Ever heard about Luz Long? Here´s what Jesse Owens said about him: [ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luz_Long[/ame]
You do, by calling Moore old and a lightheavyweight instead of adressing him for what he was. Outside of Patterson the best hw in the world. That´s speculation. I stick with facts. Patterson was prone to getting knocked down early for many reasons. He got up and knocked Johannson out. How is this close? Liston had a tremendous style advantage and a size advantage. Patterson fought Ali with a bad back the first time around and in the second one it was a close fight before the stoppage. It was Patterson´s last fight too.
yes i have heard of him, a sad ending. i've got a book on owens and joe louis and its a bit bizarre that they both started smoking later in life.of course louis went on to worse things
Probably. I think it's a good win, so I don't see the problem. Moore wasn't championship material at HW, though, IMO. And the fact is Johansson brutally destroyed Patterson first time of asking. And you say "so ?" He knocked Johansson out with foul blows. I'm not saying it was close, but it wasn't as decisive a win as the first two fights. As a whole, the trilogy is not dominated by Patterson. He scraped past Johansson, who was finished after the 2nd fight anyway. Patterson went down early in fights largely for the same reasons he couldn't go 1 round with Liston. He simply didn't take a punch well. Well, he never looked like have a hope in hell of actually beating either of those two. He was out of his depth. How's that being "competitive" ?
There´s a Jesse Owens museum on the old 1936 Olympic grounds, it´s a small one but the entry is free. Quite interesting. Well, there was more than one champ who was worse than Moore. And Patterson returned the favour the second time and beat him second time. So? :huh He did not scrap past him. He beat him twice out of three. If he would have won the third time by SD than he would have scrapped past him. If this would be true, he would have went down as often later on. Or even more often, factoring in fatigue. But, oh well, he didn´t. Go back to my initial argument here. I wrote he was competative with the best of the following era. Liston was his era, not the following. Anyway, Liston had his number. This happens. Against Ali, well, the fight was close the second time, wasn´t it? And Patterson was done by then. And of course he had a bad back in the first one.
I think Sonny deserves high rank.At the time,Machen,Folley,Williams ,Besmanoff top ten. Just look at his KOs of Floyd, plkus he beat Henry Clark when he was top tier & Sonny vastly faded.
Unquestionably he defeated all the Top-Rated guys from 1958 thru 1960. 1961, it was only Howard 'Honey Boy' King and Albert 'Quick Fall' Westphal. Not what anyone would consider top guys. Unfortunately he had his boxing license suspended in 9/61, and could not fight until December 1961. He wanted to have another tune-up before fighting Floyd Patterson for the title in September 1962. The opponent he wanted to fight,,,,,,,,does anyone remember,,,???? The circumstances were, Sonny wanted to take { 1 or 2 } quick tune-ups in April and June 1962 in Miami Beach, but the promoters for the Championship Title fight prevented that fight from happening.
Liston was a great fighter but I think he deserves to be marked down for the clay fights. It does effect his resume. I know you can pick apart any champion and liston is no exception. sonny certainly did what fans want to see on the tin, a guy who knocks everyone out, but like il duce says he is hard to rate. sonny had flaws like all champions. archie moore was beating some of sonnys opponents quicker.
I've always been a fan of Liston's, in fact he was probably the singlemost reason I became a fight fan...I always subscribed to his aura of mystery and menace..and he sure appealed to me as his image I liked so much better than Clay/Ali's. He was a force of nature back in the late 50's and early 60's and commanded so much respect if not outright admiration. His popularity was at it's highest just prior to the first fight with the Louisville Lip. I think all his eary victories have merit and establish him as boxings monster-in-charge.
M-G-M, One of the opponents that Sonny Liston's Team wanted before the Floyd Patterson Title Fight. A tune-up, pre-secheduled for Miami Beach, April 1962. A bout versus Ted "Kayo" Donald (Louisianna Heavyweight), 6' 3", 205 lbs., Just a trial-horse fighter with a good punch. 16-6-0 (15 KO's)
That much said...a Liston-Moore bout in the years 58 thru 61 would have resulted in a brutal 1 or 2 round ko for Liston. An interesting but highly unneccesary bout for Moore. I think Archie was too smart to take on Liston.
Unfortunately, we got to see Sonny Liston at the end of his career. 1964 thru 1970. In training for the Clay fight (February 1964), Liston was having trouble catching his sparring partners, he was getting hit too easy, and he was having problems hurting them. His punch was slowly escaping him.
Sonny's one of the hardest guys to rate, as his two most famous losses are somewhat suspicious and controversial, and his biggest wins were against a guy that wasn't really a heavyweight IMO. Patterson was to me, a great fighter, but a six-footer under 200 pounds is not really a heavyweight. Of course that means Marciano wasn't either. In fact, I kind of see Patterson has marking the end of an era, the time when cruiserweights were seen as heavyweights. After Floyd came Sonny, Cassius, and all of the modern day heavys with their standard size of a few inches over six feet and 10 or 20 pounds over 200. And perhaps we'll see Tyson has the end of that size era, the 220 pounders, as since then things have changed. I don't necessarily believe, for example, that Vlad Klitschko is definitely a better fighter than Floyd Patterson; I just can't count them as being in the same division. Sonny kind of represented a new era and was just peaking when the whole Ali fiasco came along....
Sonny Liston was also labeled the First Rock-n-Roll Champion. He was really a Cool-Cat when it came to music, he was into Heavy Blues and Up-Beat Jazz, he liked the new British-Invasion Music. Cassus Clay on the other hand, was pretty much 'a Square Daddy-O'. Double 'V', You're correct on the 'new vintage' heavyweight. Bigger guys who could move, not plodders. The early Liston was pretty good with the footwork, but the latter Sonny, too many late-nights.
