Convince me about Sonny Lston

Thanks, this was a good and interesting article. Good find by Unforgiven.

My hat is off to Charlie Brown, Whitehurst's trainer who was no blockhead. He offered him good advice. Liston, for his part, adjusted and won anyway. Bert called Liston a mean fighter, but he also conceded that he was an "excellent fighter".

Jimmy McCarter was large and strong and also understood that passivity against a train like Liston was suicide. That section gives us a good glimpse into Sonny's personality -See Sonny sleep in instead of doing roadwork. See Sonny hurt and batter sparring partners anyway. See Sonny **** and fire a blank near McCarter while the latter is sleeping. See Sonny in a rage try to throw McCarter out of the ring.... and so on.

Beating a Liston type of fighter is anything but impossible, obviously. You want to keep larger, ponderous fighters turning and resetting. When in trouble get close and if you are big enough relax, if not, angle out. If you got legs like Machen or Clay, stay outside and counter him.

This is gold: Machen said: "Liston moves like a train—one track all the time. When he finds a sitting duck like Patterson, or a Williams, he knocks them off the track."

Marshall was Harold Johnson's replacement for Liston. Johnson suffered an injury. That was news to me... and pretty interesting. Marshall was unorthodox and confusing which is often an excellent answer for almost any style. Throw off their timing, keep them guessing, land shots from odd angles. Marshall reported that he threw and open gloved jab at Sonny to block his eyes and then dropped in a hard right. That may have been what fractured the jaw. More gold:

"But I never knew he was hurt," says Marshall. "You hit him with your Sunday punch but he don't grunt, groan, flinch or blink. He don't do nothing; he just keeps coming on. He's discouraging that way."
that there tells me that Liston was no punk.

Marshall continues:
"After the fight Liston came back to my dressing room. I noticed he was holding his jaw funny, but he didn't say nothing about it. All he says is: 'You fight good. I'd like to get you again." I told him, 'Anytime.'

The comparison between Walcott and Marshall and Louis and Liston was a great one by Morton Sharnick. You're going to fight Liston? if you were a lineman or a fullback like Whitehurst or McCarter or just have good strength, fight him close and maul him as he mauls you. If not, stay outside. Don't sit on the tracks waiting for him, throw off his timing, counter that long jab, turn him and force him to reset. While reading, you can begin to see a composite figure being fashioned out of all of these different foils for the Liston style -being fashioned out of ... clay.

(...just couldn't help that)

 

Liston was what, 6-1 fave?

 

What were Johansson's comments after he was showed Liston-Machen? I know they've been mentioned here before.

 

Well said.

 

Meeting him here would do him no good either, though, since he would never hear the final bell. The ref would have had to pack a blackjack to be able to provide any home advantage.

(Well, perhaps Liston would be so worn out from ****ing this country's zillions of blondes that Ingo only had to tap him with that right...)

 

Thing is a similar case can be made against most fighters. I'm sure guys like Tillis, Tucker and even Thomas to a certain point could have testified to tactics they used to frustrate Tyson. Points that would have been given strong backing by Tyson's loss to Douglas, for example.

Very few are as unbeatable as they subsequently are made out to be.

 

Exactly.... it's one thing to predict the style of the fighter best suited to beat him, it's another to do it.

In addition to that, not many greats are recognized as such when they're still active. Ali wasn't seen as all that during the 60's (he didn't make the top10 on Fleischer's list in 1971, though that list sucked in general), Holmes wasn't highly regarded at all as was Lewis. I'm sure the fact that Liston was seen as, or in fact was, a con man, didn't help his recognition either. Patterson was the public favorite and even had the president's support, despite being a black man.

 

who gives a **** about Fleischer's list. Ali and Liston were well regarded by the ex-champs.

 

Oh come on. Even Ali and Louis,even when they were in their primes, were knocked for their fighting ability . A lot of the time their critics had a point.

It is a mark of great fighters that they could consistently minimise their weaknesses and maximise their strengths.

 

I'd like a similar article concerning all greats. Conn, Schmeling, Walcott, Godoy talking about the weaknesses they was able to exploit (to a degree) against Louis. And Jones, Frazier, Norton, Chuvalo about Ali's weaknesses etc.

When reading such articles one should not view them as the complete picture, rather just a part of it. But the focus is often on how great these past champions were, so it's always interesting to hear about their flaws from the ones who was able to exploit them.