David Tua v.s Sonny Liston

Liston, wide UD. Perhaps near shutout, ala Lewis vs Tua fight. :good

 

Lewis is 4 inches taller than Liston ,Liston had an 84 in reach ,I dont think Lewis,s is much more than that!.Liston wont be jabbing off the back foot he will bethrowing the jab and taking his two steps in to throw something heavy,Tua will be coming on to this and he is a sucker for a jab,inside Liston,is more versatile ,and hits hard with both hands not just his left,Tua has a great chin ,but I dont think his soft gut will take Listons short bombs all night. A great fighter usually beats a good fighter and it will happen here,Movement bothered Sonny who never learned to cut off the ring ,but Tua will be coming straight at him,into the meat grinder.

 

Some comments:

1) Liston's reach is 84 inch, but that is wingspan we are talking about. On film it is evident that Williams, who had a 80 inch reach, has the longer arms and the bigger range. The whole reach measurement isn't that great a factor in actual 'reach'. On film it is evident that Lewis has a gigantic reach. I don't remember him ever being "outreached", the sole exception may be Vitali Klitschko, who is a giant himself.

2) Tua coming in the "meat*******" would play into Tua's hand. Tua's short arms will find their targets best on the inside and while Liston would definitly land as well, i think Liston would be bothered by it. Tua showed in the Ibeabuchi fight that hard punches, in fact a storm of hard punches, won't keep him away that easily. He did stay away from Lewis' power, but i don't think Liston punches that hard and there was the additional factor that he had to get past Lewis' power to get inside, while he could rather easily get on the inside against Ibeabuchi, and probably against Liston as well.

 

The thing about Liston is that he is good on the inside, good on the outside and good in between. He had excelent ring generalship and often reacted to what his oponent planed to do before they did it.

While he might not keep tua on the end of his jab all night he would win the battle of ring generalship and would keep Tua where he didn't want to be doing what he didn't want to do.

He would also win the battle of the punching zones adapting to any line of attack that Tua presented while denying him many of the ones he needed.

 

Tua showed in the Lewis fight he wasnt prepared to pay the price to get inside,Liston in his prime ,against Williams ,fighting with a broken nose went toe to toe with a terrific puncher and came out on top,Ibeabuchi is a heavy puncher but I dont think he is in Williams class,and imo neither is Tua.

 

Ibeabuchi, even with his short-cut career, accomplished much more than Williams. He knocked out a top contender in Byrd (the third best heavy of the 2000's thusfar) and beat an undefeated Tua. While i think he lost that fight by a point, it's still better than anything Williams ever did.

Tua knocked Ruiz out in 17 seconds, Ruiz went on to have quite a good resume, like him or not. He also had a close fight with Ibeabuchi, knocked Rahman out and knocked Moorer out in 30 seconds. He's also a step above Williams.

Note that Williams was not a ranked top10 contender when Liston fought him, on both occasions. Clearly he is not a class above Tua or Ibeabuchi.



It is a fair comment that Tua didn't want to get on the inside of Lewis, or not as much as he should've. But do keep in mind that Lewis was a master of keeping distance, staying off the ropes and popping those long punches. Liston will not fight on the backfoot like that. Against Ibeabuchi, Tua had no "motivational" problem getting inside despite getting nailed with hard shots. You could argue either way, but i don't think there's a "Tua definitely won't get inside" given Liston's style.

 

Liston takes this.

But im not sure if he stops Tua.

 

Liston's on the short list of guys with a good shot at stopping Tua.

 

True, I always felt Tua decided to stay at a distance after feeling Lewis power. For some reason Tua stayed at bay....I give Lennox credit here but Tua did not let it all hang out and it could be he tasted enough to keep him honest....Liston is only 2 inches taller and despite a reach advantage I think this fights suggests more exchanges, Liston was the better ringmaster but Tua had enough power to KO anything he could hit but he failed at this with Rahman and other lesser men so I would not think Sonny would be an easier mark.

 

Rahman jabbing Tua at will is more worriesome to me than the Lewis loss. Tua was very lucky not to have a loss against Rahman who fought like a poor man's Liston in those fights.

Ibeabuchi didn't have a very good jab in my opinion, Tua even outjabbed him at times which is quite embarrassing really.

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpTliQmLa98[/ame]

 

Liston beats Tua. He Simply has much more in his arsenal. The question is, can he take a sneaky Tua left hook? other than that. Sonny All day

 

Chris, Liston did do a little "back foot" fighting against Patterson, moving in and out of his range and always controlling the distance and exchanges. I think he would use this approach against Tua.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66dTY43XejM[/ame]

 

Liston wins 7rds Ko