortiz vs Sonny Liston

Rubbish ! In only his 8th fight Liston fought on for several rounds with a broken jaw against Marty Marshall,
and lasted the distance.
In his first fight with Cleveland Williams ( Williams known to be one of the hardest punchers in history )
Liston had his nose broken but kept his nerve to beat a very formidable opponent.
Do some research before accusing Liston of being a quitter.

 

Are you trying to say that Liston would beat Ortiz because he lost to a light heavyweight and had his nose broken by a crude guy who was way smaller than Ortiz?

I’ll admit I made a sloppy post because I was referring to times when Liston stepped up, rather than follies against limited opponents.

 

Oh dear ! You are missing the point of your own post.You accused Liston of quitting whenever he faced adversity,not about the merits of his opponents compared to Ortiz.
The fights I quoted clearly proved Liston had courage,regardless of his opponents calibre.
So your accusation of Liston being a quitter is total nonsense.
If you are referring to Liston's '' loss to a light-heavyweight '' do you mean the Marty Marshall fight ? Again I repeat it was Liston's eighth fight !
You accuse Cleveland Williams of being crude.Well,come on man,Deontay Wilder is not exactly Willie Pep !!!

 

Wilder would lay out Williams without issue.

As for Liston being green against the 180 pounder, if we’re going to excuse the loss (which I actually was doing), then we also have to get rid of the courage that Liston completely failed to show when he was a champion.

 

Sonny Liston had all of two championship fights.In the first,as we all know,Sonny Liston
retired due to a severely injured shoulder.In fact Liston had major problems with his shoulder before his fight with Ali.
Why should Liston ,or any other man for that matter,continue to fight under these
circumstances.
Are you going brand Vitali Klitschko a coward for retiring under the same circumstances against
an opponent far less formidable than Muhammad Ali ?
Are you going to condemn Roberto Duran as gutless because of his behaviour in his second fight
against Sugar Ray Leonard ?
Both of these men are rightly regarded as true warriors.Sonny Liston should be accorded the same
honour.
As for the second fight you would have to be very uninformed to believe that Liston lost that fight through
lack of courage.

 

Already changing the goal posts. Typical of you.

We weren’t discussing who was better between Williams and Ortiz.

We were discussing fighters who posed serious adversity to Liston, and a cursory look of Liston’s fights will show Ali wasn’t the first and only opponent to pose serious adversity to Liston.

 

Liston's shoulder injury was not compatible with Vitali's, as Vitali needed surgery or it was game over for him. Liston's injury would've been more compatible with Vitali's shoulder injury against Chisora, and he fought through that despite being over age forty.

Duran should be condemned for quitting against Leonard but he has one of the deepest resumes of any modern boxer so we know that wasn't a regular outcome for him.

Liston built his resume on guys who wouldn't be compatible with world class heavyweight boxing over the last forty years. He did fight Ali, who would've done fine in modern era, twice, and he quit and got dropped in one. See Vitali's fight with Solis if you don't understand what happened, granted Liston did continue fighting after rolling around the canvas for an extended period.

Assuming he'd be comfortable against Ortiz is a leap of faith.

 

I was actually setting a trap for you to walk into. You've essentially pulled up a list of mediocrities who Liston got battered by and somehow using that to justify his chances against a Luis Ortiz. What???

 

Again,you are missing the point.The issue is your assertion that Liston would quit in the face
of adversity.No matter what spin you put on the events concerning Liston,Klitschko,and Duran
the fact is Liston repeatedly showed courage during his career.Liston's shoulder-injury had been
giving grief him for the best of year before he lost to Ali.This fight should not have even taken place.
It is Liston's fighting spirit that is the source of this debate,not how easily he would or wouldn't
deal with Ortiz.
On the last subject Emanuel Steward,Angelo Dundee and Eddie Futch stated that Sonny Liston was one
of the greatest heavyweight-champions in history.
Highly respected historians such as Hank Kaplan and Herbert G Goldman have rated Liston as the second
greatest heavyweight-champion of all-time.
Liston may not necessarily have had a comfortable time against Ortiz but you would have to make Sonny
an overwhelming favourite.

