Liston Holyfield

I am a lifelong Holyfield fan.

But Liston would stop him. Not because of the skill differential or even the strength differential. Liston would stop him because Holyfield at his best couldn't suppress his love of battle. He fought to get respect and was less a strategist and more of an "impose the will" guy.

Against Tyson it worked.
Against Dokes it worked.
He broke both of them.

Against Bowe, it didn't work.
Against Lewis it didn't work.
Both were too strong.

....Liston is stronger than both of them. His physical presence in the ring oozed that heavy, leaden strength.

Do you remember how effective Bowe and Lewis (and Moorer! Hell, even Foreman!) were when they operated behind that jab? Their jabs were not especially fast, but they were solid. Why did the jabs work? Because Holyfield was looking to get in and work and was less aware of avoiding the jab. He became a great counter puncher and one of his defining performance was Bowe II but I really credit Steward for that one. Steward was the maestro. What Holyfield always heard in his head was Lou Duva screaming "get that respect! Get that respect!" during the Dokes fight.

Liston would jab him to death and wear him out like Moorer, Bowe, and Lewis never could and would close the show late after a barrage. Holyfield ain't moving Liston backwards, it's the other way around. And Holyfield would only survive if he fought a defensive fight -which was not in his nature.

 

I note that a lot of people think that Holyfield would have a size advantage over Liston. This almost always happens when someone from the past is compared to one of the "moderns". In this case it is still more interesting because, ironically, Liston was supposed to be a big heavyweight of his era while Holyfield is supposed to be one of the smaller heavyweights of the modern era.

But to be fair, I think if Sonny Liston had been a contemporary of Evander Holyfield he would have been much bigger. Maybe, about 230 pounds in fighting condition. You just can't give the advantage of modern food, supplements, training methods and drugs (?) - well someone said hgh - to one fighter and withold the same from the other. It is just not fair.

Any fighter from the past would have been bigger and stronger with the latest advances in training methods, nutrition, etc. We really cannot say by how much, but we can make an educated guess.

In my opinion, if both had been contemporaries Liston would have either stopped Holyfield in the later rounds or a very courageous (and hurt) Holyfield would have just made it to the final bell to lose a UD.

Had they fought as they were in their respective primes - regardless of the time factor - Liston would have still won but it would have been a 'hell of a contest'.

 

Actually, most people think of Liston as "too big, too strong". They have some sort of mythical image that he's a 6'6 250lb man - which is just that, mythical. When you see that he's as big as Chris Byrd, who just about everyone considers too small today, it's pretty much a wake up call. Not saying that Liston is too small to compete here or today, but still.

 

Holyfield by Kayo.Liston didn't have a lot of heart.And even before ClayI(Ali)he had troubles with fighters like Eddie Machen,which has been shown on ESPN Classic severlal times.

 

Liston's physical strength has been well-documented. It is also apparant in his fights, albeit in bouts against men smaller than giants, with one or two exceptions. My opinion on this matter is also well-documented.

In sum, I hold that generally, a lower center of gravity have a strength advantage. Gravity works for them. Guys over 200 pounds are large men. I do not believe that a guy 210lbs is by definition weaker than a guy 240 lbs, although a guy who weighs 130 lbs is not as strong as a guy 160. After a certain threshold, pounds become more incidental. For me that threshold is 200 lbs --and may even be lower in terms of punching power (to wit: I believe that Dempsey had the swat to knock down any man -Lewis, et al.) Lewis's "large man" strength is distributed over a longer frame. Liston's "large man" strength is concentrated and thus 'heavier'.

Liston also strikes me as a man who was far stronger than he looked. His hands were huge, his limbs were thick, his trunk was heavily muscled and deep. Liston's testosterone levels was probably off the charts. And not least, he believed that he was the powerhouse wherever he was, well, at least until Frankie Carbo came back from the men's room. Liston was a juggernaut.

In terms of sheer physical strength, my top 4 looks like this:

1. Liston
2. Foreman
3. Lewis
4. Jeffries

Is it debatable? Sure! But no one has offered me a better argument on behalf of someone else...

 

I think finishing a fight against Marty Marshall with a broken jaw and dropping a split decision demonstrates a rather large heart.

Machen was a fluid boxer with good skill for a heavyweight. Liston demonstrated surprising skill by outboxing the smaller, fleeter Machen.

 

I made my point quite clear in my first post on this topic.

