What a great and interesting article. Thank you for posting. Most interesting was Dunphy's take on a Liston and Marciano matchup. The two are from essentially the same era and the article is written at that time. Dunphy is saying what many folks say now about Marciano and a lot of the champions of the last quarter century. He says Liston's physical advantages would have been too great for Rocky to overcome. Just shows that not everyone back then thought Rocky was an invincible fighter.
Well, it definitely is something. I don't agree with Don here, as Liston looks too powerful for Jack but at the same time, hardly looks more powerful compared with post-90s heavies, which he seems to to very well against in H2H's on here- so Sonny (or Jack) would often be overcoming height, weight and strength and the modern day guy is on all kinds of PEDs too, apparently, which don't seem to matter either. It all comes across as a bit Rocky IV for my liking (honest-to-goodness American guy chopping trees and doing sit-ups, overcomes big massive evil European, pumped full of steroids and with all the hi-tech advanced equipment available). I think there's way too much misty-eyed fans of their favourite eras too. I probably like the 1970s best overall (even thought the 1990s and some of the 80s) are really "my eras" that I grew up with as a boxing fan and keen collector of magazines and the like. I think the reason the 70s is my fave is largely due to the international flavour of the champions of that era- a pfp top 10 of the decade probably only had two Americans in it- Ali and Foster. But I stop short of saying those fighters would have beaten their equivalents 50 years later. Maybe some would, who knows, but if the modern guys are taking sh*tloads of PEDs too- that's a lot to overcome, regardless of skills. But even this doesn't seem to deter many a poster- there's a chat right now where an older fighter is facing a more modern opponent and he's overcoming a bigger, taller, stronger, more powerful man who's also loaded with PEDs according to one poster, and still knocks him out! Yes, the Tyson hard-on gets bigger every day. My son and, especially nephew, watch clips of him all the time, the Reggie Gross one and the Quick Tillis knockdowns especially. They're far less impressed with heavies such Lewis, Ali, Holmes, Foreman, Funso Banjo, et al, it appears.
A lot of those old guys were so biased towards the older generation of heavyweights.They would have you believing that Bob Fitzsimmons would have beaten Muhammad Ali,so it's not surprising that dear old Dunphy wasn't particularly pro-Liston.
A team of 8 doctors confirmed that Sonny had torn a tendon in his left shoulder and it was too badly damaged for Sonny to continue fighting.Not exactly quitting on his stool is it ? Angelo Dundee himself said the Monsel solution that got into Ali's eyes almost certainly got there by accident. So although I wouldn't bet a large sum of money on Liston demolishing Dempsey I definitely wouldn't bet one cent on Dempsey beating Liston,either by stoppage or on points.
By 1963, Sonny Liston was on borrowed time. Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali ) was #1 contender, also high in the rankings , Doug Jones was #2 and Ernie Terrell was #3. Liston gets by Jones had they fought but has either Clay or Terrell looming on the horizon. Liston has had only two rounds of boxing since 1962. He was starting to philander with a mistress, took to the bottle and was not hungry anymore about training. Think about it, when Liston stopped Floyd Patterson on Sept 26 1962, there was no parade or crowd waiting for him at the airport, even President Kennedy must have been disappointed, he had invited Patterson to the White House before the fight and basically ordered him to win because Liston was tied to the underworld and was a bad example for the American youth, plus his brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had been having mobsters deported. I really believe that Liston was ready to be taken unlike Liston prior to winning the title, kind of like Eye Of The Tiger from the fictional Rocky III from 1982.
Whether it was intentional or not, Liston was battling a blind man in the fifth and he still couldn't corner, hurt him or knock him out completely. That does not seem good no matter how one tries to spin it. It's suspicious that Liston didn't quit the round before he had to fight a blind Ali. Fight starts>Ali is too elusive and doesn't get blown out in two rounds>Ali gets blinded>Liston throws everything at him>Ali recovers and beats him black and blue>Liston quits. There were many moments in which Liston could've tore off his shoulder and quit, but he did it coincidentally at the moment when Ali had overcome the chicanery and the onslaught and was gaining a comfortable lead.
Whoa.....there's an awful lot of 'ifs' and 'buts' in your argument mate.If your doubt the validity of Liston's injury how about the testimony of those eight doctors.It makes the timing of Liston's retirement academic. Yes, a blinded Muhammad Ali managed to evade Liston's punches.However we are talking about the most amazing man ever to hold a world-title and Ali had a habit of working miracles. So it's not a damning indictment of Liston's abilities that he failed to stop Ali.
Another Liston apologist......... Let me translate it for you, Liston's team paid MD's to diagnose his "shoulder injury" to save face and another payday, after all, he threw everything he got at Clay until he decided to not come out instead of getting stopped and stopped he would have been over 15, fact. He then quit again in the rematch. Two absolute quit jobs in the biggest fights of his life no matter how you would like to spin it.
The younger gen. like quick gratification with a WOW factor - Iron Mike fits those wants like a glove. Allowing the time to drink in and appreciate boxer types like Holmes, Ali etc. - well hell, that’s a challenge to the attention span. Gnats are looking pretty damned attentive by comparison theses days. I replied to a poster once (who I assumed to be quite young) with a 3-4 paragraph post. He wrote back telling me he didn’t have time to read my “novel”. Apparently I’d written War and Peace. Haha. You’re spot on. Even Ali, for all his skills, was also afforded the advantage of having superior size over his predecessors - since Ali’s time however, the size question was frozen for some, with Ali’s size, about 6’3” and 215-220 lbs being deemed the optimal HW size for ALL time.
Hmmm....so eight doctors plus Dr Alexander Robbin,chief physician for the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, were bribed to lie about Sonny Liston's shoulder injury. WOW ! This is really incredible. I eagerly await your evidence to back this up. Have a nice evening.
LOL, where is the evidence of having Liston 's shoulder surgery after the fight ? There was none..............similar to Pac "shoulder" in jury after he got whupped by FMJ and threw lefts with abundance........then he was cured by sea water. BTW Liston never complained during the fight of shoulder problems................he /his team invented it when he quit, right there and then. Every Boxing Commission protects its own til this day., nothing new, however when the Heavyweight champion flat out quit like Liston did which no Heavyweight champ did before him there had to be a exit strategy which was "injury"....................so which "injury" did he have when he rolled around the floor for a Oscar nomination in Maine ?
Er.......without wishing to be pendantic the burden of proof is on your somewhat spurious assumption that all boxing commissions are corrupt..Also what evidence is there that Liston never complained during the fight of a shoulder-injury ? Why on earth are you drawing comparison to the Manny Pacquiao case ? You really must try harder.
You are thrusting out Listons team paying off a huge team of MD's as FACT then turning around asking Spreadeagle for evidence of Liston having shoulder surgery? Care to share those doctors receipts? Or your footage of money changing hands? I mean, you obviously have evidence given it's all fact.