Sonny Liston vs Mike Tyson: Battle of the monsters

Liston wins this one, and I think he's the toughest match in history for Tyson. Liston has literally no difficulty with men coming to him and struggles horribly with speed going away from him.

The reason Tyson struggles on occasion with men coming to him is that he is a one-range fighter - a devastating one, but a one range fighter. He is a mid-range fighter of the highest class and a "bulling" fighter - coming from long to middle range - of very high standard.

Here he is up against a fighter who is literally as adept at nearly all the ranges involved in a fight as he is at the others - that is to say, he does not have a preference at which range the fight is fought. This is due to his underated athleticism and his physical/technical tools in addition to "yeah?" attitude.

Liston is also a vastly underated ring general. He has made many adjustments in various fights (maybe most impressively in Williams II where he shifts to the front foot in the very first round having constructed a fight plan based on the first fight which differed) to his opponents detriment.

Add all this up and you have battleground that favours Liston. Tyson will come directly to Liston and try to hammer him. My guess is that Liston would spear him with the jab. Yes, Tyson has extraordinary head movement, and yes it is overated. Tyson did not use arbitrary head movement like Jack Dempsey did. Tyson moved in a pattern. In other words, a fighter with a very accurate jab who also had no fear - at all - of the man in the opposite corner could time him. Sonny could time him, Sonny has those things.

His jab was quite slow. But i've always felt a fast jab was an over-rated commodity generally. From a technically classical stance - which Liston employed - it's a punch that does not take long to get across. I think that an accurate, hard jab, is a better punch than a fast jab which is accurate.

So I see Liston timing Tyson on the way in with the jab and missing with his bigger punches in the first few rounds, but closing the distance with a clatter at the back of that punch. Tyson's best work smothered whilst Liston builds a lead.

A word about punch resistance - I think they have similair resistance to punishment, although Liston was basically impossible to hurt to the body. But I don't think Tyson has that "tide-turning" type of chin. I think that he takes punishment, but the hurt causes his head to drop. We saw it against Hollyfield and Lewis, and to a lesser degree against Douglas. Liston was capable of turning the tide after being hurt, and we saw this agianst Williams, who "hit him so hard all over [my] body" that Sonny became convinced he "didn't have a weak spot", and he went on to KO Williams in 3.

If Tyson slows he will be stopped. If Tyson manages to keep the pace high, he'll lose a wide decision.

Bad match up for Mike.