if ingo KO'd floyd in the return would the swede be king kong insted of liston?

ali did have that edge i accept that. But I would give any tough fast heavyweight champs a good shot at beating liston. Holmes, lewis, charles, walcott. guys who could land 3 good shots and get away. maybe if ali had not existed ernnie terrel might have been a bad fight for him by 66? take the patterson fights away hes not realy king kong just a good powerful champion.

absolutly. ali lands too many shots and nuetralises the reach advantages.

 

Not as significant as it would be for liston. all those ATG's still merited significant greatness without those key wins. Liston only had 9 rounds of world championship boxing. without patterson its just not good.

 

I'd pick Ingo to get flattened by Liston, but it could be interesting.

One thing I've noticed lately when watching Liston film was that he could be hit with the right hand. Not saying he was a sucker for it, but right hands were landed on Sonny more than most other punches. Martin finished him with a right, and Ali finished him with a right (Liston made a show of it, but still)
And there's examples of it in his prime, as well. Whitehurst actually landed a right on Sonny that stunned him temporarily and was having a bit of success with it. Folley also made a good little fight of it by all accounts, and a lot of it had to do with his sneaky right hand (although this wasn't filmed so take it as you will) Again, I'm not saying Liston can't stop right hands, but I think it's a real thing. I think it's unavoidable really, when you jab that much right hands are going to land on you. It's the same reason Holmes has the rep of being a sucker for the right hand.

Ingo has ATG power in his right and if Whitehurst can stagger Liston with a right hand, what would Ingo's right do if landed correctly? I'd pick Liston within 4, but I'd still like to see it to see how Liston goes about his business. Whether or not he'd rely on his jab like normal knowing it can be countered with Ingo's Bingo or make a rough and tumble fight of it and fight on the inside like he did against Cleveland Williams. If he does the latter, it's an easy night but if he does the first we may be in for some real fireworks before it's over.

 

It's such a dumb thing to say. It's like when people say "take the Klitschko's height away and they would suck"

True but you can't take their height away, just like you can't take Listons or anyone else's best wins away.

 

To answer the original question, it depends on how impressive the knock out of Patterson would have been. Had he duplicated the initial feat of bouncing Floyd off the mat like a yo yo within three rounds, and then followed up with another title defense over a ranked contender who didn't present as much of a threat as Liston (Machen rematch, maybe?) then it's possible that a fight with Liston might have been regarded as close to a 50/50 proposition, and done insane business as a result.

Liston was still considered the uncrowned champion by many observers, but I think Ingo certainly wouldn't have been the prohibitive underdog that Patterson was. I also think he would have given a pretty good account of himself, and maybe stung Liston a few times before Sonny took over and stopped him late.

 

People just didn't like him because of his criminal backround. He wasn't as charsmatic as Ali, wasn't as kind and thoughtful as Marciano. The closest thing he acme to was a Joe Louis who was quiet, yet Joe Louis still wasn't a criminal.
But... I don't know. He was a good guy deep down and he seriously was just in a bad situation. He wanted to be the people's champion and the fact that nobody greeted him when he got off the plane. That certainly didn't help him.

I disagree with you on that 1. Liston was trying and he trained very hard for this rematch. however he might have been down more then the ten seconds when Ali threw that perfect right overhand. Don't you think Liston would run if he was seriously intimidated.
I don't think Liston was intimidated. Actually, Ali was afraid of Liston.

 

Liston would still have good names on his resume like Eddie Machen, Zora Folley, Cleveland Williams, Eddie Machen,Nino Valdes, Mike Dejohn, Wayne Bethea, Johnny Summerlin, Roy Harris.

What you dont realize is that with or without patterson...liston cleaned out the heavyweight division from 1958-1960. Just three years..he cleaned it out. Very Impressive.


You vastly underrated liston's resume. Not only did he beat a slew of top 10 fighters, he beat many different types of styles as well from punchers to defensive boxers and he clearly and cleanly beat all of them.

 

Interesting post..but I believe the real question is would ingemar johansson survive the first round against liston?

You nitpick the small *****s in liston's armor, but fail to do the same with Ingo. What about the fact Ingo absolutely froze against big punching ed sanders? If he was afraid against sanders, god only knows how terrified he would have been against Liston. Ingo did not face many punchers, and when he did, he lost(sometimes by devastating kayo). Liston would go right after Ingo and expose that glass jaw of his emphatically. I realize you were playing a little bit of a devil's advocate role, but I really don't think their is a need too.

 

Stopped him late? I think the real question is would Johansson have even gotten out of the first or second round? This is a mismatch and a slaughter. Johansson is tailor made for Liston. He will freeze up whenever liston encounters him and when Sonny lands, its lights out on the glass jaw. Ingo's only hope is to set Sonny up for that right hand, and seeing as Liston already took huge punches off big guys like Williams, Valdes, Dejohn without blinking..I have strong doubt Ingo will be able to put liston away with 1 blow. Ingo was a sandbagger. He used the element of surprise to upset a few very good fighters. Wouldn't happen against Sonny.

 

Holding Ingo's olympic loss against him is unfair, after all it's the amateurs. Tyson lost to Henry Tillman in the ams, how'd that help Tillman when they met in the pro ranks? And I think his olympic loss helped Ingo and made him a better fighter.

You're also a bit misleading when saying he didn't face many punchers, and when he did he lost. I'd consider Henry Cooper a pretty solid puncher and he knocked him out in 5, Hein Ten Hoff was a giant and won by KO in 28 of his 32 wins. Ingo blasted him out in one. And then you have the obvious one in Floyd Patterson, who Ingo knocked out as well, although he was stopped in the rematch. Frankly, you make it sound like Ingo was beaten up by every puncher he faced, where in reality he only ever lost to one man and stopped multiple good punchers.

I favor Liston via early KO but I think it could get very interesting.

 

"Williams, Valdes, DeJohn"

How many times did these three knock out Eddie Machen?

"Johansson is tailor made for Liston"

Why? He is going to move from the get-go. Off not only the Ali fights, but the Machen fight, a fighter capable of using lateral movement can give Liston some difficulty. And no one Liston fought had the right Ingo did.

That Liston would laugh off Ingo's right if he walked into it is a supposition certainly not supported by the 2nd Ali or the Martin fights.

 

'

Bull****! He tried to tire Sanders,have you seen the fight?
Its the same strategy Ali used on Foreman,but maybe he was scared too?
Ingo was only ko`d by Patterson and had already retired when Liston wanted
a fight, Ingemar said no because he was way out of shape and realized he couldnt win. A motivated and trained Ingemar could have surprised Liston like Ingo did with Machen.(Liston failed to KO Machen).

 

yes when you put it like that it is good. harris, valdes, machen and folley were all worthy of title shots for either listons "uncrowned championship" or floyds title. If there were more ranking bodys around then perhaps one belt may have stripped floyd for fighting radmacher and liston v folley would have been good enough match to make a vacent title fight. there certainly would have been cause for that in any later era.

That being said valdes, machen and folley had all been exposed by the time Liston fought them. Valdes took bad beatings off archie moore and satterfield and had already been KOD 4 TIMES most recently by charlie powel and machen. Machen himself was already blown away in a round by ingo when he fought Liston. folley had recently lost to henry cooper and been KOd twice before facing liston by fringe contenders johnny sumerlin and 10-5-1 young jack johnson. harris was KOd by patterson.

not so sure bethea, summerlin, williams and dejohn were so worthy since they were the kind of fringe opponets a typical contender would expect to have on their resume.