Liston's resume and ranking

Archie Moore had been exposed by Leonard Morrow and Charles
Ezzard Charles had been exposed by Jersey Joe Walcott & Lloyd Marshall
Joe Louis had been exposed by Max Schmeling
Jersey Joe Walcott had been exposed by Joe Louis & Abe Simon
Don Cockell had been exposed by Jimmy Slade & Randy Turpin

Are you saying that Rocky Marciano wasn't a fine champion?

 

GreatA,

I must say. It pains me to see I am the only staunch Rocky Marciano fan who is also a huge Sonny Liston fan. Some of Liston's biggest detractors happen to be huge Marciano fans(chokelab being one of them). I guess the two don't mix well. I will be the first to break the trend.

 

Of course marciano (unlike liston) qualifys on these grounds. marciano was the first guy to knock out rex layne. layne was the "yet to be exposed" superstar in the making when marciano knocked him out. Liston never did this. Both liston and marcianos key fights were against guys who had been around but marcianos guys had much more form. I mean, the unbeaten runs on moore, Louis and cockell was much more impresive at the time marciano faced them than say valdes, folley and machen when liston fought them. Liston never did beat anyone as good as either walcott or charles.

 

sonny was a good champion and very very hard to beat. he had so many qualitys its understandable he is over rated. on paper there is no shame in losing to ali and geting Ko'd after ones prime against leotis. with all the conspiracy theorys it boosts his failings so that is also understandable too. I have him outside my top ten but he is beter than most champions. I accept that.

 

:good

 

he fought everyone that was to b e fought. twice. before he went to the workhouse, and after. what do you want. so many people cannot separate their bias and hatred for sonny, not to mention their devotion to clay. if you watch his fights he is dominate , period. Foreman said he backed him up in the ring.

 

Liston outside of my top 30 (HW alone) for sure.
On his good days he might make my top 40.
P4P , below top 100 4 sure.
But at least he can't be blamed to have ducked anyone , correct me if im wrong

 

Dude, you rank Oliver McCall, Orlin Norris and other non entities in the heavyweight divisions all time history. Please.

 

The highest rank I ever gave to Norris @ 201+ was below top 25 , probably it was below top 30 , but I wouldn't check it just for the sake of this argument .

 

My bad....you have McCall on your all time top 10. What was I thinking?

 

I still do . the best one could hope to do against him in his prime was stick and move and run for one's life . Of course fighting in spurts against him was risky but it could have been done for short periods of time just like Leonard could fight Hagler for 30 seconds each round and Camacho fought Chavez (really) for the last 30 seconds (or so) of their fight.

 

So not only is McCall in your all time top 10, but he could fight like Ray Leonard and Hector Camacho for 30 seconds each round? :rofl

 

After checking my post I am certain that what I meant is indeed what I wrote , the important thing is that others should understand , but not everyone at any cost

 

Liston can't be judged solely on his resume as it doesn't stand up in comparison to other great heavyweights.

H2h he's a monster, very technically sound and aside from the ali fight and the last couple of rounds vs martin he was as dominant a heavyweight as you could hope for

He destroyed patterson who's in my top 30 and got destroyed by ali who's in my top 2. H2h there are plenty of guys inbetween that I feel would succumb to liston.

On a good day I have him number 4, on a bad day I have him 8.

 

Actually Eddie Machen wasn't all that much exposed by Ingemar Johansson whom hit him while he was down.