Sonny Liston vs Lennox Lewis

Prime/Prime (Lewis with Stewart in his corner)

who takes it?

 

Liston, I think. Lewis is the taller fighter, by nearly five inches. They have the same reach, so that nullifies Lewis's height to an extent. But Lewis can always lean on Sonny and try to wear him out. As much as people say Lewis was such a great boxer, he was shown up at times. Frank Bruno, a good jabber and boxer, was getting the better of him and forced Lewis to slug to win. Mavrovic, another tall boxer, stayed very competitive with Lewis. Ray Mercer also was a handful for Lewis.

Sonny is a great, and usually underrated fighter. He had one of the best jabs in heavyweight history, and he really cleaned out the division. The only very notable big man I can remember him beating is Cleveland Williams. So it's not exactly clear how he would have performed against a big man like Lewis. I will say that he was much more willing to trade blows than Lewis was, and if this fight went in that direction, he'd get the better of it. I think he was a better boxer (better jab) than Lewis too, but he could be slow.

I'd favor Liston to get points with the jab, and when Lewis tries to force the issue he gets knocked out.

 

Lewis by mid or late round stoppage.

 

Interesting matchup.

Lewis had problems with lesser types like Bruno and Mercer, but Sonny didn't fight anyone close to the overall combination of size/power/skill of Lewis...my gut reaction says Lewis UD, but I need to think about this some more.

 

I actually thought Mercer should have won their fight. He was outworking Lewis effectively, I thought. Damn good fight. I favor Lewis against Liston but I could see either one knocking out the other. I don't think Liston could have handled the size of Lewis.

 

My goodness, Lewis KO'd Bruno. Pretty obvious that he would beat Bruno every time.

Liston caved in against light - punching Ali. This idea that he was a menacinf, intimidating monster wouldn't hold up against a physically stronger fighter whom he couldn't bully around.

 

Bruno was giving him problems, but one thing you must remember is that it was a pre-Steward Lewis - even though IMO his influence on Lennox is overplayed.

It was also, by some distance, a career best performance from Bruno, who is very underrated it seems on ESB. He wasn't a great fighter by any means, but certainly a very very good one, who would most probably be undisputed champion today.

 

How does that work? Them having the same reach (which is more about shoulder broadness anyway) means that those 5 extra inches in height that Lewis has, will not be compensated by longer arms from his opponent.

I'm taking Lewis by mid/late round TKO. He's way more proven against big heavyweights than Liston was, and outside of chin, where the difference is marginal anyway, i don't see any area where Liston excels over Lewis.

 

about the height - you can read one of my post in the thread about wlad's admiration for ruiz. one of the things is :
the height puts lewis' chin and face high enough to be quite protected from long range shots including jabs and to a lesser extent even shorter shots.
lewis would have beaten liston , unless liston repeats what rahman or mccall did , which is possible , but also lewis' rematch with rahman repeating is very possible.
i say , lewis beats liston 3(2):1(1).
that if both ali fights were legit.
if not , then maybe 3(1):1(1).

you have a great avatar , maybe the best i've seen.
how you got it , photoshop ?

 

You neglect the fact that Liston was also old when he fought Clay/Ali, and got demoralised when he couldn't catch Ali. He didn't exactly 'cave in', unless you're talking of the rematch which was fishy, to say the least.
Why didn't he cave in against the hard-punching Cleveland Williams?

And yes, he beat Bruno convincingly in the end, but Bruno nonetheless gave him some issues. My point was that strong jabbers with good whiskers did seem to trouble Lewis, and Liston was a strong jabber with a good chin.

 

That's a fair comment, although to be honest I can't see Bruno beating either Klitschko, but that's neither here nor there for the purposes of this thread.

 

My opinion on them:

Tactical adjustments during fights - When did Liston show tactical adjustment, at all? The Patterson ones were clear-cut, Machen was more of the same throughout the entire bout, Williams were slugfests, etc. He did adapt nicely during the first Clay bout by going to Ali's body from round 2 or 3 on (and by blinding him after that didn't work), but nothing spectacular. During the rematch, he was still plodding in a straight line instead of cutting the ring of.

Lewis on the other hand, changed tactics for the Rahman and McCall rematches, and with great result. Managed to land the winning punch against Bruno and started throwing the uppercut more as the rounds went by against Klitschko, peaking with that SICK punch in the 6th. Same with Holyfield, whose assualt he basically stopped with that uppercut in the 9th.

I think this department is a draw at best, but i don't see how Liston could have the upper hand in it.

Offensive infighting - Liston being the much shorter of the two, naturally he's going to be the better infighter, but Lewis more than holds his own. He took so many fighters apart with the uppercut, probably more than Liston did although lack of extensive footage makes this somewhat of an unknown. Be that as it may, Lewis managed to land the uppercut against almost any type of opponent, even a hard-to-hit-one like Holyfield, while Liston barely landed anything on Clay even when the former was blinded.

Left hook - Fair enough. I will say though, that WHEN Lewis used his left hook, it was every bit as good as Liston's (watch Lewis vs Morrison, particularly the last knockdown.. a perfect left hook if i've ever seen one).

Mid-range boxing - Lewis being faster, bigger and having the better jab, i'd give this one to Lewis... but it's a very "general" category.

Body-punching - Liston takes it, but again, the difference is marginal, plus, when you're tall as a building, why should you go to the body? It leaves you more open to counters..... conversely, when you're relatively short like Liston, it's more attractive.

And like you say, chin - Yep, but again, the difference is marginal.



Fair enough, you did prove me wrong. I'm not changing picks, though. :twisted:

I didn't know about that, though i think it should be noted Lewis fought a truckload of extremely durable opponents. Holyfield 2, Mercer, Klitschko, Tua, Mavrovic, Tyson, McCall 2x, Tucker, Mason... all of them have (near) iron jaws, whereas the only Liston opponents you could say that off are Clay 2x, Machen and Bethea.

 

I think the Bruno that fought Lewis would beat Wlad - he pretty much peaked for that fight, and but for a single lapse in the 7th who knows what would have happened?

From then on though he was never really the same, even though he later beat McCall and won the WBC title.

Whilst he wouldn't be able to outjab Wlad (for any great length of time) he would certainly be able to match him, and take him away from his comfort zone with educated pressure, double jab, hooking off the jab and so on. Wlad is a great fighter when allowed to dictate (as many would be) but I'm not so sure as to whether he has the stomach to get in there and really fight - has he gone to war and won with anybody on Bruno's level?

I can't think that he has - please correct me.

Bruno would be able to take Wlad's punches - not sure Wlad could take Frank's, without becoming a statue as in the Brewster fight.