Rate the quality of Sonny Liston's resume

But in the month Liston actually became champion he had wins against #1 Floyd Patterson, #2 Eddie Machen, #3 Zora Folley, #6 Cleveland Willams and #10 Mike DeJohn. It's an exaggeration to say he completely cleared out the division, but with wins against all of his top three plus two other contenders he came closer to it than most.

 

Okay, did I ever claim that I wrote those things?
Like, you use quotes from different forums and sources, does that mean that you also steal other people's quotes and thoughts?

You also claimed that my last comment was stolen or copied and pasted, but instead of providing any evidence to support this, you brought only accusations and insults, even knowing that it was my post, and I can confidently claim that I wrote it.

 

Okay. Good point.

I used The Ring Annual ratings for consistency and because I didn't have access to full monthly ratings.

 

201lb Williams was 35-1-1 when he fought Satterfield. A professional for 5 years & literally just a few days away from his 21st birthday .. & though not much amateur experience it is documented that he took up the sport aged 14.

190lb Rex Layne though a couple of years older had been a professional for just TWO years when he scrambled a much fresher Satterfields brains in 8 rounds..

& was it just forgetfulness or wilful ignorance that you failed to add that Satterfield had lost TWICE the same year as the Williams fight? That he was sliding somewhat.. so you can negate any 'green-ness' on Williams's part with the less mileage on the clock & massive weight advantage he had..

A small ageing Satterfield made an absolute mockery of Listons resume.. King, Valdes, Summerlin, Marshall, Williams.. he also beat many of Williams opponents too.. & you've all got the nerve to pull the smaller Marciano apart? Big Cat & Valdes couldn't KO a LHW who Layne , Moore & Charles annihilated...

What was so markedly different to the version Liston beat anyway? The two fellas Williams beat before Liston were truly atrocious.. I'm not exaggerating:

Howie Turner who was 1-1-4 in his last 6 fights & coming off a loss

Ollie Wilson who was 10-15-0 & coming off 4 straight losses & had an overall losing record

LMAO.. & this fella Williams is one of Listons best wins.. can u imagine that today?! Seriously

Shall i go on?

John Holman 1-6 in his last 7 fights , was coming off 2 losses

Bob Albright 1-4 in his previous 5 fights, was coming off a loss..

They were all literal losers?

185lb Frankie Daniels.. why was Williams even fighting this guy twice at that stage of his career? Daniels was 34-14-2 & had already lost to an ageing Bob Satterfield twice..

This is monumental levels of corrupt embarrassing padding.. Williams had done NOTHING leading up to Liston & you're all acting like he was some ****in monster by then... all i take from his record leading up to Liston is they knew he wasn't really a world beater & was extremely vulnerable & so matched him accordingly.. & if Williams was extremely green then i dunno wtf a 2-6-1 Clifford Gray was.. another fella Williams fought on his comeback trail to Liston.. i mean what the actual ****?!

Williams was a BUILT fighter for the era & is someone the Liston fan boys cling on to because shattering his mystique shatters Listons.

Well it just got shattered.

 

Do you know what the word gullible means? You are citing newspaper betting odds from the 1950s.. the sport in Listons era was as bent as a mobsters promise.. its marketing ffs.. it's one way they built up certain fighters.. make out he's up against the odds to the casuals (when he's really not) whilst simultaneously
cashing in... then when he wins its a win win for those involved.. back then your average joe didn't have the resources we have today to actually look at just how evenly matched they are.

Look at that fight in full context .. Henri was 16-23-1 (at the time of the fight) & 190lbs.. in the same year that Williams beat him he was also KOd in 2 by 177lb Julian Keene .. & prior to that Marciano opponent kid Matthews had taken care of him in 2 also.. a seasoned professional .. that's how u wanna swing that? He was PADDING...

He beat 2 opponents? Two solid wins? Who? 179lb Lalu Sabotin who never got a decent win his entire career & 182lb Art Swiden who had by that point beat 9 debutees & had took 8 losses against his non debutants & 2 draws? GTFO..

You really do have to reach to find any semblance of credibility for Williams you lot sometimes don't u? Go find me another Frankie Daniels scares Marciano sparring story or something because that was an atrocious attempt LOL.. & YES.. he was SUPPOSED to blitz them.

A 'seasoned professional'

 

Ok but who do you miss on Liston's CV between 1958 and 1964?

It is said that Ali was in his prime in 1965-67, that he was never better. Based on what fights is this considered?

