Which Heavyweight Is Possibly Overrated Because Of Nostalgia?

Your points are well taken and I've always wanted to give Sonny the benefit of the doubt. And indeed the record of 8 docs (and the Florida attorney general) agreeing at the time is hard to refute. I shouldn't have indulged the wise guy comment about a doc on the take and will refrain from such in the future. But as to other objective expert evidence beyond the heat of the moment (1964), take a look at the evaluation of physician / biophysicist Arturo Tozzi and his colleagues. You can access the publication of his analysis here:

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You're right and another reason to avoid anecdotal comments in threads.

 

I think you're right and another example of why best to avoid anecdotal comments in these threads.

 

There's anecdotal material indicating that he did off and on to accompany the heavy drinking. Funny thing though, one is hard pressed to find a pic (except the bogus one where he's wearing a cast). Again, good reason to refrain from assertions that can't be substantiated.

 

I think Usyk is clearly bigger than Liston by virtue of weighing more while being at very low body fat.

I'm also curious about this evidence for reduced skill sets. Guys like Sanchez, Kabayel, Ortiz, Povetkin seem fairly skilled with well rounded abilities. Stamina might be a better argument although you have many outliers.

I'm a lot more sold on Usyks chin than Liston given he has yet to be stopped despite fighting much bigger punchers than Liston. Does anyone think Martin could stop Usyk even at 39? Or that Ali would stop Usyk early?

 

By golly gee, i wonder why you picked age out all by it's lonesome?

Liston had 36 pro fights by the time he fought Ali. He had 52 pro fights by the time he fought Martin.

Usyk has had 25 professional fights, with just 9 in the open weight division. He's had these fights across about 7 years. If he kept fighting he'd reach Liston's Ali figure in about 8-9 years. How do you think he'd go against Ali at that fantasy 36 fight mark? He'd be at the Martin figure in 22 years or more. How do you think he'd go against Martin then?

The dumbest of the dumb realise age is a different figure now to what it was in the 60's. That's not just in boxing, it's across other sports as well. Look at the Feder/Nadal/Joker trio. It's absurd what they did for that many years. Pete Sampras retired a few days after hitting 32. Federer won 3 grand slam titles well after that age. Imagine the silliness of comparing Sampras' 32 to Feds. The Joker has won about 8 titles since that age. Chalk.........and cheese! It's silly to talk just about number of figths too, which i certainly showed.

Lots of elements have to be factored in for C_O_N_T_E_X_T.

 

The age argument is such disingenuous nonsense. You're comparing Usyk at 39 to Liston at 39 as though those were remotely comparable stages of their careers. Liston was at the absolute tail end of his career, had nearly twice as many fights, and we don't even know for certain how old he actually was at the time. It's entirely possible he was older than his listed age. Usyk, meanwhile, is 39 but still relatively fresh and clearly has plenty left in the tank.

 

No worries Mate,it's refreshing that a poster is big enough to say this!
We all say things in good faith and get corrected,as long as the correction is phrased politely it's all good and all of us are learning new stuff as we go along. Klompton who used to post here often educated me on stuff,unfortunately he did it in such a sneering,and condescending way it rather stuck in your craw.

 

I don’t agree with the both of you, and I think that you’ve both been quite harsh.

However, it’s great to debate the both of you, and especially yourself, as I always like reading your posts, and we’ve not debated in a while.


I’ll now address your points:


Yes, what Catch said was correct. However, if there’s genuine reasons for it, then that obviously has to make a difference doesn’t it.

If we apply context.

So, yes, he’s 100% right. But it’s not like Larry couldn’t be bothered.

Whether you were happy with the opponent or not, you both know that efforts were made on 2-3 occasions to unify.

So that simply has to be noted and taken into account.


I just don’t agree with you that he didn’t fight top contenders. I also don’t agree where you’ve said that he let everyone else fight each other, whilst he barely fought any of them.

That implies that he just happily sat back.

Yet that wasn’t the case at all.

He fought almost everyone relevant.


How on earth could his resume have been eye openingly short of quality, when he did fight quality guys, and he had by far the best resume out of any fighter that was in the mix at the time?

That’s a crazy statement to make.


You’ve said that a bunch of better HW’s fought each other, whilst Larry barely fought any of them.

Who exactly are you referring to?


Larry consistently fought 3 fights per year, and even before he fought Spinks, again, he clearly had a much better resume than any of the guys of that specific time, who he either fought or missed.

He also fought a number of young, and/or undefeated fighters in a row.

And whilst he was active himself, of course those other fighters were active too. And you know that you can’t fight literally everyone. It’s not possible. Because there’d always be someone who he missed.


Now please tell me who he should have fought.

IMHO, these are the biggest omissions:

Coetzee
Dokes
Thomas
Page

Good fighters.

But look at the timelines and the circumstances.


Again, he tried to fight Coetzee 3 times.

Dokes had mostly fought low level guys, and most of his top wins had already been beaten by Larry. He then lost to Coetzee. Then after that, he spent years fighting back at a lower level.

