A Lightheavy That Could Defeat Foreman or Liston??

Just to chime in about a limited issue:

On the "Are you calling Ali a liar" thing: We are routinely critical of the accuracy of what fighters say. It's part of doing history. Ali was known to hype things up based upon the promotional needs of the moment. His opponents were not always reliable witnesses, either; I recall a passage in some book or other stating that the gap in Cooper's story with Ali and the glove tended to grow in the telling. Memories are not perfect; they change and rewrite themselves the longer you go after the event. So it's not totally nuts to disagree with something Ali says about his own fight(s).

 

The flipside of that is he rarely ever had the chance as barely anyone could last that long.

Robert Davila took him 8 in his 8th pro fight, winning 1 round on two cards and 0 or the other.

Levi Forte went 10 in his 12th fight winning 0 rounds on any card.

Peralta went 10 in his 16th pro fight, winning 1, 4 and 3 rounds on the cards.

Scrap Iron was stopped in 7. Foreman rates his chin as the best and grabbed him as a sparring partner.

Peralta was stopped in 10 in their return.

Then Ali and Young.

So if my count is right a whopping 40 opponents out of 47 couldn't find their was past 5 rounds.

Of the 7 that did 3 were in his first 16 fights and two others were stopped leaving just Ali and Young, his only two losses.

 

Fair point,yes fighters can,shall we say, give their own version of the truth.However nothing will ever convince me that Ali entered the ring in Zaire intending to use rope-a-dope as plan A.He had to change strategy because of Foreman's control of the ring.

 

On the Futch and Steward issues in particular:

Do we have sources on these? That would be very useful in this kind of debate, I think.

 

Lol. Do you actually watch boxing beyond highlights or just read this forum and watch the Ali documentaries?

 

There is actually a three part heavyweight article on this site with Manny. We've discussed it in here for a decade or more.

Q: If Sonny Liston had gotten his shot earlier against Floyd Patterson and if he didn’t have Ali coming up, how good could Sonny Liston have been?

A: Sonny Liston, I watched Sonny Liston when I was a teenager do something that I’ve never seen any heavyweight do—walk through the whole division almost from being the number ten guy all the way up to the champion because he was that devastating like around ’57, and ’58, and ’59. I mean he had unbelievable brutal punching power. He was mean, punched with both hands, and I think that the time that he finally got to the title, I think his best years had gone and right after he won the title he began to live the life of a middle aged wealthy man. He lost the real focus that he had earlier. ’57, ’58, and ’59 he was one of the most vicious machines probably ever in boxing, but after he won the title, from my reports and from what I gather, he started drinking a lot and he was golfing and he just lost that total edge. He was living the life of a comfortable man and then here comes exactly what the computer prints out—the thing in the world for him.. A fast, young fighter, good movement, a solid amateur background, and who had been fighting on a regular basis, so therefore when the match-up came it was just perfect timing for one, terrible timing for another guy who had slipped past his prime—but if they had fought, in like say ’58 or ’59, a prime Sonny Liston and a prime I would still say Cassius Clay or whatever—I don’t know. I don’t know. Sonny at that stage was just such a really powerful wrecking machine and I remember the fights he had with Cleveland Williams—oh my God. I don’t know, Sonny might have won if they would have fought at that time.

Source: Heavyweight History With Emanuel Steward: Part 3 Of 3 • East Side Boxing • News Archives (https://www.boxing247.com/weblog/archives/128028)

 

I remember Eddie Futch being very complimentary about Sonny in an old magazine that,alas,I no longer
have in my possession.Rummy did a brilliant interview with Emanuel Steward in which Emanuel stated
he wasn't sure if even the peak Ali could have defeated the prime Sonny Liston.That's one helluva compliment
from the great man.
One of my favourite boxing-journalists,Frank Lotierzo,lauded Liston as a terrific boxer as well as being a great
puncher.You can access this article by typing in '' frank Lotierzo on Sonny Liston '' in the search bar.
There's a terrific podcast called The Modern Martial Artist by a guy called David Christian.In a video about
Sonny Liston,Christian highlighted Liston's technical skills as well as his tremendous punching power.
As I'm sure you know CT, no fighter could earn such accolades simply by being '' big and dumb ''.
Liston had skill as well as power,and plenty of it.

 

Ah yes your erudite observations are always welcome.I am of course being sarcastic,in case you didn't
get it.

 

Oh, the one where he just unloads all of his opinions on old timey boxing. I forgot Liston was in there. Thanks.

I think I pulled that article when I started collecting "great trainers comment on heavyweight history" kinds of materials, once upon a time.

 

I'm more open to revisionist positions than most. Sometimes, they turn out to be right.

That said, up until now I've believed the orthodox position that Liston was a skilled technician. So I was curious about the details of an opinion to the contrary.

 

Don't stress mate you've explained it all in this post anyway. All good.

 

You could also just watch him actually fight on top of everything else and use that as part of your opinion. Some of the training videos also give strong hints.

 

At least mine are my own and not a result of being fed advertisement. You’re a bot like the rest of them.

 

Ali, after knocking out Foreman said "I told you he didn't hit hard, I told you he had no power." I bet the Foreman fans attacking you and greynotsoold would say Ali lied about that. They pick what they want to believe and what they don't want to believe. Why would Ali lie about Foreman's power? He'd just beaten GF easily, why wouldn't he build GF up?

Go to about 59:50

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I do hope I haven't hurt your feelings.In a recent post you seemed concerned that
people didn't like you.