 

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”Williams was the hardest puncher I’ve fought. No one wants to fight him. He can punch as hard as I can, but he can’t take it like I can.”SONNY LISTON

 

He had a handful of fights at 14, and was subsequently suspended once his age was discovered.

Is it just "forgetfulness or willful ignorance that you failed to add that" Layne had fought quite a lot of 10 rounders and had 188 rounds (in the pros) along with a quite successful amateur record under his belt by the time he fought Satterfield?
"He did not start boxing until he joined the Army. "When they sent out a call for boxing candidates at Soporo, Japan, he won the heavyweight championship of our troops in Nippon. Returning home in 1947, he dropped a close decision in an Olympic tryout to Jay Lambert, who won the United States Olympic title, and lost a decision in the London semifinals. Last spring Layne lost a close verdict to Utah State's Dale Panter in the Utah Golden Gloves, but earned a trip to Boston acquiring the A.A.U. Intermountain amateur championship by a knockout. In the Hub he won four bouts, three by knockouts, to account for the national championship."

That's a little different than the picture you're trying to paint.

He’d lost a close and controversial split decision to a frequent top 10 contender Charles Williams and another bout to one of the greatest fighters of all time. That hardly means he was some easy mark. Losing to elite competition doesn't suddenly make a guy vulnerable to just any Tom, Dick, or Harry.

What happened the next year? He'd recorded perhaps a career best win and reentered the rankings.

King, Summerlin, and Marshall are hardly lauded as Williams best opponents. He was also KTFO by Marshall in two rounds in his prime before barely nicking a SD in a rematch, where as a green Liston avenged his loss in empathetic fashion.

As for your Marciano tangent—can you point to a single place in this thread where I “pulled him apart”? Hell, can you find a single mention of him from me that wasn’t a direct response to your comment? Or are you just building strawmen because your argument isn’t holding?

Well, for starters, he was far more experienced, actually held a ranking, and was significantly more physically developed. So yeah, pretty markedly different.

Williams only really started moving up in competition after the Liston fight.

As for your criticism of Holman. He was ranked #4 the previous year and was in the tournament for Rocky's vacated championship. Oh and he also had a win over Satterfield. Thought you'd wanna know given how obsessed you are with Satterfield's opponents other than Williams.

Would explain why he tried to get fights with other contenders like Doug Jones, and was rebuffed. Would also explain why they ran away from Machen, the no. 2 contender..... Oh wait.

This makes no sense. That Williams fought green or limited opponents doesn’t negate the fact that he himself was green when he fought Satterfield years earlier. What point are you trying to make?

No one’s “clinging” to anything here. We're just correcting the stream of half-truths, omissions, and overblown conclusions being passed off as analysis. If that shatters anything, it’s not Liston’s mystique—it’s the credibility of these arguments.

On another note, are you genuinely incapable of debating without defaulting to playground-level insults?

 

Fair enough, my apologies. I brought up the intellectual honesty part because I'd already informed you, Williams' number of fights was misleading when you take into context, his number of rounds, and absences of amateur career.

"The picture you are trying to paint of Williams, that he was a fringe contender, simply doesn't hold up."

He was absolutely a top contender of his era. Not a champion, like Patterson (though he may well have beaten him), Liston, and Ali, but rather the best of the rest along with Machen, and Terrell.

Before the first fight with Williams, Daniels was undefeated barring a loss to the G.O.A.T. Hardly any shame there. In the second fight, Daniels as a last second substitute had just upset the number 1 contender Doug Jones. Even in their first bout, many thought Jones "win" was a robbery. https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-record/100456875/

This is misleading because Daniels only declined after the Williams fights.

"The big cat is credited with breaking one man's back with a blow to the midsection, punishing Billy Daniels so badly that Daniels has never been the same fighter since, and hitting young Jack Johnson so hard that a blood vessel ruptured in Johnson's forehead." https://www.newspapers.com/article/carlsbad-current-argus/54075292/

"Billy Daniels didn't decide to become a barber until one night Cleveland Williams hung a right cross to his jaw. Like Tom Dewey [Please tell me you of all people understand this reference re '48. It's ****ing Gold] he knew right then and there he needed a sideline" https://www.newspapers.com/article/honolulu-star-bulletin/122049956/

Fair enough. He was only 25 when he fought Williams and coming off a very disputed split decision loss against Chuvalo in the latter's hometown where he'd lost by half a point, and all but knocked out Henry Cooper three bouts prior when he knocked him down and the ref stated (similar to Ingo-London) had the fight been any longer, he wouldn't have let Cooper continue.

