Rahman vs Liston: Who has the size advantage?

Rahman is bigger, which doesn't matter for hypothetical matchup.

I always find it funny that people picture Liston as pretty much modern SHW, despite him being much closer to Joe Louis than Lennox Lewis in size.

 

Rahamn. By quite some margin.

 

Keep dreaming, Rahman was an enforcer as a teenager and survived shootings

 

Agreed. I spent a couple hours watching Rahman train, too. He was huge physically. Long arms. Hams for hands. Very powerful build.

Sonny Liston looked big because he fought a lot of smaller fighters. Albert Westfal was 5'7" and 190. Basically Canelo's size on fight night.

 

He was also extremly strong, his hand were huge and look at how he grappled down Lewis during their TV scuffle

 

You can say the otherwise comparably sized Rahman is bigger due to his purely weighing heavier - by 25 lbs.

For the intents and purposes of this exercise, Liston did edge Rahman on some key markers for “natural” size - reach, wrist and fist.

Rahman had a more “worked on” disproportional body builder physique than natural like Liston’s.

Even using just natural means before anything else, Sonny could’ve easily hit 225 lb or so, sans excess fat.

The reason people equate Liston to SHWs to some degree and allow him being competitive , aside from skill and power, is because his natural muscularity would still hold up as outstanding as well as his reach/fist measurements which were well beyond his height/size.

Subject to their accuracy (though the vision corroborates) how many so called SHWs approach, possess or exceed a reach of 84” and 15 1/2” fists?

Even among the super sized guys. I don’t believe Liston’s reach/fist present as garden variety stats.

Height wise, Liston was a more accurate 6’ 1/2” but Rahman himself was closer to 6’1”.

A guy like Fury is not 6’9” - he’s an actual 6’7”. The taller they are, the more they embellish.

To compare how Liston looks vs 6’5” and 6’6” fighters see his fight with Wepner and sparring session with Terrell respectively.

The height pull seemed more pronounced vs Wepner who was more a stand up straight fighter than Terrell. But you can see where Liston’s reach considerably negates his notably lesser height.

 

Rahman is clearly larger.
First off, bigger primarily means total mass, so unless you specify otherwise, just being fat would make you bigger.
If you mean lean body mass, Rahman with his powerlifting background had more muscle.
Sonny had the potential to be around his size, but that is not who he was.

Both had very long arms & huge hands.
It is impossible to know if Liston had an 84" reach, but it is likely overstated, if only because barring the tallest twins, pituitary giants, Liston would have the second longest ape factor ever. Easily in terms of percentage over weight, marginally in terms of an 11.5" + total. When even an 11" is exceedingly rare, what Manute Bol had...

[url]Here[/url] we see multiple people citing 81", & a claim that this site boxrec had it 81" from the '50's-'70's. And that he was listed at 80.5" for the Leotis Martin fight. [url]https://boxrec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=211072[/url]
Rahman might have been a bit overstated at 82"

Likely Liston's hands were a little larger, but there cannot be much in it.
I see 14" & certainly 15" listed all over the place. I would have to do a lot of digging to find 15.5"-almost certainly an overstatement.
Rahman is likely under 6'2", like Sonny was under 6'1".

In conclusion, both had a very large, long bone structure for their heights.
Both moderate not low bodyfat.
But there are not large differences in them structurally.

But since Rahman put on more muscle & weighed a good 10% more, he was unambiguously larger.

 

A lot of digging is NOT required to find the 15 1/2” fist stat for Liston - it’s right there on the Liston vs Ali TOTP.

Having said that, Liston’s fist was listed as 14” on TOTPs for the Patterson fight. IIRC, some TOTPs for the same fight indicates 14 1/2”.

It’s fair to believe that Liston’s fist size might’ve been possibly inflated post Patterson.

Here’s an article prior to the first Patterson fight that also states 14” whilst noting Liston having an oversized fist - and the difficult search required to eventually find an Everlast glove to fit him.

[url] https://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=SBS19620925.1.9&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-Patterson+liston+tale+of+the+tape-------1[/url]

How much is a large fist truly supposed to measure anyway?

Many 70s HWs were rubber stamped as 13” but Foreman was curiously only listed as 12 1/2” - though GF’s mitt appeared very large and was obviously bigger than Ali’s

I’ve read Rahman fist listed as low as 13” and high as 14”. Measure your own fist - it’s a bit tricky which might lend to the inaccurate variances we’ve seen for fighters, then expand the tape to 14” + to fully appreciate the difference.

