Liston over Marciano - Can Anyone Sanely...

Not Ali, Clay.

The 1964 Clay remains a supremely over-rated fighter. What would a prime Marciano do to a Doug Jones or Henry Cooper I-era Clay? Well, those were the fights directly preceding Liston I and I would make a prime Marciano a favorite in either, as I would many other champs and non-champs. Another reason I think people give Liston too much credit, as he was beat by a very imcomplete and green fighter.

 

Now I think ur being unfair to marciano. Walcott was quite clearly at/near the top of his game when he took on marciano in the first fight. Also, how in gods name did charles give marciano hell in the rematch? he lost every round and was knocked down.

 

wrong the hardest puncher rocky every fought was 6'2 215lb joe louis. Louis was once the greatest puncher of all time, and despte being 37 power is the last thing to go. Louis was much bigger than walcott, so he had more force on his punch.

 

Walcott at 38 still had power in either hand and he could pinpoint punch better than Liston who was more of a clubber but Louis had power in both hands but his legs were gone in the Marciano fight...Charles hit harder than Marty Marshall

 

A top level fighter being ko'd twice in consecutive fights by a single opponent is, as far as I can figure, unique in boxing history. My take is that such an dual outcome was dependent not only on what Liston brought to the table, but also what Patterson did not, whether because he was intimidated or for some other reason. Therefore I do not push Liston into the stratosphere on the basis of the Patterson fights but try to judge him the basis of his entire career, warts and all, and the Machen, Besmanoff, King, Whitehurst, etc fights were warts, as were some others.

 

I thought liston looked good in the whitehurst fights, it showed his boxing skills and his ability to win fights alone with his jabs, and he pretty much knocked whitehurst out cold at the bell. the machen fight though not one of listons best, shows listons ability to fight at 12 hard paced rounds.



old fogey since you were around u remember what happened in the liston-valdez and liston-folley fights? what were the knockdowns how did they look?

 

I agree louis and walcott were both big punchers, even at there advanced ages. walcott was a late bloomer anyways , and louis could still hit and was big.

 

I just turned on the Valdes fight about a minute before the knockout. Liston backed Valdes up against the ropes and hit him with a short right to the side of the jaw-mouth area. Valdes went down into a kind of sitting position with his legs crossed under him, kind of like a Native American around the fire but without the legs pulled back. I remember that the camera was on Valdes and blood spilled out of the corner of his mouth and ran down his chin. He tried to get up at the last moment but did not make it.
I can't say much about styles here except Liston obviously had a powerful right.

The Folley fight was not on home TV as I remember. Closed circuit. I have never seen it. SI Vault has a description of the bout online.

(that is Sports Illustrated Vault--under SI Vault)

 

Wait...are you arguing that Marciano was better than Liston because Liston beat his opponents faster and more convincingly?

 

I think at that period Walcott was the better puncher.

 

I feel Walcott was at his best around his fights with Louis and wins over Maxim. Charles may not have gave Marciano "hell", but two very good fights when he was on the slide.

 

To answer your question Russell, no. Not at all.

The great fighters, I mean the really great fighters, find a way to win. They thrive on adversity and fight harder when the going gets tough.
Rocky did it more than once, Liston did not, and probably never did.

That right there ends all arguments as far as I'm concerned.

 

This point can't be stressed enough...there are many similaritites between Liston and Tyson.
Both were fantastic fighters when on top, but when real adversity came their way, they invariably lost. We can make excuses here and there, maybe even justify the losses to an extent, but at the end of the day it was a repeating pattern in both men's careers.