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Not sure it will change much, he will still lose to Ali in fight 1. Perhaps he does not have a early death is my guess.

 

I can't envision that at all.

 

If let’s say there was no mob connections involved in his life at all and only petty crime Liston would probably be about as popular Ezzard Charles was when he beat Louis. An air of “Meh” to him. A good fighter who beat a likeable champion.

 

I think he'd push himself more in the Ali fight 1, if you get my meaning.
He'd fight for the title harder, he wouldn't want to give up that feel good feeling he's got, being champ.
He'd still lose imo, but their d be no sitting down and saying stuff it.
Good question CT!

 

With the treatment he gets it’d only serve to enhance his image if he shot another boxer to death or something.

 

Liston was as well received in Europe as any other HW champion would have been. Photos of him in the UK as champion and in Sweden as an ex champion show that he was always celebrated outside of America.

so Liston still got a taste of what it would have been like as it was.

 

Sonny would probably have appreciated the fans..but at the end of the day he was institutionalized and grew up abused and damaged from an early age. He was backed by the mob and secrecy and intimidation go hand and hand.
I don't think getting love from the fans would have been enough to lift all that darkness he was surrounded by since birth. The man couldnt even tell you the day he was born. Somebody marked it on a tree and the tree got chopped down.
Liston was a sinner for sure but he was sinned against even more. In a nutshell I don't think that would fix everything.

 

Liston wasn't a boring fighter though. Those 2 guys quite often were though Lennox looks like Arturo Gatti compared to Wlad.

 

Sonny actually visited Helsinki, the city I was born and the capital of Finland in 1963, after his second bout with Patterson and before the first fight with Ali. He was welcomed here warmly, and he reportedly trained in front of a crowd of approx. 16 700 people, according to newspaper reports.

He also gave a rare and brief interview after his plane landed, which can probably be found on the internet. He trained in a famous amusement park and broke the attendance record at the time (which I think hasn't been broken to this day, but I can't be sure)

There are a couple pictures of Liston's training session, but sadly I don't have the rights to them, so if anyone is interested, you can find them from google if you search "Sonny Liston linnanmaki". In one picture he is signing autographs and in another, he is jumping rope.

Not many great champions have visited Finland, so it was cool to find out that my all-time favorite fighter had been here. Joe Frazier also visited Finland in the year 2007 if my memory serves me right. From what I know, I also think that Liston was always celebrated outside America, at least like a heavyweight champion should have been.

 

He probably lives longer but his career is more or less the same. Maybe he gets into the tournament after Ali is stripped. He
d wreck Jimmy Ellis in the tournament final for Ali's title then probably lose to Frazier just after.

 

Look at the way that Sonny Liston built his reputation, he broke bones for the underworld attempting to collect debts. Sonny laced a police officer upside down in a dumpster in the alley. As a youth, he was arrested for Armed Robbery and later he owned the yards in the correctional system. To be embraced, all of his past would have to be erased, he would have had to wear nickers, they would have had to call him Waldo. He would have had to be a subservient individual who was picked on as a child and adult. To me, that is hard to envision.

 

Have you seen his fighting diet? He must've drank enough to compensate because he ate like a bird from memory.

 

Unfortunately, adulation abroad could never substitute for the lack of same in his country of birth and true home.

Like Johnson in exile, Liston was treated far better in countries that were less prejudiced and not hypocritically hung up on historical priors -

Liston was apparently a different person altogether toward those who showed genuine care and gave him cause to trust them.

So yeah, I think if he was a more beloved Champ like Joe Louis, Liston would’ve prized that and acted as if he had a lot more to lose than what was actually at stake - which wasn’t a whole lot - he was generally presumed guilty until proven innocent.

The total lack of fanfare upon his arrival at the airport and it’s apparent impact on Liston is really quite sad.