Evander Holyfield Versus Sonny Liston

Holyfield. Liston is overrated.

 

Would be a good fight. On my ATG list I have Liston eighth and Holyfield 11th. Which means it should be competitive and I think it would. Something tells me that Liston prevails in a single one-off meeting but if they fought repeatedly he would not bat close to 1.000. It might take a losing effort for Holyfield to figure out how to contend with Liston's reach advantage and that piston-like jab.

 

Holyfield is irritating the hell out of Liston in the early rounds, moving really well (mostly out of the way of the bombs).

Liston takes heed of his style and becomes more patient (this isn't Floyd Patterson). There are some great exhanges, but Holyfield has trouble with the jab early on and it becomes a major problem by the 5th, when each landed seems to pop his head back. A particularly heavy jab pisses Holy off in the 8th and he goes into Warrior mode.

Holy gets stopped in the face of significantly heavier firepower.