Ingemar Johansson vs Sonny Liston 1959

I say Sonny Liston in about the 6th round. Ingo kayoed no.1 contender Eddie Machen on Sept 14 1958 in round 1, Liston decisioned Machen in 12 rounds on Sept 7 1960, but as they say, styles make fights. Liston had the left jab that could keep a guy at bay and could take a punch, remember Liston fought with a broken jaw against Marty Marshall in 1954 and took horrific bombs against Cleveland Big Cat Williams before flattening him early after suffering a fractured nose. Liston would avoid the Ingo Bingo to score the stoppage after Ingo tires.

 

Emperor's new clothes.

 

Wouldn't be so sure of that JT. Just wait until I expose this clown once and for all.

 

I don't want you to leave. That's the thing. I would've reported you now if that were the case. I wasn't lying when I said you were good for entertainment. Granted you're not so good when it comes to actual boxing knowledge and analysis, but with the comedic factor you provide I'll give it a pass.

Now please answer the question you've been avoiding for quite some time.

Are you or are you not Bah Lance?

No changing the subject, no pleading the fifth. A simple yes or no will suffice.

 

I knew someone was going to catch it

 

Fair enough... which makes it all the more baffling when you said Williams was starting to slip when he was shot.

You know as well as I do, Machen was a shell of himself by the time he lost to Patterson and Terrell. He was never the same after his discharge from the Looney bin. So we're left with losses, to two future champions, one current champion, and the number one contender. Not bad at all.

No. Reread what I said.

"liston must have feared if he lost any more blood from his battered nose, he'd need a transfusion. Aggressor in the opening round, Williams had Liston bleeding from both nostrils."

https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-miami-herald/122541068/

If Williams did that with a mere jab as you seem to be insinuating, it speaks very much about his power.

No offense but I'll take Liston's word over your eyes which have proved to not be the most reliable, with you claiming Valdez had Liston busted open up which simply isn't true.

I'm not posting the quote again. If you've been keeping up with the thread, I posted it a couple pages back. And if you read that quote, you'll see Liston was not being "gracious about old opponents". He dismissed his loss to Marshall, saying he was caught laughing when Marshall got him with a punch.

Again, go through the thread. You'll see JT, and Pugguy (who did so far before you asked for instances where Williams hit Liston) noting plenty of times where Williams caught Liston flush.

Regardless, he still had to eat a lot of punches as Williams didn't exactly lie down.

 

Dude, you seem to have some mental issues. I'll leave it at that and just ignore you again. You will never post anything and we both know it very well. I'll not be playing your games. You are just a some coward posting false accusation behind a keyboard. Very brave indeed.

 

Swag, I think he got lessons from this guy on how to "deftly" avoid providing uncomfortable answers. If I disappear from this board for any reason, keep a lookout for new member: "Ray Shoesmith". And for god's sakes, just keep that between you and I.

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My take on Sonny Liston is that he is a head to head monster who would have been a handful for anyone in the pre-modern giants era. For accomplishment, which I rate on, he is a strong top ten contender, although I would put him in the bottom half of the top ten, and for me a cinch top fifteen.

Johansson rates no where near Liston either head to head or on accomplishment.

On the original question, I strongly favor Liston. I do think there is a good point that Ingo had the style to possibly last a while with Liston and if the two had fought back in the late fifties, it wouldn't have been an out fight. Ingo would have had a puncher's chance, but I certainly wouldn't pick him.

Williams is often being piggybacked by his supporters onto Liston. I disagree. Williams had nothing like Liston's skills. Liston punches were usually straight and accurate. Williams threw from right field and was wild. Power? Liston KO'd a lot of top men in cleaning out the division. Williams? Who was his highest ranked victim at the time he KO'd him? Very few were rated when he fought them. Terrell was still unranked and halfway between his loss to trial horse Wayne Bethea and his win over Williams in their rematch. Holman was at the end of the line. Miteff, KO'd in 8 of his 40 fights, seems to have been the highest ranked man Williams ever knocked out. As for defense, the films tell the tale. Early in his career Williams' defense was his offense. He often left himself wide open.

