Did Sonny Liston really have an 84-inch reach??

Absolutely.

The last bit I'll add is that it's easiest to exaggerate a bit when someone already has an exceptional quality in the first place. Adds just that touch more mystique or "wow" factor. In Sonny's case, a few extra inches to reach would be easy to tack on because people already considered him freakish in that area. Heck, if I were the mob and needed to have fighters take a dive in a specific round, someone like Sonny would be perfect to have in my corner because he was already a monster KO puncher to start with. Much more believable.

It's like a guy whose buddy claims he bench presses 500, but nobody's in the gym has ever seen him do one rep over 450. Maybe he could do 500, maybe he or his buddies are fudging a bit, but he's damn strong regardless. I think that's what's going on with Sonny's reach here. Short of exhuming the corpse, not a whole lot we can do about it to verify 100% one way or the other lol

 

That's exactly how I see it. Liston's wingspan may not have been the mythical 84 claim, but the more probable 80 number tossed around throughout his career is still exceptional.

Williams and Ali are the only guys we've seen trouble him from the outside, both 6'3" men with huge range on their punches.

 

For anyone interested..the Martin vs Liston fight. Tale of the Tape is at 1:40

This content is protected

 

I don't know enough about the hands to say.
Intuitively you'd think that once you're an adult, the size is set.
But maybe years of pounding a bag can increase the size a bit? I don't know.
But I did want to see you acknowledge that the same thing happened to Tyson in the 90's to establish that it happened to modern guys too. Not just the wild west of the olden times.

 

These measurements are so iffy. It depends on whose doing it and a slight variation on placement can cause drastic results. Unless they are getting fitted for a suit by the best tailor in town, you are going to get some variations. Often there is no standard or routine measurements, and they just list what the team claims.

Liston was promoted as a monster and rightfully so, I suspect his measurements were sightly exaggerated to intimidate and further sell him as a beast. Though as I noted, I think he was already an abnormality to begin with.

I think in contrast, Vitali Klitschko for instance may have been measured very strict, incorrectly, or deliberately submitted smaller numbers to not appear as intimidating on paper, who knows. But the point is, he does not have narrow shoulders, short arms, or small hands. The man is monstrous by any measure and all these rationalizations for his surprising tale of the tape, are people trying to make sense of the numbers moreso than what they are actually seeing on first impression. I know, I was thinking that way too, but it occurred to me, that's BS. The guy is huge.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/nintchdbpict000320471491.jpg?strip=all&w=960

 

Most of Page's career he was listed as having an 82 inch reach.

 

Here's the answer.
Reach in this way is measured fingertip to fingertip. Its not reach, it's wingspan.
If you have wide shoulders and head you can have a longer wingspan but shorter actual reach.
HBO at times measures reach on its tale of the tape from armpit to end of fist.
THAT'S reach.

 

I'm not entirely sure, but I think the 84-Inch Wingspan figure arose from the first Liston/Patterson bout. Indeed, much was made of the "reach" advantage of Liston against Patterson and I've even seen Liston's reach used as a metaphor for great distances. Does this mean the listed figure is 100% accurate? No it doesn't.

However, at the time and even today, looking at Liston, in the available stills, it would seem that he was an unusually proportioned man. Against Ali, in their first encounter, Liston was able to land his jab fairly consistently on his taller, more mobile opponent and looked to have, all things considered, the greater reach of the two. He was just outmatched in every other way - particularly in hand-speed and foot-speed.

Again, by no means a sure-sign of the recorded measurement's accuracy. But, I'd say if you couple the noticeably odd proportions with Liston's 'reportedly' huge hands, it's not inconceivable that a fingertip-to-fingertip measurement could have reached 84".

 

You'd think that if embellishment was the goal, they'd add an inch to his height, not make him Dhalsim.

 

Is someone measured a good central picture of Liston, it shouldn´t be a problem to approximate the length of his arms in relation to his height.

 

In these days & times, one might be able to scan in a good photo of Liston, and estimate the "reach" using a known dimension of an item in the background.

 

No. I'm fairly certain he didn't. That would mean at least a 4 inch, or even 6, inch advantage over Ali, and even with his broader shoulders, I can't see that. He did not seem to have longer arms than Ali, and I don't think he was 4 or 6 inch much broader over the shoulders either.

 

Damn he looks jaundiced with those yellow eyes. Either just genetics or his liver was in the toilet. Doesn't look healthy.