Liston vs Marciano

Fixed.

 

For what it's worth, in Howard Cosell's 1973 book, he talks about going to Liston's training camp in 1962 with Marciano to interview Liston before the first Patterson fight. Liston was in a bad mood and his trainer told Marciano and Cosell to go in at their own risk. Cosell asked Marciano to press Liston for an interview, and Marciano was too scared to do it. His exact quote was: "Are you nuts?"

Marciano was about to turn 39. He had been retired for six years. Still, I don't see someone like Vitali Klitschko, at 39 and larger than most, being afraid to talk to another champ who's in a bad mood.

I always got the sense if Liston fought Marciano, it wouldn't look much different than the Patterson-Liston fights. Liston would've put Rocky away in a round or two. Rocky got dropped early by others. Liston wouldn't have let him off the hook. And a slightly older Rocky - according to Cosell - was intimidated by Liston.

 

IMO opinion the 1st Walcott fight where he was behind, the 1st Charles fight and the 2nd as far as KO's and timing I love the Layne KO Layne was 34-1-1 beat the guy that he lost & drew to and Rocky ruined him. Other than that he was a guy that looked beatable but guys that shared the ring with him said it was a lot harder than it looked.

I love Marciano's style but not one that I would chose in the ring, my favorite style was Duran then Louis and I am a fan of Dempsey, Tyson ....Liston may have had the best ring presence=scariest then Foreman and Tyson there had the meanness down.....Duran was the scariest lb4lb IMO

 

the punch was strong but I think the subconscious memory of Walcott was even stronger against the little beast who kept on coming

 

Marciano only fought 7 years. He made his debut in the rankings at the end of 1950... So, I will give him 5 years.

Liston beat Johny Sumerlin in 1954, who was ranked #8 in 1955. Liston himself made the Ring annual ratings from 57-64 and 68-70... So, you could stretch it to 15 years (16 years minus one for jail time and ban) or at the very least put it at 11 years in the Ring Annual Rankings.

 

Liston took off the whole year in 1957 and did not comeback until 1958, he also had his 3 fights series with Marshall including the loss SD after the Sumerlin fights and SD win

 

Nice post, but in fairness to Marciano we can't assume he was literally afraid of Liston. I think more context is needed to make that observation.
Marciano I don't believe, was scared of anyone. I think he loses to a fair number of bigger, stronger heavies sure, but he was as fearless as they come.

 

I could upload the page, but if you don't believe he was scared of anyone, more context won't matter.

 

Marciano was perhaps showing respect. Putting himself in Sonnys shoes Why would Rocky as a fighter want a former champ and Howard Cossel of (all people) barging into his room when he did not want visitors?

I think Bummy posted something about Rocky squaring up to Sonny after he had been disrespected in a ringside radio interview a while back?

I don't think these things prove much outside the ring.

 

Yes, I noted and subtracted the year off for his incarceration and ban.

Marciano also had a few repeats… Walcott, Charles, LaStarza… and did so within his scant 15 or so fights at the top. So this does lower the breadth of the styles he faced… please to note the difference in breadth and quality before you start piping up...

 

Being rated is one thing. for all those years that Sonny was rated how many of his opponents were at the time currently rated? Correct me if I am wrong but I think only machen, Harris, Foley, Patterson, Ali, Clark And Martin were curent world level at that time. So many of the others were the same fringe guys everyone was beating. Williams was rated much later. Valdes and Dejohn were losing too.

 

Well, here is the link if you want to check it out.

On the page prior to these, Cosell talks about how much he disliked Liston and how Sonny was just a thug who is remembered fondly in death but wasn't a very nice person at all when he was alive.

Cosell and Marciano were doing the radio call for Liston-Patterson 1 for ABC. This is the first time either met Liston in person.

Cosell was a lawyer before becoming a broadcaster, so he knew if Liston touched him he could sue. That's where his "bravery" comes from. IMO, Marciano was trying to avoid the situation entirely because, if Liston pummeled him, there's nothing Rocky could do. He was "The Rock" - the undefeated heavyweight champ. He couldn't sue anyone for beating him up. And Liston was a black guy who had gone to prison for battering a cop unconscious. That was pretty brazen in those days. So they were all pretty leery of him.

http://s18.postimg.org/cad4nqfs9/rockysonny001.jpg

 

It is difficult to gauge how Marciano would fare against the bigger, capable heavyweights. His prospects are likely better than most believe.

The tale of the tape is good enough for most - disaster. It must be noted though that Goldman taught Rocky to fight smaller than his dimensions, on purpose. As Angelo Dundee once mentioned, range is more about where your feet are, and marching into range was one of Rocky's greatest strengths. Once he did it was his range.

So, while it's easy to picture Liston's door-battering jab making life difficult if not impossible, Marciano's slippery advances could drag Sonny into that reassuring war-zone for a change of fortune.

 

True, but would this be the little Monitor going into that war zone with the bigger, stronger and more fortified Merrimac?