Liston's resume and ranking

he's in my top 10.his wins over cleveland williams,eddie machen ,zora folley and nino valdez were good enough for me.

 

Not in my top 10. Ali, Louis, Marciano, Holmes, Lewis, Holyfield, Tyson, Dempsey, Foreman, Johnson, Fraizer all have better resumesm and thats 11 fighters right there. Liston is in my top 15 but not top 10. Maybe #12.

He only made 1 (!!!!) sucsesfull title deffense, never won the tittle after lossing it, didnt beat any ATG worthy of mention (unless if we count Patterson, wich I dont). This is not top10 material. :nono

 

And the fact that as champion...he QUIT WHILE SITTING ON HIS STOOL in his first fight against Ali in Miami in Feb.1964..and the KO loss in 1965 up in Maine to Ali's "Phantom" punch has to be taken into consideration also when deciding where to rank Sonny...

 

There probably isn't a fighter in history and certainly not more than 1 that would of had more than one defense had there second defense been against a 64 Clay. Faulting Liston so much for failing to beat the greatest of all time is a laughable position to take.

I rank Liston as a borderline top 5 HW. Machen, Folley, Williams, and Patterson are very good wins and he has a nice group of second tier wins in DeJohn, Bethea, Valdes, Clark, Wepner, Harris, Whitehurst.

Under rated resume, although most of the knowledgable posters here on Classic give him his due :good

 

well sonny fought whoever there was to fight. and if patterson hadn't ducked him he'd be champ earlier.
i rate him at nr. 4. what counts a lot for me is that i believe h2h sonny would beat ALMOST every other champ.

 

This is exactly what it comes down to, an excellent point MM. You can't fault him for the lack of defenses when he had to fight the #1 HW of all-time. Liston shouldn't be penalized for finding himself in such an unfortunate positions. He's still got a very solid resumé, and his jab, reach, skills and power makes him a handful for anybody H2H.

 

Eddie Machen, Zora Folley and Floyd Patterson were classy fighters, and good wins for Liston.

Cleveland Williams was a dangerous puncher, and fast, but he wasn't a real proven contender. He'd been matched with low-grade opponents most of the time.
Liston looks impressive in the Williams fights admittedly.

An old Nino Valdes, Mike DeJohn, Wayne Bethea were nothing special, overall.

Cassius Clay had struggled with Henry Cooper and Doug Jones in his two previous outings going in to the Liston fight, so it's hard to argue that Liston should be excused because Clay was "The Greatest". Even if Clay improved two-fold for Liston. There are a multitude of theories and opinions on those fights, but I think it's hard to argue against the assertion that Liston's efforts/performance in both fights left a lot to be desired. The best theory that can be offered in his defence is that HE QUIT AGAINST A GREAT FIGHTER, and to me that's nothing to be proud of. It's not as if he was getting killed out there.

Where he rates against other historical heavyweights is a difficult matter though. You'd have to study them all closely and with due objectivity and find where you feel he should go.
I try to stay away from lists.

 

in a fight versus sonny ,imo, marciano and dempsey would be lucky to see the second round.
resume's can't punch:huh

 

The 2 losses to Ali and the way he handled them hurt him as far as I am concerned. His wins over Patterson were solid and he had good wins over Clevland Big Cat Williams but I feel they are overated and Big Cat was KO'd by Satterfield in 3 pror to the Liston fights. You have to look at the Ali fights like they were legit and the 2nd fight was a dive if there was ever a dive. Why? I dont think we will ever really know. Liston was one of the scariest looking fighters to ever enter the ring and I think he would have been a problem for a lot of Heavys but to rate him high in the top 10...I would have to say... based on what?

 

I guess where you rank Sonny Liston will depend largely on where you rank Floyd Patterson.

 

Dont know so much about that. A fighter with heart and the ability and will to punch back often discourages the bully type. I remember no one giving Holyfield a chance vs Mike Tyson but heart,will and the abilty to hit back discouraged Tyson. Liston showed the mental weakness against Ali and we can not be too sure that it would not have happened vs a fighter with heart that came to wwin and hit back to bad intent.

 

Well we are discussing resumes here, not H2H fantasy matchups, or am I wrong? :huh

 

The discussion is on his all time placing at the weight as a fighter, not the all time placing of his resume. And your statement regarding his resume in comparison to guys like Tyson and Dempsey was a ways off in my estimation as well.