is constantly marked very high in greatest hw lists, yet some other fighters are marked lower due to qualtiy of opposition etc...i love liston, love the aura, the power, the brooding malevolence....how good was he, and how can we tell given that he didnt have, to my knpowledge, the highest quality of oppositon for us to judge his skills against, or am i wrong in this assertion???
Well, he twice destroyed a prime Cleveland Williams, destroyed Folley and beat a slick Eddie Machen. Thats a pretty good indicator, at least in my opinion.
Currently I rate Sonny as my sixth all time heavyweight. Awesome power,and underrated skill,in some departments.
Sonny Liston was very good and deserves to be ranked highly. He brutally exposed Floyd Patterson as unfit for championship duties, but the way in which he himself lost the title leaves something to be desired too.
I think Amos Lincoln, Sonny's one-time sparring partner and also opponent, put it succinctly, 'if he can hit you, he can whup you'
man, get real any great hw would exposed patterson brutally... he was not even a hw and his chin was weak. frazier,foreman, tyson,louis,holmes,lewis,bowe,jonhson,dempsey even vitali or marciano would destroy him very easy. liston was a beast in his prime 58-60 but his resume was not great.
Sonny Liston may be the most difficult Heavyweight Champion to rate. He was clearly the best Heavyweight from late 1958 thru 1963. 5 1/2 years. 1964 is the 'lost year' and 1965 is the 'bizarre year'. I don't think anyone can really figure out how good he was.
i was gonna fall back on you to rate him and you didn't dissapoint. the fact that he was the consensus best heavyweight for a five year period, a period with some VERY solid contenders and twice destroyed one of the top 20 best heavies of all time speaks highly to me watching him jab, in his PRIME, also goes a long way. the man did what he did so well that he was damn near unbeatable
He looked very quick versus Wayne Bethea in 1958. Though that First Round KO is still a 'smad' questionable. I can't go into all the details, but it will be in the book. When Jimmy Wilson was training Sonny, he really worked hard to stay in the 204 to 207 lb. range.
Not my upload: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIIx9h7yhaw[/ame] Might see a lot of great Liston moments you havent seen before.
Patterson was the youngest hw champion(until Tyson broke that record) and was the first man to regain the hw title, that has to account for something. Yes he wasn't a "natural" hw but to not have him rated as one of the great hw's is tragic.
liston had a good win against nino valdez whom had been avoided by marciano's management. liston is in my top 8
You mean like Foreman did expose Frazier? IMO Liston is not a Top10 hw. Yes, he is a great hw but people tend to look at his positives but ignore the negatives. Patterson 2 times are great wins but having such a size and style advantage over him diminishes these a bit. Beating Folley and Machen are very good win but there are other hws with equally good wins who aren´t ranked that highly. Williams was a dangerous puncher but it´s not a better win than a win over Tua for example. Valdes was a good win over a past prime contender. Yes, he cleaned house before facing Patterson, strange thing is when people talk about that era they often bring up that it wasn´t good but when they tralk Liston it never comes up. What for me ultimately prevents him from getting into the Top10 are his two fights with Ali. I think people tend to like him due to his tragic life and the mystery around him.
