Who's historically greater at HW: Liston or Usyk?

I think taking punches from the hardest puncher in the division weighting 230 pounds getting knocked down 4 time dealing with coke problems most of your career and being 35 years old is significantly more shop worn than Patterson.
Besides , Patterson came off of Career defining wins while Fury's last few performances after Wilder 2 where not a good look showing the decline

 

I can see arguments for both. Usyk is undefeated and is 6-0 in world heavyweight tittle fights. He beat some of the biggest men to ever hold a heavyweight title ( excluding Valuev ). And was a dominant cruiserweight champion in an era where the vast majority of cruisers were about as big or bigger than a lot of men Liston fought. Liston however crippled the heavyweight division prior to winning the title and beat prime versions of Patterson, Williams, Folley, and Machen. I don’t hold the losses to Ali against him but he probably shouldn’t get a free pass for the early career loss to Marshall or the late career loss to Martin. Considering that Usyk is nearly 40 and still a champion and won a world title with around a dozen fights. While Usyk’s title run at heavy is impressive I’m not sure Fury was prime for those fights but that’s a different thread and argument.

 

I've already listed that Patterson was down at least 11 times already, to some good punchers. And the size doesn't have anything todo with it, since Patterson was a LHW. He also had about dozen more fights. Patterson was definitely more damaged from fighting.

 

A response to all your points about Usyk.

"Five times as many heavyweight title defenses and counting"

Given there was one belt when Liston fought Folley and Machen should be considered equal to the AJ fights. AJ was the "second champion" and Usyk beat him. There was no "second champion" for Liston to beat. At this time 12 rounders with no world or regional title attached were rare and indicated a number 1 contender fight. Machen v Tommy Jackson, Machen v Folley I, Ingo v Neuhaus, Ingo v Machen, Folley v Machen II, Liston v Folley, Liston v Machen, Patterson v Machen, Chuvalo v Doug Jones and Patterson v Chuvalo all fit this billing.

"Undefeated thus far" 5-0/24-0 v 50-4. Liston won 28 fights in a row so he has a longer undefeated streak. Per Usyks stated plans he will not be matching that streak.


"More victories over historically important fighters, and even heavyweight fighters."
Fury and AJ are not historically important fighters. Quite the opposite they only matter because they are relevant in the here and now. Fury lost to an MMA fighter the fight before Usyk beat him. Usyk fans argument is built on the idea that Dubois, AJ and Fury are these special 3 opponents and that beating them even by one rounds requires some special once in a lifetime fighter. Andy Ruiz, Francis Ngannou and Joe Joyce all made that very clear this is not the case.


"Won the heavyweight championship on his second heavyweight fight (actually a few early ones were heavy to, but...)"
Usyk the HW title his 2nd fight means nothing because champs at the lower weight class often get a chance to do it in their 1st fight. RJJ did it in his first fight and so on. Haye also did it fight 2. Usyk did not do it in fight 2 btw he did it fight 3. He went Chazz, Chisora, AJ.

Responding to your previous point about Patterson, Patterson went 17-3-1 the next 9 years after losing to Liston. Fury has not fought since the Usyk fights and it would be a mild shock if he won 5 more fights.

Responding to other posters comparing the weights of Usyk and Listons opponents there seems to be a misconception about why CW feats are not counted as HW feats. Its not cause a 200 pound man isn't a HW he is. Its because as a seperate division every ranked CW opponent has a status in that division they would not have as a HW. Any champion at CW even the few who win HW belts like Holy, Haye and Usyk would have a tougher time at HW. Anyone who is a CW titlist or ranked contender would not have that status in the pre Cruiser world Liston fought in.

Usyk fought in the best CW era. You can argue 2 of Usyks CW opponents are lower top 10 HWs. He only had 3 opponents who'd be top 25 and 5 who'd make the top 50.

 

Including Usyks cruiserweight run, I am going to go with Usyk as the more accomplished guy.

Still, Liston was avoided for years and should have been champ 3 years earlier than he was. He could and likely would have been an active champ.

I also rank Liston significantly higher in a H2h sense due to his power and well rounded skills. So Liston rates higher on my hw list.

 

Fury and AJ are historically important fighters. Fury beat Wlad (after one of the longest HW championship reigns of all-time) and became lineal champ. AJ was a title holder who also is an Olympic Gold Medalist. Saying they are "not historically important fighters" is wrong.

 

You have no idea what you are talking about.

 

Why?

