Sonny Liston vs his biggest opponent Gehard Zech, 6'5, in good quality

If you ignore the fact that Vitali was bigger, stronger, faster, harder hitting and had an exceptional chin they are twine.

 

Zech KO3 Rico. He’d help himself to a strap nowadays.

 

Some people would also say Vitali was more unorthodox and way more skilled and and ...

 

fights like TF...

 

To be fair to Bailey about half his losses up to that point were to elites. He went Cleveland Williams, Machen, Foster, Leotis Martin, Chinvalo, Mildenburger. Awhile after beating Zech he fought Sonny Liston. He was capable of having a much better record if he stuck to regionals.

There's two kinds of .500 fighters guys who watched too many motivational speeches and guys who are actually .500 at their level.

 

You have to weigh something though Dundee was always trying to motivate Ali to train hard. For lesser opponents the Europeans he fought you can be sure he didn’t train quite to the level were he went that extra mile like he did for say Liston or Terrell. But he overall I would say continued to improve up to his hiatus. Probably Terrel fight might be his peak Folley was older so he might not have trained quite to same level.

 

Liston only had 4 ,15 rounders .lol
Mildenberger went 15 rds 5 times against moderate opponents because he wasn't good enough to stop them!
Tomasoni x2
Zech x2
Preberg
Name world class top ten ranked fighter Mildenberger ever beat?

Mildenberger lost when he went up in class,his only decent win is over a past prime Machen,who had won none of his last 3 fights. Mildenberger's winning 15 rounders were against
Zech x2
Tomasoni x2
Preberg
None of these were better than Euro level.
Bailey was a journeyman who put Mildenberger on his ass twice .

These fights went the distance because Karl did not have the power to stop them!

Which month did Mildenberger make the no 1 spot?
Liston was stopped twice by the consensus no1 all time Ali and by Martin when he was old.Martin also stopped Mildenberger.

 

Was he a real 6'5 or a billed 6'5?

 

And only 7 12 rounders.

All the top Euros had more 12 and 15 rounders than their American counterparts. In this era having a fight over 10 rounds was only for titles and the most exclusive eliminators. North America didn't have regionals. Europe did.

Karl also beat Amos Lincoln in one of these rare 12 rounders.

 

I've seen his height given as anything from 6'4" to 6'9". Jack Cuddy said that, stood back to back, he looked to be about an inch shorter than Ernie Terrell, who was pretty consistently said to be 6'6".

 

#1
September 1967
August 1967
July 1967
June 1967
May 1967
April 1967

#2
March 1967
February 1967

#3
January 1967
December 1966
November 1966
October 1966

 

I SAID Mildenberger won by boxing and Liston won by scoring knockouts.

They had a lot of common opponents, so, of course, against common opponents, Mildenberger won on points and Liston scored knockouts.

You're not making any points with that rant.

My point was, in 1966, Mildenberger was on the rise and Liston was NOT.

Mildenberger was on a roll, Liston was not.

Mildenberger was on his way to the #1 spot, Liston was in exile.

Mildenberger fought a lot of the same guys Liston did, and names Liston didn't fight.

Mildenberger was used to winning over long distances, Liston only went past 10 rounds once.

So, of course, it is no stretch that a guy on the rise in 1966, who was a southpaw, who was headed to the top contender spot, who was used to winning 15-round decisions ... who gave Ali his the toughest fight of his first reign ... could take Liston (who was Ali's easiest title defense the year before) into the deep waters and beat him.

Don't be naive. Karl was stopped four times in 62 pro fights. He was no soft touch.

 

Liston had four 15 rounders. He lost two of the four.

His pattern in 15 rounders was, basically, if he didn't score a first round knockout, he lost.

In his fourth 15-rounder, in 1965, Liston himself was stopped in one round.

Again, he had next to zero experience if a fighter took him into deep waters.

Karl had seven 15-rounders. He won five of them. Mildenberger lost one (his last fight) via DQ to Henry Cooper (highly questionable - Karl just landed a hard left hand to Cooper's head, Henry fell in, when they were separated, Cooper was bleeding, and ref ruled it a headbutt and gave the fight to Cooper).

And he lost the other, to Ali, in the 12th round. (Liston never came close to going 12 with less mature and less experienced Ali.) Liston never fought a version of Ali who was better than the Ali who Karl faced. Liston couldn't last one whole round with Ali in 1965. Karl gave Ali his toughest defense in 1966.

Karl certainly could've taken Liston deep and all but ended Liston's career in 1966 had they fought.