Liston Holyfield

This is rare --I disagree with every single statement you make.

Holyfield's heart was second to none. The point was that anyone who asserts that "Liston has no heart" is unaware of the man and his career. Or is a simpleton.

Where do you get that? He KOd him twice!

This isn't even worthy of a response.

So, your implication is that Jerry Quarry and Nino Valdes and Joey Maxim couldn't compete today either -because dat bum Machen beat all three of them. Quarry lost to Machen when the latter was about 34 years old.

 

Stonehands;you're either unaware or a simpleton...Regarding your last statement about Quarry,Valdez and Maxim not being able to compete today;I never said that.I simply don't believe they would be able to compete very well at heavyweight-my least favorite division.I think they'd be excellent at cruiserweight-no disgrace.Marty Marshall weighed 180 when he broke Liston's jaw(check boxrec.com).Also-regarding Sonny Liston's personal history and "heart"-I'm with I think a pretty large crowd that can't decide whether he threw Ali II or quit;the "anchor punch" wouldn't have knocked me out.

 

It is absolutely true that Liston had heart, and asserting that he had "none" is unreasonable. However, he did clearly display some mental weakness during his career, which is a very serious point when one is matching him up against a warrior of the caliber of Holyfield.

Well, in fairness, Valdes and Maxim were over the hill when Machen beat them.

 

If you are talking about the Clay fiasco, I'll give you that. The Ali fiasco a year later is something I don't factor in.

I do not agree that Holyfield would do well against Liston at all. And he did not have enough heart problems for it to make much of a difference.

Sure, but the point was the point.

 

The interesting thing is that Liston does seem to have that bully-mentality. I don't like to use that over-applied term, but i think it does apply here. Liston in interviews does not come across as someone with self confidence at all.

Watching a conversation between Liston and Ali, from their voices and body language, one gets the impression that Ali was a grown up and Liston a confidence-less kid who literally couldn't produce a sentence without stuttering, while of course Ali was barely 20 and Liston in his 30's.

Ali didn't make Liston quit because he punched so hard; Liston's fights with Williams were much harder in terms of that and the Machen fight may have been equally frustrating. But none of them had that bully-breaking mentality that Ali had, which is what made the difference. Holyfield is one of the best fighters when it comes to this aspect of the game, as he thoroughly showed against Tyson twice. It doesn't tell the whole story and to say Liston has no heart is biased or exaggarating the facts, but it remains an un-overlookable factor.


Interestingly, in the poll this fight is as good as 50/50. I do think it's a very hard fight to call indeed.

 

Liston could barely write his name -he was functionally illiterate if I remember correctly. Ali had an IQ that was very very low, but his social IQ was genious.

Liston lived a wreck of a life...

Anyway, good post.

 

Ali is one of the best examples to illustrate the difference between IQ and emotional intelligence. The latter may be just as important as IQ in terms of being succesfull later in life, but no one ever tests that..


By the way, was Ali analfabetic? It doesn't sound likely to me, but i've read that claim somewhere.

 

I remember reading somewhere that Ali himself admitted that he was more or less illiterate. Early in his career, his IQ tested at 78. In the sixties he would go to college campuses with the Nation of Islam and stand at a podium and speak and field questions by mostly hostile white audiences... and he was sporting that 78 IQ. Frazier in Manila must have been somewhat less terrifying.