Perhaps you can list the champion who's opposition could not be seen as deeply flawed ? Example: Ali .. Foreman had terrible stamina issues, Frazier was a one armed fighter blind in one eye, Norton had no chin and froze up, ect .. Liston did not just beat a very talented group of fighters but he destroyed them .. even Machen lost a wide decision .. as far as Patterson, you can't just throw away his post title career .. Liston destroyed an absolute prime Patterson, twice.
There is something VERY important to consider when assessing Liston, and that is that he could have been champ years earlier if Patterson had given him the shot). Sonny, if given the chance, would've knocked Floyd out in the late 50's or around 1960 (whenever he got out of jail), and would have had a nice long string of defenses before meeting Muhammad. I like Patterson a lot as a person and fighter, but he was an extremely protected champ, and was allowed to get away with it because the public feared Liston. Sonny's record....chock full of name contenders for the day...would read "World Heavyweight Title" after many of those fights had he been given his rightful opportunity. With a string of defenses under his belt, I think his legacy would be much stronger.
Sonny was never getting to challenge Floyd before ingo. He was always rated higher even before johansson knocked out machen in one round.
Yeah, that business of picking apart contenders can be done for any era. All you can do is to face the best contenders of your own time. Something which champions like Johnson, Dempsey, Holmes, Bowe etc failed to do. And I don't know where this notion has come from that a contender has had to dominate other contenders to be considered anything more than a tomato can. Tyson was seen as a potentially formidable force despite his best win being Tillis by points before Berbick. And Bowe hadn't really beat anyone of note before Holyfield (or after for that matter). Vitaly's best opponent before Lewis was Byrd - whom he'd lost to.
Liston seems to have all the tools, I mean he was a real classic boxer with some terrfific heavyweight clout ... but he remains something of an enigma. He just didn't have great opponents. Even his losses to Clay/Ali don't tell us much. Were they even on the level ? And if they were, is there any shame in losing to Ali ? Besides, Liston was on the decline by then, he was significantly better 4 years earlier. Too many unanswerable questions surrounding Liston.
"In all my career, nobody has ever stood up to me. Except for Sonny Liston, he was the only one." - Big George Foreman