 

There is nothing that makes these wins equal to title defenses. We don't award defenses. Saying that good wins are equal to title defenses because of a different era is like saying cruiserweight defenses are equal to heavyweight because there was no cruiserweight then, so I hereby award Usyk 11 defenses. That doesn't really work either, does it. Exact same logic, adjusting for eras.

Usyk has five, Sonny has one.

Against, who, though? Some decent contenders, for sure. Again, Usyk just beat more historically significant fighters.

Of course they are. This is pure silliness. There isn't anything that can be said to an argument this bad. If you are going to contend that two-time heavyweight champs with multiple title defenses are not historically significant, then we have no framework for further discussion.

Fighters have bad fights. Patterson was put down by a guy making his debut...so are Sonny's two best wins now garbage?

It's still a significant achievement regarldless of it others have done comparable.
There is no point here. None.

Entirely your speculation. You are welcome to it, but must not sell it as a point. It isn't. He and Joshua are coming back and we will see how far they get.

Since I am not trying to count his cruiserweight fights and explicitly said so on more than one post, irrelevant. It is, however, relevant to those who count a head to head element in these things, that Usyk beat guys who dwarfed Sonny's best at heavy. As I have said, it really doesn't matter because of these other points.

K. Point is lost on me. Are you saying that the cruiser fights should count? I decline to argue that in this thread one way or the other, so whatever you are saying, great.

 

Because Patterson is arguably one of the worst HW champions in one of the HW eras worst time. He had one of the easiest roads to becoming the HW champ (fighting an almost 43 year old former LHW), but also the easiest road to keep him there with title fights that shouldn't have been sanctioned (e.g. Pete Rademacher) among others. But you want to give him a "decent chance of beating Usyk".

 

I wouldn’t favour him over Usyk, but don’t think Usyk is the worst style match up for him. I think he’d do ok, His speed might trouble Usyk a bit.
Anyway this is about Liston v Usyk, and Liston has better credentials than Usyk.
Usyk beat old Fury who’d abused himself for years and Joshua who was gunshy and unsure of himself and never that good anyway.
I would pick Liston to beat them.
Usyk might beat the men that Liston beat, but he doesn’t blow them away like Liston did.

If they both fought each others opposition they probably do about the same, but Liston has a better legacy, Usyk doesn’t even have ten fights at heavyweight does he? His legacy stands on four fights with Fury and Joshua.
Liston has 50 wins with 39 KOs.

 

"Usyk beat old Fury". Usyk is older than Fury so I would still give Usyk the credit he deserves even after Tyson's weight and drug problem.

His legacy is much greater than "four fights with Fury and Joshua".

It's all of this: 1) Olympic Gold Medalist (arguably the greatest amateur HW boxer of all-time) 2) Undisputed CW Champ (arguably one of the greatest CW boxers of all-time) 3) Undisputed HW Champ 4) Undefeated HW champ with 5 title defenses 5) P4P King.

You want to talk about Usyk doesn't even have 10 fights, but Liston couldn't even go 8-0 in his HW career without taking an L. Even though he beats Marshall in a rematch he still lost. Marshall couldn't even beat a 5'10 LHW Harold Johnson.

You have to be trolling. Liston gives up way too much height and weight to beat Fury or AJ. We are talking about a 1960's HW who beat up on smaller guys.

 

Would Liston fare better if he gained 50 pounds of fat ?

 

No i’m not trolling.
Liston might have lost to Marshall but he went 50-2 outside of Ali, and may have been older than we think he was.
You mention Liston beating smaller men and Usyk’s amateur pedigree, the Olympics he won the limit is essentially cruiserweight, he was beating shorter/smaller men for his gold medal.

Yes Usyk is a great cruiserweight. This thread is not about cruiserweights.

Wasn’t Sonny undisputed champ?

Undefeated Usyk maybe, but he never fought Ali. And he would have lost if he did. Marshall is the only real blip on Listons record, and look at his strings of KO’s against quality opposition. He was devastating in his prime.

p4p king, debatable. Liston has a great shout of being the best p4p through a lot of his prime since Robinson was past his best.

Usyk does deserve credit, but in my opinion as I’ve said many times, it only needed one very good heavy to come along to expose Fury and Joshua, I’m glad someone did it but it doesn’t make Usyk the next Ali. A handful of fights doesn’t put him above Liston either.

Your only point which really has any weight is number of title defences, but basically no one wanted him as champion until they had to give him a shot, he was champion in waiting for several years.