sonny liston : wins : Floyd Patterson (KO1 , KO1) Marty Marshall (TKO6 , UD10) and who cares about : Eddie Machen (UD12) , Zora Folley (KO3) , Cleveland Williams (TKO3 , TKO2) losses : Cassius Clay (LRTD7 , LKO1) , Leotis Martin (LKO9) , Marty Marshall (LSD8) is that an ATG resume ? and people claim he is one of them great black hopes to dethrone vitali klitschko. edit (2012) : This had 2b quoted here : edit (2011) : so far we had : Sonny Liston , Aaron Pryor , Willie Pep Liston : This 1st post Pryor : http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6815098&postcount=167 Pep : http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showpost.php?p=11198901&postcount=192
3 losses in almost 20yrs fighting. Take the Ali loses out briefly and you have,what, near 16yrs between defeats,one of which he reversed, the other at the tail end of a 20yr career. Not too bad IMO
Yeah, he primed early and fought on very late, beating his last ranked contender when most fighter of the era had their feet up. In his prime he lost twice to Muhammad Ali. Compare this to someone like Lennox Lewis who lost twice in his prime to Rahman and McCall. What his resume has to do with his ability to beat Vitali, God alone knows. He certainly has a better one than him, so the parallel thread would read exactly the same way but make a little more sense.
You can also throw in the fact that listons 2 close fights with summerlin could have went either way. summerlin was knocked out out by wes bascom who dan bucceroni exposed. all champs have a bogey man. ali had ken norton. joe frazier had oscar bonnavena. liston had summerlin....
Do you mind explaining how defeating Summerlin twice having had only 5 proffessional fights before he met him can possibly be held against Sonny Liston?
just in response to the question : Vitali Klitschko : Juan Carlos Gomez (TKO9) , Samuel Peter (RTD8) , Danny Williams (TKO8) , Larry Donald (TKO10) , Ross Puritty (TKO11) , Orlin Norris (KO1) , Timo Hoffman (UD12) , Herbie Hide (KO2) , Dicky Ryan (TKO5) i even excluded Arreola and Jevin Johnson as they are still not proven enough but some day they too might be regarded as two of vitali's big wins.
i counted the wins over marshall because it is always important to look for the fighter's rematches of his losses regardless of the quality of the opposition in his loss. had he lost to marshall twice , it would make much more difference than one SD loss. however , getting his granite :? jaw shattered by a lightheavyweight raises a big question mark over his chin , and this is a fight he went the distance in. what about his stoppage losses ?
Danny Williams did stop tyson , sprott (twice) , avenged his points loss to Julius Francis by stoppage , and narrowly outpointed the bigger audley harisson , and stopped an undefeated Kali Meehan in just one round. i do not consider Williams a top25 hw ,but i count a win over him , that's all.
What an outstanding resume. Dicky Ryan, Ross Puritty, Danny Williams, Timo Hoffman, now there's a group of top class fighters. Billy Conn must have had several "boogeymen" because he lost 7 of his first 16 fights. Liston beating Johnny Summerlin, a legitimate contender in the division, after only 5 professional fights can only be seen as impressive.
FrankenFrank, Where is Mike Dejohn, Wayne Bethea, Roy Harris, Henry Clark, and Nino Valdes? All of those men were top 10 contenders. Bethea rated # 8 Dejohn rated # 7 Harris rated # 5 Clark rated # 9 Valdes was a big man with a dangerous punch who was rated # 2 in the world in Feb of 1959
Hypothetically match Liston up against all the linear champions. Imo,only the VERY best could beat him. As for his jaw,even the toughest jaw can get broken if caught right. Best example being Muhammad Ali in his first go with Ken Norton.
when i saw them namez i thought (to myself) : da guy must be kiddin' , he ridicules my list of vitali's worthy opponents , and then i read nino valdes , and i undaztood : da man means liston's worthy opponents and is serious :-(. all valdes has ever done is a decision win over a smaller and older ezzard charles. and then plenty of losses , to folley and machen among others , nonetheless. and this is a name i heard about . imagine the rest , well , they couldn't have done much worse , could they ?