Best Heavyweight of the 60s?

what?

 

didn't mean to vote for liston

 

LOL, Seamus is playing on the speculation of Liston's real age.

 

Well he's a hypothetical story. what if it was determined that both fights with Liston were thrown due to Mafia influence. Wouldn't that change things a bit?

 

No because Liston is the only man who loses points as it was his doing, Ali was blameless.

For the record - I`m honestly not sure about the 2nd fight myself, I wouldn`t be suprised either way if it was on the level or not.... I am as sure as I can be about the 1st fight tho, Ali won it perfectly legit because the way I saw things, Liston was trying way too hard for the fight to be anything other than legit, Ali was just better.

 

Very true,Bill. As I'm always saying,Liston was up against someone who gave him the sortof problems he'd never encountered before.

 

Early 50's/late amateur Liston would do what to who? Why do you think this?

 

Are you really talking about the guy who struggled with Johnny Summerlin twice? The guy who got his jaw broke by a 180 Lb. fighter named Marty Marshall?

Sure, he stopped Cleveland Williams x2 and Floyd Patterson x2 but neither man was the most durable HW ever. Patterson was down 20 times in his career but did get up to win in some of those fights. Williams hardly ever looked good vs. a top HW.

The decision win over Machen was good but Machen gave him some problems. Machen had lost a decision and drew with Zora Folley and was stopped in one round by Johansson prior to facing Liston.

The KO win over Zora Folley gets overlooked sometimes... Folley was a very good fighter but not as durable or as powerful as Machen.

Not much else worth mentioning to be honest.

 

Not a big Ali fan here but even I have to admit this one goes to him.

 

its Ali only simpy because he beat Liston. thats the only reason.
a lot of his other wins were against fighters who liston had previously beaten easily too. I suppose Ali has Terrell, but sonny has machen.
sonny beat williams twice when williams was still good. sonny beat patterson twice with embarrassing ease before ali did it. sonny beat a younger better zora Folley

 

Take it on a prime for prime basis. The Ali of 1966/67 convincingly beats a 1960 Liston.

 

Ali hands down.


Furthermore, let's remember that Ali lost almost 3 WHOLE YEARS (1967-1969) because his refusal to be drafted.

We can only dream on how many additional feats a prime Ali would have accomplished in those 3 lost years: most probably Ali's resume during the 60s would be so ridiculously superior that this thread would make no sense.