I understand the criticism of Thomas. And I agree with you there. Thomas was a good fighter, and I’d have liked to have seen it. He was undefeated. However, if we look at his resume/timeline, his biggest wins had been against Witherspoon and Weaver, who Larry had already beaten, before he then lost to Berbick, who Larry had also beaten.

Page was also a good fighter. As you know, he was Larry’s mandatory. But Larry refused the purse, as he could get more for fighting Frazier. Does he deserve huge criticism for that? Now also remind yourself of Page’s resume. The majority of his best wins had been against guys who Larry had beaten. Then before the mandated fight with Larry, he’d lost to Witherspoon, who Larry had also already beaten. He then also lost to Bey, who Larry went on to beat.


Those were not huge omissions. And who else could/should he have fought?


How can it be grasping, to note that King and the landscape was unique at the time?


King had the monopoly back then.

There were only 2 belts for 90% of Larry’s reign.

It was passed around like a game of pass the parcel, between guys who either Larry had tried to fight, by guys who he’d already beaten, or by guys who Larry’s defeated opponents had beaten.

That landscape was unique, and it was completely different to this current one as well as many others.


Good debate.

 

To be clear, I wasn’t having a shot at you at all.

Perhaps for want of a better term, I was just highlighting human nature and how we might try to explain away third party evidence that doesn’t marry up to what we think we think we can see with our own eyes.

It’s a case by case thing but sometimes there is certainly nothing wrong with also or even primarily deferring to one’s own eyes.

As perhaps an equal and opposite example - there have been suggestions that Holmes took an injured left shoulder/arm into the Norton fight that impaired his performance.

Per the eye test I see no apparent evidence of an injury or at least an injury that unduly impaired Larry in any way.

In fact, I see Larry using his jab overtime, winning something like the first 5-6 rounds primarily due to his sterling jab alone.

I don’t know if any medical evidence was proffered as at the time to uphold the claimed injury.

At any rate, due to me personally not seeing any visual manifestation of any problems for Holmes, I might’ve worked backward from my own eye test to reason any any medical/testimonial third party evidence that might’ve been proffered on Larry’s behalf.

 

All good brother. We’re not playing for sheep stations. Post as you wish. It’s open discussion.

 

Based on the guys he really beaten and lost to, not an imaginary fights, top 10 probably.

 

I wouldn’t say clearly bigger. Save for a plateau period (notably around the 221 lbs mark) Usyk has been incrementally adding weight to his frame.

I don’t know what Usyk’s body fat % is or who is the trusted source for same.

I do know that Usyk has been looking more and more girthy around the middle since entering the HW division and adding weight to his frame.

Not a comment on how he takes a body shot but he does look soft in the middle.

Liston’s prime weight was about 211/212 lbs with a pronounced 6 pack.

Even when Liston later pushed up toward to 220 lbs he still carried a hard, obviously well conditioned stomach.

I referenced some attributes of much taller (and perhaps heavier) men that Liston carried. Suffice to say, with deliberately added weight, Usyk didn’t add 4” to his wingspan nor increase the size of his fists.

Do you think that Usyk’s added weight had him punching as powerfully or more powerfully than Liston did? If you do then I would disagree.

So, to what ever degree you think Usyk is bigger than Liston, how exactly does that size difference advantage Usyk as compared to Liston?

Not sure why there is a distinct veering away from the bigger top fighters of the 70s who I primarily referenced. Fighters very much comparable in size to Usyk.

Other posters have already dealt well with the context of number of fights, age and differences in aging. Not need for me to go there on repeat.

I’ll add that Liston also clearly abused his body via alcohol and drugs during his latter career. Not long after the Martin fight Liston was no longer alive.

When I’m talking SHWs I’m also talking AJ and Fury in particular, the 2 main scalps that comprise Usyk’s HW glory - two slower, notably less skilled guys whose limited tanks guaranteed less busy outputs and later fight fades.

As it happened, like Usyk, both AJ and more so Fury were also not so young when they engaged Olek so that should be taken on board in some measure also.

Uysk’s own P4P skills have degraded with added weight, trading off for some extra power whilst costing in him in several other facets of his game.

As to whether 39 yo Usyk would be KO’d by Martin, probably but would old Liston necessarily have struggled with a virtual pro boxing debutant in the form of Verhoeven?

It’s highly arguable that even old Liston could’ve pieced that Rico.

I know Rico’s performance is being talked up but that strongly comes across as an effort to dilute Usyk’s own subpar performance.

Let’s actually see how Rico flies against another rated HW opponent.

Remember, after “pre Usyk” Fury struggled with him, Francis Ngannou was also deemed to be the next coming until he wasn’t.

 

Imagine knowing that Usyk fought Six World Series of Boxing fights under pro rules before turning pro, had hundreds of am fights, and graduated to ten rounders after four pro fights and championship fights after nine, but ignoring it.

Imagine ignoring the context that Liston was an alcoholic. Lots of elements need to be factored in for context.

 

Troll elsewhere.