Joe Frazier of 1971 awaits his mystery opponent in the ring, it is 1958 Sonny Liston.

Not applicable to Frazier, but at least for a lot of other fighters, given the anonymity of their opponent until fight time, they’d be spared the worry and sleepless nights leading into the match.

Then again, as soon as they saw Liston in the other corner - their anxieties and fears could easily accelerate from zero to 100 in a matter of seconds.

If it was Patterson instead of Frazier, the biggest problem for Floyd would be that he wouldn’t have necessarily packed and taken his post fight disguise with him.

All respect for Frazier but whether he knows he’s facing Liston or not, I’d still guess 58 Liston (the year version, not Sonny’s age! - Sonny was only 35 yo in 1958 ) defeats Joe via mid rounds KO.

 

Excellent premise Rich. I like Twilight Zone-esque conundrums. I’ve actually been rewatching the old, original series. Brilliant.

 

If I'm Joe I'm shitting myself, 1958 Liston is the last thing a swarmer wants to see

 

Frazier didn't know the meaning of fear. Ironically if he did, he probably would've done better against Foreman.

 

Me too!
Joe would steam in there tho but all that's gonna do, is hasten the ko.

 

Frazier beats the feck out of Liston. This isn’t the shot club singer who fought Foreman with zero game plan. Liston folds he isn’t made for this sort of fight he isn’t made of the same stuff Frazier, Foreman and Ali were. Listons skills let him down here he is honestly in relative terms a foot note champion whose role could’ve been filled by countless HWs.

 

You lack testicular fortitude that’s why.

 

I don’t know- have we seen Liston ever overcome someone on Fraziers tier taking it to him?I think Joe stays on him, breaks him down very quickly and overwhelms Liston beating him to the punch over and over on the inside- I’ve never seen Liston keep guys who want to be on the inside- out. I don’t know if he’s capable of it.

 

Me too, they've started repeating the 1st series over here in the past few months, I'd seen many of them 30+ years ago, but there's a few I haven't seen yet, which I'm looking forward to. I watched 'The Lonely' the other day with Jean Marsh & Jack Warden (well not with them as Jean lives down London way and Jack's been dead for years). An excellent episode, and so sad- "she's not a robut".


Anyway, Archie Moore felt Sonny was a bad match-up for Joe in 1968, never mind 1958!!! But you can never write 71 Joe off against anyone of that era- a tough call either way.

 

That's why I find it a hard call. I felt like many others that style-wise Sonny is all wrong for Joe and he'd love someone coming at him head on...but like you say, Frazier getting inside, taking to him, providing that intense pressure ('smoke') constantly, getting under that great jab and ripping the body and makes it a hard call- as, after all, it's FOTC Joe.