Say Ali came along a little later, im interested in how Liston would be ranked because the Ali fights seem to have mostly wrecked his legacy, so how do you rank him if say Ali came along right after he retired or say if he retired after the Patterson fights ?
If he retired after the Patterson fights hed be ranked as an ATG no doubt...takin a dive in the second Ali fight didnt help though....Thats what people remember.
his big wins were over Patterson, Cleveland Williams over rated so while this was a good win I do not see Williams doing anything on a permanent basis in the division. His fights against Ali hurt him but without the Ali fights you could say he dominated a weak division until he got the title, he looked great on the attack but Foley was KO'd by 188lb Doug Jones and others and Machen went the full route....You could put him in the top 10 but he failed when tested, Tyson had a better level of opposition but failed vs Evander and Buster...I don't think the Patterson wins put Sonny up there.
Its interesting that some may say Liston cleaned out a weak division but Ali fought many of the same fighters during his intial reign as Champion and that is the Ali many point to as the greatest heavyweight of alltime. Based on what he did against those guys. Liston beat better version of Patterson, Folley and Williams and he did it in more devastating fashion. Henry Cooper wouldnt even fight Liston. The man was terrifying.
He's still ranked as an ATG. Losing like that did hurt him but not that much. Thing is his resume is quite thin and that would always hurt him. Even with out the losses he shouldn't show up in a Top10 IMO.
Funfact:Liston never beat an opponent that wasn't knocked out before or was a non-bum. (Where I define bum as someone who has a lower than 75% win ratio after 12 fights) Not really his fault though, it's just a fun fact.
