George Foreman -vs- Sonny Liston

Foreman, KO. I don't see Liston being able to deal with his physical advantages any better than Frazier did.

 

George idolized Sonny and told a funny story that I read somewhere.

He said that he (George) used to really beat up on his sparring partners, accept when he was sparring with Liston. Once, he really hit Sonny with some monster shot, and Sonny just casually said "No son" and hit him back with a worse one.

Who would have won? I don't know. George never really did have a prime since he didn;t learn to pace himself until he was almost 40 years old. If you could brind Sonny back to life and put George through a time machine and put them in the ring, I would say George. If you are literally talikng about putting the Geroge who destroyed Frasier againdt the Liston that destryed Patterson, I would say Liston because of his vast experiece against guys like Clevland Willaims, Eddie Machon and Zora Foley.

 

Agreed. Liston and Foreman are evenly matched on the physicality’s. The difference here is Liston has better skills. I think Liston wins, likely via mid round TKO.

Foreman and Liston sparred a bit. Foreman said he was annoyed that Liston could take his punches.

 

I think he means this:

When Liston was 20, he weighed 200lb.
When Foreman was 20, he weighed 215lb.

When Liston was 30, he weighed 212lb.
When Foreman was 30, he weighed 230lb.

When Liston was nearing 40, he weighed 220lb.
When Foreman was nearing 40, he weighed 240-260lb (yes, with a lot of fat).


Foreman is 6'3 1/2 or 6'4
Liston is 6'0 or 6'0 1/2


Liston has a 84 inch reach, but that is more wide shoulders than long reach. Cleveland Williams clearly has longer arms on film, and he's 6'3 with an 80" reach. Foreman's arms look very long on film and he's taller.


The difference is that with the exception of Williams and Ali (who both made Liston look quite small), Liston faced a lot of small guys, whereas Foreman faced a lot of big guys (Lyle, Norton, Ali, etc) which makes him look less big.

But make no mistake, Foreman definitly was the bigger man.

 

I've made a lengthy post on this one a couple of times, but Liston stops Foreman in about 7 rounds. Tighter and straighter punching as well as having power and strength somewhere close to George. Better boxer too. He would also be one of the few guys in history who could attack Foreman's body with a degree of success.

 

Excellent post especially the last bit. I have Liston winning in the 6th or 7th round myself.

 

No disrespect taken, but i would like to point out that anything over 213lb was pretty meant being out of shape for Liston, whereas Foreman had no problem carrying over 226lb.



This fight is a really hard one to call, by the way. I used to have the same position most posters here have, that Liston's technical ability and chin would get him through, to a late stoppage. But lately i like Foreman by stoppage. Williams, the only big and powerful opponent that Liston fought, had no trouble landing so i think Foreman definitly has a chance to be more succesful. Of course you can also turn that logic around and say that Lyle, Foreman's only big, powerful (in fact, Lyle was not THAT powerful i think) hit Foreman plenty, too, and nearly stopped him. So it's really hard to call this fight.

 

Difficult pick.

If Liston uses his jab, defense and superior boxing skills without being lured into a slugfest with Foreman, then I'd pick him to win probably by mid to late round stoppage or knockout. On the otherhand, if Sonny makes himself available to get hit by George, who was far more powerful and dangerous than anyone Sonny ever traded with, then I might be inclined to favour George. Of course some may argue that trading with Sonny could be just as big of a mistake for Foreman, but personally I think Foreman wins a mid to close range match. He knocked out a lot more guys who were bigger and stronger than a lot of the men Liston beat coming up.