Your thoughts on the 1967 WBA heavyweight tournament?

Yeah, I would not have enjoyed him fighting prime beasts like Liston and Williams, Frazier I would say I would like to see. I felt that the most powerful and unrelenting fighters would be bad for Martin. I feel that Martin's better chances of winning, as well as our better chances of seeing good fights are against the likes of Patterson, Quarry, Henry Cooper, Doug Jones, Chuvalo, and Machen.

 

I enjoyed it immensely...I was 14 yrs old and I had a blast watching every fight. Was really impressed with Jerry Quarry vs Thad Spencer. Same with Jimmy Ellis's brains and his power vs Bonavena. Somebody in another thread today opined that Jimmy Ellis had no power lol...maybe this poster, if he could..should have asked Johnny Persol and Oscar Bonavena about that. You don't deck Ringo 3 times (yes 3 times) without some power.

 

Thank you sir!

 

Interesting post. If Joe had run into liston, then even at that point with Frazier’s chin and style there's a danger that he gets hurt.
But it's more likely that Joe rips the ribs out of Sonny and stops him hard.

 

Ellis was more credible than Joe as champ to most people at that time. Great tourney, would love to see a similar one again.

 

Benefit of the doubt: Not sure it was 100 percent Yank ducking Liston because of whatever threat he posed to Joe — there was also the fact that Liston was kind of blackballed from the top of the game because of the belief that the second fight with Ali was fixed.

If Liston quit on his stool or it ended funny, it would have done Joe no good.

 

True. I would argue that because of Liston's reputation, it was a low reward fight but very high risk. If Liston quit as you said, Frazier doesn't get any credit and his reputation is hurt.

If Frazier beats him without Liston quitting, people would say Liston was washed up.

However, Liston was stylistically very dangerous for young Joe. Liston hits harder than anyone Joe fought pre-Foreman. I don't think Yank wanted that fight because how dangerous Liston was. Liston has a solid chance even at that time of beating Joe.