He only lost 4 fights.....2 to Ali in his prime, one to Marshall when Liston gets a broken jaw, and k.o.'ed by Leotis Martin when he is really old. By going only 6 rounds in 3-1/2 years before he defended against Clay, really hurt him.. Let's say Patterson...instead of "freezing him out".....gives him a shot at the title in 1959.....and Liston wins. Then his defenses would have been against Patterson, Williams, Folley, Machen, Valdez, King, Williams again. Even Harold Johnson or Archie Moore moving up. Throw in Ingo once or twice and Henry Cooper. Maybe the 12 round Machen fight would have been in 1963....instead of 1960 and he might of been better prepared for Clay. But you can see that Liston was really ready to be beaten by Clay when it happened. Liston might have turned into a relatively popular champion with the right marketing......instead of the tragic figure that he is.
As far as H2H, he's a top 5 heavyweight IMO. Solid chin, brutal power, excellent overal technical skills, and the best jab in the history of the division. A fantastic fighter, He cleaned out the division before becoming champion, which is a shame because if he had gotten the chance to fight for the title sooner, those contenders he defeated would have been victims during his championship reign, and everybody seems to rate wins a lot higher if they were for the title.
I think that the intense tragedy that is Sonny Liston, and the fame of the man who followed him, often overshadows the horrific luck Liston had to be preceeded by Ali...that was the best heavyweight there ever was who also happened to be his exact cryptonite. It boggles the mind, really. "Ready to be beaten" might be a bit strong. After Ali, he puts in some great, great performances, against Clarke and McMurray for example. But he didn't take Muhammad seriously and he was drinking and quite possibly he was told to lose both of those fights. Hard to be sure about what happened in that first fight.
And Liston did it without a top notch corner. What other heavyweight ever did that? He pretty much had guys to hold the spit bucket in there. I would've liked to have seen a Goldman or Freddie Brown or Dundee or perhaps get Arcel out of retirement & have those guys add some polish and refinement. A 10 or 20% improvement really would've been something.
It might be that his left shoulder really was bothering him. He felt that he was losing anyway, so it might have been enough for him to quit. He didn't seem to have much problem throwing the left before he quit, though. But up until his quit job I think he looked like he really was going for the win. He hit Clay with some vicious shots in the fifth...
Body shots though. Anything really big tends to miss by a tiny bit. It's interesting because Sonny has a good body attack that he would use verus elusive opponents, but througout the Liston fight he is headhunting. Then, when Ali is blinded and he has the chance to land headshots he ramps up the body attack. It's the opposite of what I would have expected of Sony who had a reputation for making good adjustments, not bad ones. But Ali was special and maybe he was just shocked.
I'm not sure about best jab in the division (Larry Holmes anyone?) Anyways, I did a thread a little while about two fighters. Fighter A and Fighter B. Just to paraphrase: Fighter A started his career around the same time as Fighter B. Fighter A wins the title after recieving an early title shot and cleans out the division by beating the 10 best fighters ranked below him with the exception of fighter B. Fighter B trudges along and beats those same fighters that Fighter A beat in similar fashion. Fighter A meets Fighter C loses his title and decides to retire without ever facing Fighter B. Fighter C defends against his title against Fighter B and also beats him up. Fighter B retires as well. Who goes down as the better fighter or with the better legacy? The majority of those who posted on thread gave the edge to Fighter A. Just the way it is I guess
You do have a point. But he did hit him with some good shots to the head as well during that round. And there's also the not so remote possibility of Liston blinding him on puropse. But anyway, there's never going to be any truly satisfactory explanations as to why that fight ended as it did...
