Liston's resume and ranking

No we're not. 1st round knockouts over world class opponents (especially the durable Machen) are pretty rare and not likely to be repeated.

Liston proved over the distance he was the better fighter. Full credit to Ingo, but Machen had no idea he was in there with one of the best right hand punchers in history. He'd certainly know in a rematch.

 

A bit of a harsh assessment, although i agree to a large degree. But regardless of being (rightfully?) considered a weak champion, blowing Patterson out in a single round, twice, is a great accomplishment.

But like you said: Williams only beat one contender (Terrel), and i'm not 100% sure of that. He [Cleveland] wasn't ranked in the annual ratings either time when him and Liston fought, and for good reason: he hadn't beaten any major contenders. Valdes was old and past it, if not shot. Machen is probably his second best win, a good one, but not that much of an impressive performance. Harris and DeJohn were mediocre.

He looked pretty horrible against Besmanoff also, and King had him reeling all over the ring. He had good boxing skills, but mostly got by on his size/strength/power advantage in addition to those skills. I think a guy like Lewis might just destroy him, though that's hard to estimate. But he looks very slow to me, despite not really being THAT big at 210lbs and 6 feet.


I do rank him in the top10, the lower end of it. His resume compares well to someone like Dempsey.

 

Liston's win over Machen is one of very few results he has over real quality opponents though, so the merits of it do need to be scrutinized a bit.
The fact that Machen was proved stoppable by Johansson is relevant too.
Also, Machen was outpointed over 12 rounds by Zora Folley just eight months before Liston did it too.
To Liston's credit, he battered Folley around that time too.

I just think the Machen performance/result is so-so, all things considered.

No.

 

True. I do doubt Terrell can be called a top contender at that time though, and anyway prior to the Liston fights, Williams credentials against top-quality foes is very weak, non-existent . That's the point.

 

I dont buy this.
If the results were reversed and Liston had a 1st round brutal KO over Machen, and Johansson a 12-round points win, I'm sure you'd be saying Liston murders Machen every time. And his win is worth more than Johansson's.

 

Do you buy that Machen would fight much smarter against Ingo in a rematch?
He didn't know what he was up against when he fought the previously untested and unknown Ingo. Against Liston, he knew exactly what he was up against and fought accordingly but was still soundly beaten.

I don't see him catching the Machen that fought carefully against Liston.

 

Well, he ought to.

Well, you never really know what you're up against until the bell rings. Machen wanted a rematch with Liston and was confident he's beat him so he must have figured he knew more after the 12 rounds than before.
I mean, there's always the "If I could do it again, I'd do x, y and z differently ........" alibi.

I doubt Johansson had much real knowledge of Machen's style going in to their fight either.
And Machen must have fought several unknowns before.

Maybe not. But the flipside to that whole argument, is that Liston was well-aware that Machen could be KO'd, and brutally, as Johansson had shown, yet failed to do anything similar.

 

We should be but people over-factor this in. Thus Liston is a top 3 HW for some people here. A little astonishing I know.

 

He should probably be on your top 10 list, but he doesn't have to. He's not a top 3 nor even a top 5 HW of all time under a good criteria that factors accomplishments/resumes way more than H2H. He may be a beast H2H, but it doesn't belong to be ranked ahead of Ali, Louis, Marciano, Foreman, Frazier, or even Holmes.

 

Williams was a good fighter. Very good. I think I read that some people thought his second fight with Terrell was a bum decision too, but I might be mistaken.

But he still wasn't established as a proven contender at the time of the Liston fights. That tempers the significance of those wins somewhat, surely.

 

Valdez was stopped and beaten and dropped before he fought Liston and 31-1 Williams was KO'd in 3 by 174lb Bob Satterfield, Machen was KO'd in 1 by Ingo and Foley was stopped and dropped 4 times by 12-1 Alejandro Lavorante and Ko'd by Doug Jones and outpointed by Henry Cooper... How do these guys exceed Razor Rudduck,Pinklon Thomas,Tony Tucker and Michael Spinks to name a few

 

Agreed.

Valdes was done as a serious contender after getting beaten up by Powell (and in reality, was already past his peak even before that). He was merely a washed up EX-contender when he fought Liston. That was not among Liston's more significant wins.

 

Williams was a big puncher, but otherwise fairly limited; and much like Liston's other "name" victims, his durability was suspect as well.

At the time he fought Liston, he was rated as only a fringe contender at best. In truth, none of Liston's opponents pre-Harris were considered top level contenders.