I'm reading the September 1969 issue of The Ring and reports of the Frazier-Quarry fight. In it, Angelo Dundee says, "We'll sign to fight Frazier if we get our terms, but we won't wait forever. We have offers for a Sonny Liston fight in late August in Los Angeles, Houston, and Las Vegas." What if this Ellis-Liston fight had actually happened? To refresh and put into context, Liston was coming off a TKO 7 over Scrap Iron Johnson in May 1969 and would go on to KO 3 Sonny Moore in September '69 before being kayoed by Leotis Martin in December. Ellis's last fight was in September 1968 against Patterson. He wouldn't see action until February 1970 against Frazier. Who takes it and what happens?
Ellis would outbox Liston and probably beat him up. Maybe a late stoppage. Liston wasn't as far past it here as some would think.
Wasn't this the same era that Patterson busted up Ellis. 15 rds. with Liston? Either Ellis pole-axes Liston like a beat up Leotis Martin did, or Old Liston just grinds Ellis down late for a 14th rd TKO. (Liston motivated for a chance to regain some form of a Hvywt. title).
I can' see Sonny holding it together at the top level against Ellis. Liston was old but he also lived hard. Whatever his age add 10 years. Unless Ellis got caught early.
Ellis would have won but I believe Dundee was partially full of **** here. At this time Dundee was shamelessly ducking Frazier. If anything they were using a supposed Liston fight as a bargaining chip/stumbling block to further delay a showdown with Frazier. I dont know that Liston seriously would have entertained that fight. He and his people were making a lot of noise about fights with Frazier, Ellis, Quarry, and Chuvalo but whenever talks heated up Liston was nowhere to be found. I think Liston was kind of coasting at this point in his career. Picking on fringe guys but not terribly interested with getting a real meaty fight. Sure hed talk tough but he never really came to the table. So far in every instance Ive seen he or rather his people were the stumbling block.
I read somewhere that a Liston/Frazier showdown was slated for some time in 1971, but we know what happened.
I dont buy that for anything. For two reasons: 1. Most of 1970 before Liston died was consumed with the talk of the inevitable Ali-Frazier fight. The only thing on Fraziers mind was Ali. 2. Liston had been completely unwilling to fight any of the young guns after the Ali fights. No way hes getting in with Frazier when he had just been creamed by Martin and had just one confidence builder under his belt against human punching bag Wepner. Not to mention in late 1970 he was injured in a car accident which had him laid up pretty good and had also been popped for a DUI which, combined with his drug overdose death gives the impression that he wasnt seriously training for any fights. In fact shortly before his death he was claiming that he intended to focus on his acting career (Moonfire and Love American style had just come out in which he had roles) because the top guys were ducking him which is kinda laughable when you consider that Quarry and Bonavena had just fought Ali, Foreman who had just beaten Chuvalo was his stablemate making a fight moot, and Frazier had just fought Ellis and LHW champ Foster. Basically all of the top guys were facing fighters who were higher rated and/or considered tougher opponents than Liston.
I too doubt that there was any real effort toward putting together a Frazier-Liston bout. Right before the Wepner bout Liston half-heartedly, IMO, said that it was possible he could get another shot at the title. But he wasn't calling Frazier out. Liston was talking about facing Quarry immediately before and after the Wepner fight on June 28th. In early July 1970 Don Chargin tried to set up a Liston vs. Jose Luis Garcia after Garcia kayoed Norton. In November there was talk of a February 1971 Liston - Chuvalo fight. On December 17, less than two weeks before his death, Liston was arrested for drunk driving in LA.