As to people on forums claiming to have seen reach listings of 81” for Liston in boxing magazines - it may be true but unless they produce a scan (evidence) of said mag(s) with listing - it’s just heresay evidence of said listings.

As far as I read , it appeared to be only the 1 poster on that forum anyway who said that they had read listings of 81”.

I believe that same poster stated that he also read Liston’s fist listing increase over the years from 12” to 15” - again, possibly true Liston was listed as low at one time but obviously Liston never literally had a 12” fist (mine are a bit larger than that but a far cry from Sonny’s) and I’ve never personally read Liston listed as 12” ever.

Suffice to say, our memories can deceive us so it’s best to refer back to and provide the source evidence.

 

Yes, actually multiple fighters have gone on and on about the size of Rahman's hands.

Rahman, is simply a much larger man physically than Liston, not just taller, his enitre frame. His head, neck, shoulders, lower body, chest etc..

 

which had bigger ' trouser snake" ?

 

Rahman was clearly the larger man despite nearly identical height and similar reach. Whether that was due to his intense weight lifting or just having a slightly larger natural frame, Rahman was bigger. If we're taking the fighters as is without speculating how they'd look competing in each other's eras, which is kind of irrelevant.

I deduct points if a guy is known for abusing PEDs or is straight up obese. As far as I know, Rahman was never caught taking anything and he certainly wasn't a fatso.

 

First you are CORRECT that there is a prominent listing of 15.5" for Liston's fist.
I did not see it in a bunch of searching/mostly the whole first page of just Googling the question.
Which did not show that TOTP.
I would never say that even "just" 14" is not huge, & we likely agree that the safest bet is somewhere ~ 14.5".

Looking at my own link again, yes you are also right that only one guy-said in 2 posts-that Liston was listed at 81"-for decades even.
Also there is the comment about 80.5" before the Leotis Martin fight.
Memory is a funny thing, but I cannot privilege this as likely mistaken-although it may be.
I'll bet it would not be too difficult for some to dig even the first, allegedly 1/2 of forever extrant claim up, like those who collect old Ring magazines...

You did not debate my central point, that Rahman is larger.
Liston likely *could* have put on such mass if he worked on it, but the question is who they were in real life.
We also likely agree that given his not low body fat, frame & muscle, Liston looked bigger than his 210-215 in prime max weight. Even at his height-& we cannot say like Holyfield or especially Wilder he had relatively "no legs" to account for it...


I see you were banned, likely for the constant name calling & personal derision between you & catchweight.
As another relative graybeard, please consider the council to not either initiate or get down in the mud of back & forth abuse.
Even if you are correct on the facts, your point gets lost, everyone feels bad, & others are more likely to go haywire with little to no provocation....

But welcome back Pugguy.

 

Sadly i don't think he will be back to charge your red rag as he seems to be permabanned, which is a shame, as he was a top poster on many many levels.

 

Huh? How do you know man? If so, I will lobby for that to be amended, since you are correct overall.
Also while he had a bunch of mean posts in a short time span, nothing so monstrous that he should never return-or be banned for months even.

But I do not know how you can see my post as an kind of provocation.
I was restrained & polite, I defined what must have banned him, gently suggested being better for his own & the common good...

And despite him having gone bananas on my in the past in a long series of exchanges, mae no mention of that.
Also he chose to address me directly in a peaceful fashion-even after freaking out about the same trivial issues, then saying he wanted no interaction, & somehow seeing me as a "narcissistic sociopath" lol!

He was just fine to me when choosing to break his self-imposed ignore, & I returned the favor.
My welcome back (when he returned) was sincerely intended, not sarcastic.

I hope you can see that John.

 

His entire profile is gone which is usually the giveaway, or has been in the past. By contrast Catches isn't for example.

I don't doubt it but this isn't his first rodeo and i am 110% positive he doesn't need to be given advice on how to behave at this point.

i haven't known him long but having witnessed a bit of your previous, lets say "exchanges", i have little doubt at all he would see your post as somewhat condescending no matter how you meant it or perceive it. Even in your post to me there are elements that would trigger him somewhat thus I've omitted them from quote.

I'm not out to have a crack at you so much as trying to convey how your words will almost certainly come across to the Pug man.

I sincerely hope you can see that too.

But i'm not about to get into a lengthy back and forth dissecting things. No-one tells me how to go about things and i'm certainly not going to tell you how to go about things.

Feel free to lobby for an amendment, i would too except I've probably already tried McGrain's patience enough given i asked at length about Unforgiven. He's a scary ******* that McGrain!