If Sonny Liston didn't die after his fight with Chuck Wepner

Fighters often look more ripped today and some have more definition from using light weights, but your point was that yesterdays fighters can't be compared with todays because of advances in suppliments and training. The examples above don't show that at all.

 

yes, they were more ripped because he had different training. and probably many of them took roids. joe louis never trained weights, he took obsolete nutrition.probably joe louis in the modern era would have weighed 220 pounds. and of course that today there are much more variety of supplements for the musculature.
light weights= different training

 

I don't know if anybody mentioned this.
But the Sonny Liston-Leotis Martin was the first Title Fight for the
N.A.B.F. (12-rounds).

The winner of that June 1969 bout was supposed to get a shot at WBA Heavyweight Champion, Jimmy Ellis.

If Sonny didn't run out of gas and walk into Martin's straight right hand, wonder what a
Jimmy Ellis-Sonny Liston Title Fight would have been like.

 

Look, I know what I'm talking about.
You're saying the appearance of Liston's body is the 1950s means he must have been in his 20s. But you're wrong, he could certainly have a physique like that and be in his 30s.

I know men who train in my gym who are in their 40s who've never touched a steroid or supplemet in their lives and still have physiques as they did at about 25 or 28. They are not huge roid freaks, just trained individuals who never let themselves get out of shape. It hasn't nothing to do with suplements. Some of them hardly lift weights at all, just box and run and do a load of press ups.

I don't know but I'm guessing you're quite young. You seem to think 30 or 40 means we have to look like old men or something.

We simply don't know Liston's age, and looking at his physique won't help us know it.
I just think there's a lot of evidence that he was a bit older than 30 when he won the title, and was probably at least 34, and possibly 40 already.
People who knew him seemed to agree on that. Liston didn't actually seem to know. And his own mother is reported to have said he was born before 1929, and in January, not May as the "official" line had it.

 

I think people in the 'know' agree.
That Sonny Liston was closer to 40 than his listed age of 31 at the
Liston-Clay I fight.

Another Sonny Liston mystery.

 

Liston was going to fight Chuvalo but he died so the fight did not take place.

 

Dio,

I think your correct.
It may have been a possible fight at the Thunderbird Casino in Vegas.

 

Hold the Phone,

I just checked something.
Sonny Liston fought Chuck Wepner in New Jersey, on June 29, 1970.

George Foreman fought George Chuvalo in Madison Square Garden, NYC on
August 4, 1970.
The fight contracts were signed in early June.

There must have been another fight scheduled for the Vegas at the Thunderbird.

 

A better question would be what would have happened if Liston had beaten Martin.

 

I believe Liston was #3 in the World and Martin #2 at the time. If Liston would have beaten Martin and won the NABF version of the title he may have been able to arrange a fight with Quarry or even Frazier. Would have been interesting.

 

Joe E,

Great question. I think the winner of the Liston-Martin fight
(First ever N.A.B.F Heavyweight Championship) was supposed to
fight WBA Champion Jimmy Ellis.
But Liston got KO'd.
Leotis Martin got a damaged eye (retina damage)
Jimmy Ellis got a break!

Sonny died on 12/30/70, 6 months after his KO of Chuck Wepner.
The only possibility of him fighting George Chuvalo was in February 1971 in
Las Vegas, or Toronto, Canada.

 

Chuvalo Liston would have been interesting. Have to go with George to out last Liston though. Sonny was old by then.

 

Joe E,

George was no 'spring chicken' either.
He was almost 31-years old.
But he was a very active fighter at that point, something 40-year old + (?)
Sonny was not.
I'd give George of Canada a close-decision win too.