Alis durability is his best feature

GREAT post.
Perfectly summed up.
I also mentioned Ali did not have the best chin, but he probably had the best body endurance.

 

You made this claim about Liston’s age in the last thread. I offered you a chance to substantiate it, you didn’t. Perfectly possible you didn’t see it, of course. If you see this one, please. I haven’t seen any evidence to support Liston being in his forties, but if you have it, we’re all interested. I agree his shoulder was bad, something Ali’s psychophants go to great lengths to deny.

 

This is fair. It is disingenuous somewhat to mention, as some have, the guys Ali fought as evidence. I do think he proved he had a magnificent chin - but he rarely took flush shots from his biggest hitters, & went to lengths to avoid it for good reason. When he was hit, he showed his chin was great, but if he took as many flush punches clean on the button as, say, Chuvalo did vs Foreman, would I expect him to hold up as well? Based on how Shavers wobbled him with one good shot, I say not a prayer.

 

I recall someone asking Ken Norton what was it like to hit Ali in the body (I think they were insinuating he was soft but I may be mistaken) and he said something like hitting Ali in the body or the arms was like hitting a slab of concrete.

I think it goes hand-in-hand with his durability, but Ali just had ridiculous mental toughness. Few had the tools to beat him physically but among those, fewer still had the ability to beat him mentally. Just didn’t have an ounce of quit in him.

 

• There is no official record of Liston's birth. His family's home state of Arkansas did not make birth certificates mandatory until 1965.
• Liston himself did not know in what year he was born. He simply used May 8, 1932 as his birthdate cause it suited his career.
• By the time he won the world title his aged appearance clearly showed he was a lot older.
• In the 1940 census he was listed as 10 years old, which would make him 34 for the first Ali fight. Problem is that the paperwork was very sketchy back then. The guys who compiled the Census, all they did was to show up to a family's door, ask questions and take their word for it, without any documentation. Documentation wasn't even possible since Arkansas didn't have mandatory birth certificates back then.
• Sonny's sister said he was born the year right after the great war, 1919, which would make him 45 around the time of the first fight. This rough estimate of his birthdate has been confirmed by a lot of people close to Liston.
• The journalist Jerry Izenberg also says that Liston was a lot older than stated. Check out this video at around 16:00, Jerry talks about the Ali-Liston fights:
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All of those men didn’t have close to a chin as Ali. No one faced the hitters Ali did and survived. He went through Liston, Foreman, Frazier, Lyle, Shavers, Patterson, Quarry, Bonavena and a bunch more decent hitters w out being knocked out. Foreman, Tyson, Chuvalo were all stopped in prime by lesser punchers

 

Jerry Izenberg also disputed Liston’s bad shoulder with no evidence to the contrary. He is not, “clearly a lot older,” than thirty when he won the title in 1962. He was certainly older than his listed age, I agree, but there is nothing to substantiate his being born earlier than 1928-30.

 

Facing them & being repeatedly thumped in the face by them, as the evidence bears out, are two different things.

 

I wouldn’t put a lot on physical appearance as far as how old someone is. People age differently, and Sonny lived hard in a lot of ways — drinking, drugs, doing time in prison … not to mention boxing.

I am 60 and people think I’m late 40s or 50-ish when they meet me. I work with people who are significantly younger than me who look older than I do.

All the other stuff adds up to ‘we don’t know for sure’ because of lack of documentation. Even the sister doesn’t have a year for sure, and with all the Liston kids (he had an enormous amount of brothers and sisters) it was probably hard for a young Liston kid to keep up with which was born when. In other words, I don’t think we can time-stamp him based on her memory that it was around a certain time.

I don’t think he was as old as some paint him but he might have been a bit older than his claimed birth date … or that may be close to accurate. No way to know, really.

I do know that Ali made him look old and slow. But nobody said he was slipping when he was KO’ing Floyd Patterson twice in his previous bouts to the Ali fights. So there’s that.

 

I have my doubts, personally. People will always be reluctant to publicly talk against such a popular figure. Maybe it was like concrete to hit him, but he never looked physically very sharp after about 1971.

 

Agreed that to say he is clearly & objectively much older based on his looks is reaching. We’ve all seen strong outliers relative to their age in life, both young & old. Liston was very likely around 34-36 when he fought Ali, above the officially listed 32 yrs, but in his 40’s? No.

 

Ali’s defense isn’t what people think it is. He wasn’t that good defensively especially later on. He just had an iron chin. Post ban he could avoid getting creamed. After he was a sitting duck

 

I can count on one hand the shots Liston & Foreman put clean on his chin.

 

Ali in his prime was floored by Henry Cooper and only managed to win due to Angelo Dundee's illegal tactics. Besides, there are numerous fighters with better chin than him.

 

He was a scrawny kid who didn’t know how to fight inside yet. Tyson got stopped by a mediocre fighter in Douglas. Foreman got stopped by Ali. Chuvalo was stopped by Frazier. Someone Ali took a ton of shots from. Also being floored isn’t a detriment of chin. Being floored and staying there or just having the fight stopped is more of a sign of bad chin. One doesn’t have to be on the floor to not be able to continue. As I stated no one went through the punchers Ali did…no one even came close to fighting that many guys who could bang. To survive all those men would take the greatest chin ever. Hence y guys w great Chins like Tyson or Foreman eventually get stopped. Ali never did and no Holmes doesn’t count.

ps Cooper had a KO percentage of 67% he wasn’t a light hitter. I also didn’t mention hitters like Cleveland Williams, London, Chuvalo, Folley, Moore etc