I am not thinking of a "mythical 250lb" Liston. I said that even with modern methods Liston would have been about 230lb which, I think, is a reasonable estimate.

Remember, Holyfield himself was a cruiserweight to start with in the pros. He used weight training (he was trained by Lee Haney who was Mr. Olympia), the latest advances in nutritional science and probably 'you know what' to build himself up to a buffed and functional 215lb. Also, the human race is slowly becoming bigger. This is a documented fact. Contemplate Liston having access to all these factors and decide if he will still be the same size as Byrd.

I feel that it is decidedly unfair to call Liston "small" in this context.

 

Holyfield at his best would be able to take Liston.

IMO, Tyson was a stronger physical specimen than Liston. Two full inches shorter, about 10 pounds heavier and solid muscle (Tyson never trained with weights during his prime, so I dont' want to hear about how he was somehow bigger than Liston because of "modern methods". Tyson was a solid 215 in his prime being trained using solely old school, Cus D'Amato methods). Holyfield was able to outmuscle Tyson and back him up in the clinch, so I wouldn't doubt he could do the same to Liston.

Liston was as mentally weak, if not weaker, than Tyson as well, so I have no doubt that once Holyfield started landing on him and pushing him back, he'd have quit just like he did in both Ali fights.

 

Holyfield could win, but I don't think he would.

 

There is no was that Liston would have been able to fight under 190lbs so we have to regard him as being naturaly much bigger. A 210 pounder against a pumped up 190 pounder.

 

Holyfield, Tyson they have all used modern methods. Incidently, this does not only include weight training. Just because Tyson was trained by Cus D'Amato does not mean that Tyson never used the latest methods. It is tantamount to saying that Cus was never receptive to advances in training technologies. No good coach can afford to do so. "Old school" do not mean sticking to ancient methods even when a proven better way is found. Rather it means retaining all that is good in the old methods and at the same time amalgamating the proven modern methods in the total training format.

In all other sports athletes are bigger, faster and stronger because of the advances in training technologies. It is naive to think that the top pros in boxing are not taking advantage of it.

 

It is unfair for sure, but guess what, life isn't fair.


I'd also like to know exactly what modern training techniques Tyson used before the age of 20 when he grew into his 215 lb frame. He was already 190lbs at the age of 13.

Holyfield was already up in the 190lb when he was 23. It is certainly no stretch of imagination to think he could fight around 200lbs as he aged into his 30's without modern training. You naturally put on some pounds as you get older and it's not like bulking up was completely unknown to old school fighters. Archie Moore could succesfully go up from 175 to 190 and back well into his 30's, while he was a middleweight in his 20's.

Rather than seeing modern training methods as a magic trick, i think Holyfield's succes is more his own than that of training methods. If it was so effective, then why have we only seen a grand total of TWO fighters in the last thirty years who were able to go up from 190lbs and have consistent succes at heavyweight? And even in the cases of those two fighters, when they were beat, most people saw it as "they're too small to compete with talented big heavies", i.e. Holyfield vs Bowe, Holyfield vs Lewis, Byrd vs Klitschko, Byrd vs Ibeabuchi. And Holyfield's body broke down on several occasions.
There have been a few other exceptions like Moorer and Spinks but their succes was brief; Moorer had one of the most embarrassing KO losses to a 45 year old Foreman who lost to or struggled with every decent opponent in his comeback. Spinks is, unrightfully, remembered as the 91 second-man despite having one of the greatest resumes of all time at lightheavyweight.

 

ChrisPontius, you have answered your own question by saying "they're too small to compete with talented big heavies". The same factors which allowed them to become a full sized heavy compared to a heavy of the past has also led to the present day natural heavyweigths being "superheavyweights".

No, I don't think of modern methods in being some sort of magic trick. In fact, I am a great believer in 'old school' myself - trust me. I am only trying to put things into proper perspective and be realistic.

 

Uh uh Stonehands;no matter what-Liston doesn't compare to Holyfield in terms of heart.And he was ready to quit after taking a couple of hard shots against Cleveland Williams.At his best,Holyfield would've stopped Liston and Williams on the same night.Eddie Machen wouldn't be fighting heavy's today.I think he was kayoed in one by Ingemar Johannsen(without doublechecking).

 

Your two sentences seem to contradict.

If the fight was a 'barnstormer' I have little doubt it ends in Sonny's favour sometime in the first round.

If Holy is to prevail, he has to stay away from Liston as much as possible and that's just not his style. I see a KO somewhere between 3 and 8.