Williams was certainly a fine fighter and in his day a legit top five man, but I would not consider his resume to be the equal of that of Turkey Thompson, Bob Satterfield, or John Holman earlier, or of Earnie Shavers or Ron Lyle later. A top fifty ATG? Not for me.

 

Well let's go through these

1---"brutal left hook Liston shrugs off with nonchalance" at 1:52

The left hook was blocked by Liston's shoulder. A follow up right uppercut misses badly.

2---"Straightens him up with another beauty here" at 3:35

Liston has back to camera. Williams dropped his left below his waist and sent a left hook to the body. Impossible to tell if it landed or if it was blocked, but clearly this body punch did not appear to have any impact on Liston. This punch has nothing to do with Liston's chin. Williams then missed badly a straight right which Liston slipped by ducking to his left.

3--"Clean right here" at 4:48

Again Liston has back to camera. Williams throws a right. Liston brings up his left to parry it. His head moves backward a bit. From the angle it is impossible to tell if the punch lands cleanly or how cleanly or if Liston blocked it. What is clear is that Liston wasn't bothered.

These three are for me nothing burgers.

4--"Brutal short hook here and a couple of bombs off the back of it." at 5:29

Okay. At last. Liston again has back to camera, but we can see Williams catch Liston with an inside hook. Liston appears to be rocked and retreats. Williams follows up "throwing bombs" but to my eye could not get in a clean shot as Liston bobs and weaves and quickly recovers and then launches his far more disciplined attack.

This is Williams' best moment in the two fights. Liston appear to be stunned by the hook. How badly was he hurt? Not enough to lose his defensive skills. He was not knocked down. He was not staggered. He merely backed up. He did not appear to me to be in really deep trouble.

Liston was certainly durable and had a good chin, plus excellent defensive skills. He is not a wide open target like Max Baer or for the most part Williams.

The problem with using the Williams fights to prove Liston's chin is that Williams didn't hit his chin that cleanly that often. Most of his heavy leather was thrown to the body, and much of that was blocked by Sonny's defense. The other problem is there is not that much in Williams' resume to support the premise that he was the top level killer puncher some make him out to be. And at this point in his career he was pretty wild and undisciplined.

*I want to emphasize we are only expressing opinions about boxing, not crucial issues, so no reason to get heated about any disagreements.

 

Yeah Williams didn't land a punch, or certainly a good one all fight

Don't worry i won't get heated, but i most certainly won't waste my time. My work is more than done here.

 

"Machen was a shell of himself by the time he lost to Patterson and Terrell"

He had won a series of fights by KO and back in the day there was a lot of talk about a new and more aggressive and better Eddie. He certainly was not considered washed up going into the fights with Patterson and Terrell. Here are the NBA ratings for June of 1964 just before the Patterson fight:

Champ--M. Ali
1--Doug Jones
2--Eddie Machen
3--Ernie Terrell
4--Cleveland Williams
5--Zora Folley

Here are the ratings for February 1965, just before the Terrell fight.

Champ--vacant
1--Ernie Terrell
2--Floyd Patterson
3--Eddie Machen
4--Zora Folley
5--George Chuvalo

Whom did Williams ever defeat who was rated as high as #2 or #3 in the heavyweight division when he fought them?

"Not bad at all."

But what is the point? Machen lost to Johansson, Folley, Liston, Johnson, Patterson, and Terrell and never beat any of them. Williams did not beat Machen. Getting a draw with Machen is a worthy achievement, but put it in perspective. Machen was never a champion and came up short against all of his best opponents.

"Liston must have feared if he lost any more blood from his battered nose, he'd need a transfusion."

Post the source for Liston fearing for his life from loss of blood. I haven't seen such a quote. The quote I have seen in the next day newspapers is about his worry during the Valdes fight about his eye injury:

"I had a hard time seeing out of it. I had to go out and find him and end it in a hurry."

My take is "end it in a hurry" implies he feared the fight would be stopped because of the injury.

"If Williams did that with a jab"

I didn't say that. I don't know which punch bloodied Liston's nose. What I do think is that one punch could do it. And a jab could have done it because it often does in other fights. I think both Liston and Williams could certainly bloody a man's nose with a jab.