As I stated in my reply to Lonsdale, Holman was just number 4 the year prior and in the tournament for Marciano's championship. Yes he was on a losing streak but all his losses were to capable fighters all rated in the top ten. He very nearly had Miteff out as well, so it's not like ha had nothing left in the tank.

Again, my argument is, he didn't have the luxury of continuing to get those wins because he was shot at the most likely point where he would've retrieved those wins with a win against Terrell for the W.B.A championship and defenses against the likes of Chuvalo, Daniels, and Machen (Machen was never the same upon his return from the Looney bin, and only managed a draw against Williams at his absolute best- a majority draw actually where the third judge had Williams as the clear winner. Williams would be a clear favorite against a declined Machen). I'd add Patterson to his list of defenses but Patterson twice turned down fights with Williams despite being offered the larger of the purses during the second offer. I'm not sure if Williams actually would've won but Patterson didn't seem to keen to test it out.

"So it boils down to a somewhat green Terrell, who was not yet rated, and whom Williams lost a rematch to."

Also, with all due respect, I’m curious—why is Terrell often given the benefit of the doubt for being “green,” while Williams isn’t? In nearly every measure except the sheer number of pro fights, Williams was actually less experienced. Terrell had a solid amateur background, had already logged 160 professional rounds, and was 23 years old—three years older than Williams when he lost to Satterfield.

I’d love to continue the discussion, but I finally found a job as a software engineer after graduating college and I’m currently in training—so my time’s a bit limited at the moment.

I appreciate that you're open to re-evaluating your perspective and engaging in a respectful way without ad hominem attacks—unlike Lonsdale. I look forward to continuing our discussion when I have the time.

 

The thing I like about this is you spent two days contemplating your response and the best you could come up with was "LIES! LIES! IT'S ALL LIES!"

Williams was 19 years old, in his first year as a professional (apart from a handful of 4-rounders when he was 15/16) and largely untested. It's just not that shocking that he was the underdog against his vastly more experienced opponent.

And no, no one's saying Henri was anything special. His name only came up because it happens to be true that he gave Marciano more trouble than he did Williams. Does that make the 19 year old Williams better than Marciano? Of course not, it just highlights the absurdity of trying to make the argument that Williams was not a quality opponent for Liston because years earlier he'd gone the distance with Keene Simmons.

 

My favorite part was his response when you disproved his claim that Williams was supposed to breeze through his opponents. Suddenly, he acted like you were saying Henri was some undefeated legend or Hall of Famer, and he started attacking the quality of Henri’s opponents as if that somehow invalidated your point. Classic strawman.

It’s a textbook example of shifting the goalposts—making up a new argument to knock down because he couldn’t challenge the actual facts.

 

Still waiting for you to provide any evidence that I claimed to wrote these quotes/posts that I copy- pasted, and still waiting you to find evidence that I copy-pasted or stole my last post which is the one I wrote and I claim is mine.

Btw, is there any HOF that Williams beat except draw with Machen and win over Terrel even tho he lost his next fight against him?


Lets see other HW contenders who had better record and still this forum hype Williams more just because he fought Liston, and Liston fans want to make their hero looks good and that he fought someone good but lets see about other HW contenders best wins:

Ron Lyle- beat Bugner, Shavers, Ellis, Bonavena and Buster Mathis

Earnie Shavers- Norton, Bugner, Ellis and Young

Cooney-Norton, Lyle and Young

Razor Ruddock: Page, Dokes and James Bonecrusher Smith


Those guys had better record and beat more HOF than Williams whom best wins are again draw with Machen and win over Terrel who avenged his loss in their next fight.

Did any of guys I mentioned lost in their 30+ professional fight against LHW joruneyman with questionable chin that was 25 pound lighter than them, was shorter 3 inches than them and had 7 inches shorter reach than them.

And don't pull some rated bums like Mittef and Dnaiels, those are not worth mentioning, I just want to se HOFs Williams beat if you can provide any.


I compared Williams with similar contenders who had good punches, but they lacked something to make them champions, just to see how overrated Cleveland Williams is.

 

You literally said this -

BoxingFan2002 said: ↑
Where did I copy and paste anything?

Find me anything I mentioned that was copied and pasted, if you can, but you can not, since this is my real opinion.

It's time to rack the cue.

 

The man claimed I stole other people's posts, but I never claimed I wrote anything myself, except my last post, where he accused me again.

I would like any of you to provide a quote or post that I claimed mine again. If you cannot, then please offer something better than that, as I see a lack of arguments.

 

The only one post that I claim mine, the other ones were copy pasted from other forums, but I never claimed them to be mine.