I'f young cassius had not entered boxing how long would sonny have been champion.? I know that he was rumoured to be nearing 40 at time of the cassius fight but was there anyone on the horizon who could have beaten liston.? Would a young frazier have taken him in around 68 or would that have been a liston win. Looking at the heavyweight s around that time apart from Ali no one jumps out that could have defeted sonny so like the title says,, no ali so what happens,???
I can see that been a likely scenario myself. Liston would probably have become over confident as champ and mixed in with the abuse u mentioned would likely have lost to some one totally unexpected.
Ernie Terrell might have had a good chance if Sonny slipped enough. Tall and awkward and reasonably tough. If he gets through the early onslaught which he would have a chance to do being so rangey and takes a tiring Liston into the later rounds, he might have been the right man in the right place at the right time. Frazier would not have been a factor until '68 but that would still have made Sonny champ for six years; drinking, not training, getting older, drugs maybe - he trips up before then, I expect.
Good choice terrell. Could have given liston a very hard fight and the longer the fight wore on the more chance he would had had of beating sonny.
I remember over 30 years ago a fight magazine bandied this question about in an article. Basically it took every title defense of Ali's - making it Liston's - and tried to suss out how he would do. It had him going through everyone on the list but the Terrell fight showing the chink in the armor with age and had Ernie well ahead on points before succumbing to Liston in the 13th. And then finally had Liston losing his title to a young Frazier. Using that same logic, yes, I could see the aging Liston having problems with Terrell, but actually - taking styles into consideration - I think he would have had an issue with Chuvalo's style. George could take it and would be dishing out those big clubbing punches of his. This would really be the test of the Liston heart at this stage of the game. The classic 'bully being pushed back on the schoolyard' scenario. Still, I think the Liston jab would slice up George for the Liston win, but not without some scary moments. Ali was scheduled to defend his title against Oscar Bonavena in late '67 or early '68 in Tokyo when he was stripped of the title. Again, like the Chuvalo style, Oscar's crazy slugging style would have tested Liston's resolve. Bonavena too, could take it, didn't cut much, and would be taking on an aged Liston. This could have been the waterloo. The bane of every great slugger is a counter-puncher with a great chin. This fits Jerry Quarry to a tee, which is why his proposed fight with George Foreman was always so intriguing and created so many threads on the subject. I think it was after Liston's fight with Henry Clark that liston mentions to Howard Cosell about a possibility of fighting 'that young kid from California'. An intriguing matchup but maybe Jerry was still a bit green in '67 or '68. By '69 he would have been a good pick. In the long run there are possibilities, but the 30 year old article is still viable when discussing the landscape at the time and an eventual loss to Frazier.