"No offense but I'd take Liston's word over your eyes"

No offense taken. But you do understand I take my memory of a fight I saw over your dictates about the fight. And I think the papers are pretty clear that Liston had a severe eye injury and of course you are not as anxious to accept these Liston words--"I had a hard time seeing out of it. I had to go out and find him and end it in a hurry." I stick with what I said that Valdes came closer to beating Liston than Williams did.

"He dismissed his loss to Marshall"

You just made the case why these quotes about who was toughest or hit hardest don't mean much. Men have egos. Liston handled Williams easily and so builds him up thus building himself up. Marshall defeated Liston, breaking his jaw. So he is dismissed as a fluke.

And so many of the who hit me hardest quotes are just odd. I have read Joe Louis on who hit him hardest. Baer? Schmeling? Walcott? Marciano? No. None of those. Alex Borchuk. And Marciano has been quoted as saying Vingo hit him hardest. Marciano was the one who got hit, but I still think that probably Walcott or Moore hit him harder. I would judge by who knocks you down or out.

*I have never said Williams didn't hit Liston at all. I said that most of the head punches were slipped, or blocked, or rolled with. There were very few clean punches in those five rounds. What do the Williams fights prove about Liston's chin? He had a good one, no doubt. But Billy Daniels went 20 full rounds with Williams and Williams hit him more than a few times during those rounds, but Daniels twice finished on his feet. In between his two fights with Williams, Daniels was blown out in three rounds by Karl Mildenberger, hardly known as a big hitter.

 

You realize your buddies in this thread Chok and Bah Lance, are painting the narrative Eddie was never the same after his loss to Ingo right? So which one is it?

In any case, here's the description of the Patterson-Machen fight, by an observer

"He had no zip, no reflexes. He was just pushing his punches. He had nothing... He wasn't even 25 per cent of the old Machen. He looked like a guy who was sleep walking... It wouldn't have drawn more than $15,000 or $20,000 any place in the United States. Patterson says he's willing to fight his way back to a title fight. I think he should fight someone like Doug Jones or Cleveland Williams."

"Machen's return to the top of the ratings after his breakdown wasn't really anything to do with the wins he was scoring. Rather like Williams regaining the #3 spot after his gunshot wound, Machen beat a handful of unexceptional opponents and was given the benefit of the doubt - ranked based on achievements from earlier in his career." -SolomonDeedes

Billy Daniels beat the number 1 Doug Jones. Didn't do him much good against Williams.

So we have three losses to future or current champions and one loss to the number one contender (who also previously drew with him) in his prime. Machen beat Valdez (who you're comparing favorably to Williams), Hurricane Jackson, Brian London (who dropped and retired Ingo, who demolished Machen, further proving my point these comparisons are worthless), as well as many others but he couldn't do the same to Williams. If Williams was this one-dimensional slugger everyone here describes him as, Machen would've wiped the floor with him.

I literally already posted the quote, which you seem to have deleted out of my response for whatever reason.

"I had a hard time seeing out of it. I had to go out and find him and end it in a hurry."

Not necessarily. He could've meant his eye was bothering him, or something of the sort.

Funny how no other opponents, until very late in his career bloodied Liston's nose. The lack of credit you want to give Williams is incredible. First you're trying to downplay the significance of Liston's bloody nose, second you're insinuating Williams never hit Liston with any powerful punches while we could clearly see that's not true.

What's next? Was Liston held at gunpoint when he labeled Williams the hardest puncher he'd ever faced?

"No offense but I'd take Liston's word over your eyes"

1. I never said I didn't accept Liston's quote regarding the bout. I just have a different interpretation of the quote than you do as I noted above.

2. So let me get this straight. You accept Liston's quote regarding this bout, but discount his statement that Williams almost knocked him out, and that Williams was the hardest puncher he faced? Got it.

Ali knocked down Foreman. Frazier didn't.
Cooper knocked down Holy. Tyson didn't.
Douglas knocked down Tyson. Bruno and Ruddock didn't.
See where I'm going with this?

You've proved my point these comparisons are useless. You once stated Mike Dejohn exhibited more power than Cleveland Willias when he didn't knock out Daniels either. As a matter of fact, he was floored 6 times, en route to being knocked out himself.