Rate the quality of Sonny Liston's resume

When you win against someone in boxing, that means you won by scoring points over him, slugging, punching from distance or etc, but when you outbox someone, that means that you won on scorecards.

Liston was outboxing Martin, and Walcott was outboxing Marciano, yes they outpunched them too, but still they outboxed them.


So, does outslugging/outpunching = outboxing?

✅ If you beat him with cleaner punches, better accuracy, better control of exchanges, and smarter aggression, then yes, you could say you "outboxed" him even if it was a war.

❌ If you just swung harder, took more punishment but landed more shots through brute force, you didn’t really "outbox" him—you just outfought him or outslugged him.

 

Well, not according to Williams himself. As he told it, when it was discovered that he was too young to be starting a pro career, "I had to stop boxing." He then started up again after turning 18.

https://ibb.co/dsJtq3py

 

Thanks for this very revealing article. What it says is most interesting.

"Williams fought his first professional fight as a 14 year old in Griffin, Georgia."

Wikipedia has Williams born on June 30, 1933. His grave gives his birthday as June 6, 1933. Either way he turned 15 in June of 1948.

Here is Box recs record of his early bouts:

3-25-1949 Al Williams KO 2
6-30-1949 Philip Nelson KO 3
11-16-1949 Dan Bolston Draw 4

Okay. This record indicates his first fight was against Al Williams when he was 15, three months short of 16. Cleveland Williams said his first fight was a 2 round KO of Nelson at 14.

"Williams fought six fights before he was 17. He won 14, drew one, and lost one."

??? The plot thickens. So he had six fights before June of 1950. Where do the 16 fights come from? Apparently he was still fighting after his 17th birthday.

"After the last one, I got a cut on the lip from where the guy butted me. I went to the doctor. He found out I had been cut. He told the people so I had to stop boxing."

The reason given by Williams is not his age, but his cut. So when did this "last fight" happen. It seems probably in 1951. Just drawing a reasonable conclusion.

"Williams resumed fighting at 18."

But box rec indicates six months after his birthday that June. 12-11-1951 Lee Hunt KO 2

So what conclusion do I draw if the information in this article is correct--Williams had 13 extra fights which do not appear on his record. Not at all implausible for an African-American fighting in smaller southern towns in the segregation era. He probably began his career in 1948, not 1949, and fought more or less straight through except for allowing a cut to heal in 1951. He had 50 professional fights under his belt when he faced Satterfield. But against nondescript opposition.

Thanks for posting this very informative article. It raises a lot of questions, with the caveat that if this information is indeed correct.

And there is this interesting bit:

"I found out I could punch back in 1952. Bob Baker was training in Miami for Archie Moore. I went in against Baker and knocked him so cold they could have counted to 30."

Talk about tooting you own horn. If this happened in an official fight, it would have been his most impressive KO by far.

 

It says he had six fights, then claims a record of 14-1-1, which would obviously be difficult after only six fights. I'm going to go ahead and say that the 14 is a typo and it's supposed to be 4-1-1, which is what Boxrec indicates in its note under his first fight of 1951.

Other sources from around the same time also specify just six fights before being forced to quit because he was underage.

https://ibb.co/PGqVWXrz

 

"I'm going to go ahead and say that the 14 is a typo"

Your privilege. But it is equally possible the "six" is the typo, and should have been sixteen, or both are correct but referring to different times.

If we accept the six, he would have had 40 fights going into the Satterfield fight, with a record of 37-2-1

The bottom line for me is that this is clouded information, jumping all over the place on age and dates and number of fights.

We should be cautious drawing any conclusions from all this except that Williams had been fighting long enough to have had about 40 pro fights

and claims to have KO'd Baker in training before the Satterfield fight.

I don't accept that he was all that inexperienced.

*Even accepting the six, Williams would have had more pro rounds than Terrell had when he lost to Williams.

**And other sources don't mean all that much because no one has definitive info to quote from. Welcome to history. Much of the past is just lost into an unknown past.

 

It's not like Williams was an outright novice when he fought Satterfield, but two and a half years as a professional (plus however long it took him to rack up six bouts in his mid-teens) isn't enough to become a veteran even if you do fight frequently enough that your actual number of bouts looks quite respectable. Specially not when you don't even have the foundation of an amateur career to build on. Add the fact that he was just 20 years old, around 10-15 pounds lighter than he was as a contender, and took the fight on two days' notice, and it's not unreasonable to think that Satterfield wasn't facing such a tough proposition as Liston did 5/6 years later.

 

Of course it is a contradiction in terms. A padded record can clearly hinder and falsely reflect a fighter’s accrued experience and, by association, his due development against incrementally improved opposition.

So again, layered or not, offered to you by a naive Marie Antoinette or not, you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Oh, and Williams was a late sub, let’s not keep forgetting that fact - and, some 5-6 years later, and 10-15 lbs bigger, he was obviously a somewhat removed (clearly improved) fighter than the barely 21 yo that engaged Satterfield in 1954.

 

Imagine your best win is a 190lbs guy you outweigh by over 20lbs and the one 210lbs+ fighter you beat who was “good” almost KO’d you by your words, said fighter had a glass chin and the 2nd “good” (great) 210lbs+ guy you fought who could really fight beat you easily… should people be picking you to beat Wladmir, Lennox, Tyson and Louis? lol. Liston was a lumbering “big man” of his time SHW speed, footwork, style and endurance paired with the small HW size, chin, power and strength - fierce!

 

Liston V Marciano
Who wins?

 

Irrelevant?

 

Translated= Liston beats the **** out of Rocky,but I can't bring myself to admit it. lol

 

Liston couldn't beat LHWs Leotis Martin and Marty Marshall, young Ali beat the crap out of him that he quit twice plus he needed to cheat.

Machen neutralized Liston with close range fighting where Liston's reach was disadvantage, and Rocky is 1000 times better than that.

Liston best wins are scared LHW Patterson with questionable chin and the most dropped man in boxing history, and 2nd best win was one handed slugger with no defense and also questionable chin.

So yeah Liston beats everyone according to you, his fans and this dumb forum.

 

Seventh fight Liston lost a split decision to much more experienced 7th ranked lHvy Martin.Listonwas fighting with the handicap of a broken jaw. Liston beat the **** out of Marsall in the rematch dropping him multiple times and stopping him.Marshall ran away all night inthe rubber match and did not win a round.
An Old Liston after leading on points and flooring199lbs Martin ran out of gas and was kod by a big shot.
Machen was on his bike against Liston and lost a unanimous decision.This thread is about Liston not Marciano.
However, how Marciano, at Liston's age would do against Martin is something to ponder.
Congratulations.
You are the worst poster on this forum.
You are the worst poster on this forum

 

Did any great fighter with amateur experience lose his 7th fight against a bum whom he outweighted by 20-plus pounds?
I don't think so.

Martin started as a 170-pounder; he was the Same size as James Toney, SMW and LHW, not a HW he just bulked up to 200 pounds to be big enough to trade punches with HWs, the same way James Toney did.
Did any great fighter lose against a fighter 20 pounds lighter than him, but in reality, Liston was 40 pounds heavier than Martin?

 

It’s not relevant in a thread that has 0 to do with Rocky Marciano, if I respond all it’ll do is derail the thread because it’s a very debatable bout. Stop being a weirdo about the icon and legend Mr Marciano.