Liston's resume and ranking

Sonny should have been Champ several years before he did. Most of the Heavyweights that fought back then that I know, rate him very high. I also rate him in my top 10 as well.

 

You like Liston don't you McGrain? Good to see people making a case for him in the top 5, even if it isn't set in stone. His pre-title record was really good though and we all know he should have been champion sooner in an ideal world.

Ali aside, he matches up well with any other heavy in history in a head to head sense IMO. I can't think of anyone who I'd favour over him clearly, ie. more than a 50- 60% shot, other than Ali.

 

Good wins, but not necessarily great ones. All of those fighters had already had their limitations exposed, and none of them were considered particularly durable - even Patterson was always a heavily criticized and vulnerable champion.

Exactly the point I've always made. People try to downplay the embarrassment of those losses by pointing to Ali's subsequent achievements, but the fact still is he was not yet at his peak and showed a lot of vulnerabilities at that stage of his career.


Personally, I don't see a case for putting Liston in the all time top 10. He had a relatively brief run at the top (from the Roy Harris fight to the 2nd Patterson fight, a span of about 7 fights), he yielded his title far too easily, he made no effort to regain it, and never did anything of note afterward.

 

So please explain how Liston has a better resume then Dempsey or better yet Tyson. :huh

 

Agreed.
And Sonny wasn't even particularly impressive in beating Machen.
Johansson had slaughtered Eddie in 1 round.

 

Williams, Valdes, Machen, and Folley were as good or better than pretty much any HW Tyson ever beat, and those were all pre-title shot wins for Liston. Throw in his double destruction of Floyd Patterson for added measure and I think it's pretty clear.

With Dempsey it has more to do with the fact that the majority of his better wins were smaller fighters, LHW's and the like, and the fact that he even managed to get beat (twice) by one of them. He's more stacked than either, though.

 

I thought Sonny did a fair job of tackling a good stylistic foil in Machen to be honest. And Ingo wouldn't have repeated that job on Machen if they'd fought another dozen times.

 

He did okay. Not particularly good, not particularly bad.

Probably not like that.
But we can only judge them on what they did. Johansson may have knocked him out again brutally, probably not in 1 round though.

We can just as easily say Machen BEATS Liston if they fight more times. In fact we are more justified in saying so regarding Machen and Liston than Machen and Johansson.
Anyway, I prefer to stick to what happened, not hypotheticals and speculation.

 

Valdes had been KO'd by Charley Powell and outpointed by Alonzo Johnson in the 5 months prior to facing Liston. So that's pure bull**** to say he's as good as or better than ANYONE Tyson ever beat. In my opinion. Pure nonsense.

Williams had never beaten a ranked contender.

 

Well Tyson is the youngest champion ever, he did defend his title 9 times sucesfully, he did unify the titles wich Holmes failed to do since 1978, he is the only man to unify it by beating 3 different champions and he did beat an ATG although past his prime. Holmes win I consider to be better then Liston's Patterson win. Holmes went on to fight for 14 years beating top contenders. Tyson also won the title the second time after over 4 years of inactivity, most of it spent in prison.
I think its pretty clear Tyson has the better resume. Of course Tyson has his negatives, but so does Liston. Im too tired to elaborate on those, feel free to do so, however In the end I think Tyson clearly takes this one.

 

Granted, but you know what I'm saying. Machen was a world class fighter who, on the night he fought Sonny, executed a good strategy and fought to the best of his ability. At least to my recollection; I've not seen that fight for some time. Machen would have beaten a lot of other fighters on that form.

Sure, we can hypothesize about Machen-Ingo, but you missed the point a bit. You can't use the fact that Machen got coldcocked by Johansson against Liston, it doesn't add up. He got caught by surprise against a huge puncher and couldn't recover, something very uncharacteristic of his overall career. Would you diminish Monzon beating Griffith in 14 on account of the fact that Carter beat him in one?

 

True. And Spinks on Tysons record looks better then all those fighters, no matter the ˙˙fear factor˙˙. He handed Holmes his first defeat (and then second) and was undefeated himself. I think names like Tucker, Thomas, Holmes, Spinks, Tubbs, Williams etc look better then anything on Listons resume (Minus Patterson who isnt a bigger achivement then Tysons destrucion of Holmes and Spinks imo). Im also willing to debate the fighters Tyson fought were better then those of Liston. Bigger, more athletic, more skilled with slightly to quite clearly better records as well.