 

Where did I say he would quit? My point is that he is wholly unproven at world class modern heavyweight level other than losing twice in unimpressive fashion.

Liston isn't top 10 all time or h2h. I couldn't care less for those rankings.

Liston has blips on his record such as the loses against Marshall and Martin, and getting roughed up by Williams. Ortiz never stumbled at that level until maybe getting off the canvas to beat the daylights out of Charles Martin, and he was old as dirt for that fight. And I was impressed by both of Ortiz's losing efforts to Wilder.

Ortiz by default.

 

I know that you know the Marshall defeat occured in Sonny's eighth professional fight ( just to remind you
this was the fight in which he fought several rounds with a broken jaw ) so why do you continually bring it up ?
You give Ortiz a pass for his performance against Charles Martin based on Ortiz's age.By common consent
Liston was in his forties when he lost to Leotis Martin.By the way,an ancient Sonny Liston still managed to
give the unfortunate Martin a detached-retina,causing Leotis to retire.Overwhelming evidence of just how
damned formidable even an old Liston was.
Yes Liston,for various reasons unconnected to his courage or innate fighting ability,did lose twice at championship level.
His opponent-----Muhammad Ali,indisputably the greatest heavyweight-champion of all time.To say Liston couldn't compete with world-class heavyweights in other eras because he lost to the GOAT is absurd.

 

A retinal detachment is commonly caused by thumbing. There's nothing impressive about that.

Ortiz beat the crap out of Martin after age 40, was competitive with Ruiz over 12 (I had it a draw), and won every second of his fight against Wilder before getting iced by the greatest right hand in boxing history. Liston got sparked out by a 6'0, 200 pound fringe contender. I'd rather be Ortiz there.

Subbing in Liston's heart as a prospect into the prime version of him is sort of like giving stamina to 70s Foreman because he sort of had it as an old guy. It just doesn't compute.

As for green fighters, idk what kind of stretch you're making to pretend Ali wasn't a guy who was struggling with Doug Jones and getting rocked by Henry Cooper back then. That's who he was.

 

Who said Liston caused Martin's detached retina by thumbing ? No reference has ever been made
about Sonny Liston thumbing Leotis Martin.Given the bad press Sonny recieved until the mid-1980s
if Liston had thumbed Martin it would have been highlighted by the rabid anti-Liston press.
As for the comparison between Liston's heart and Foreman's stamina I fail to see what point you are
trying to make.Big George had poor stamina until he learnt to pace himself in his comeback career
so yes there is no point in trying to weld the old Foreman's stamina onto the younger Foreman.However
Sonny always showed courage right from the start of his career (yes we're back to that Marshall fight again ).
The evidence you cite about Liston's alleged lack of heart has already been shown to be extremely flawed.
Andy Ruiz,if he was in proper fighting condition,would only be a 70s/80s sized heavyweight.Really not that
much of a leap from the likes of Cleveland Williams and Nino Valdes.
So really the fact that Ortiz,according to you,managed to get a draw with Ruiz really isn't evidence
that he would beat an ATG like Sonny Liston.
The very young,slender Muhammad Ali did get dropped by Henry Cooper but as Angelo Dundee
had stated the Ali that fought Liston was way,way above the Cooper version.Come on man,just look
at the footage of the first Cooper fight and the first Liston fight. It is blatantly obvious the Ali had made
a quantum leap in fighting prowess.

 

You’re all over the place. The bottom line is that you’re getting skill, size, southpaw, heart, power, decent chin and stamina, and competence against big orthodox heavyweights in a prime Ortiz.

With Liston, you have no clue what you’re getting. He didn’t fight big guys, much less southpaws. And he might quit or get knocked out.

Btw Ruiz fights at 260+ because he performs better at that weight against superheavyweights.

 

I got Liston by KO
Ortiz never showed me anything impressive.