People who would beat Prime Liston.

Louis would need a skull transplant to withstand the blows. He would be better of fighting at CW.

 

Sonny Liston would have brayed Chris Byrd. It would be an absolute massacre.

 

Ali, Louis, and obvious all-time great picks aside I am sitting here thinking about not so obvious boxers throughout history who could possibly outpoint Sonny. Because of styles I think a prime Jersey Joe Walcott has a real shot but I also know he could get caught. Could Chris Byrd do it? Maybe. Jimmy Young has been mentioned already as a possible. And now the extremely not so obvious - Would the motivated James J. Braddock who beat Max Baer have any chance at an upset? For non all-time greats, tricky or highly motivated boxers would probably have the best chances. Buster Douglas when he beat Tyson? I am really just thinking out loud with this post.

 

well thats why I said he would need to upgrade

 

you behind on vids u need to watch of boxers its lots of people who would beat son did u not read the page I said where it says how he was easy to read and slow

fury
mike
holy both versions
George
Jimmy
ron
lennox
bonecrusher
tua
Frazier
and others all of these big names would beat or run thru him

it shouldnt be hard at all to think of anybody when you seen these names cause he wasnt some guy who was hard to find or load combos on you overrating him bad and I dont know why you people keep doing that its odd

 

@Shay Sonya
You should read it carefully.
moneytheman12 is one of the wisest and most knowledgeable posters here.

 

I grew up in a boxing film family. I saw Sonny Liston fights before and after You Tube even existed. I own some films of Sonny. If Liston really was "easy to read and slow" how do you explain his two successes with Floyd Patterson? It was all a psych job by Liston? Liston was too big for Floyd?

Some highlights of Floyd Patterson's Career against well known boxers over 200 pounds -

1959 Brian London (206) Won KO 11
1961 Ingemar Johansson (206) Won KO 06
--- 1962 Sonny Liston (213) Lost KO BY 01 ---
--- 1963 Sonny Liston (215) Lost KO BY 01 ---
1965 George Chuvalo (208) Won UD 12
1965 Muhammad Ali (210) Lost TKO 12
1972 Oscar Bonavena (206) Won UD 10
1972 Muhammad Ali (218) Lost TKO 07

I think Sonny Liston hit pretty hard and obviously harder than anyone Patterson faced before. Patterson was pretty fast and Sonny managed to land on Patterson often and hard. I don't think both of those knockouts can be totally explained away by saying Patterson was too small or scared of Sonny. Even if Patterson was prone to being scared he would also have been scared of Johansson after the beating he took in the first fight. Johansson knocked him down 7 times in their first fight and yet Patterson did not seem too scared to fight him twice more. And he certainly was not too scared to climb back in there with Sonny a second time. Bobby Franklin always said that Floyd actually wanted a third fight with Liston around the time that Leotis Martin put Sonny's lights out when Sonny gassed. If you said that Sonny gassed in late rounds I could almost agree with that. Easy to read and too slow I cannot agree with. Great Sluggers can seem that way sometimes until you get into the ring with one and get hit hard. The better answer is styles and that Sonny Liston hit very hard and delivered it fast. Floyd was simply overwhelmed and outgunned like never before or after.

 

I dont like when people ignore half of what I said cause I said more why did you skip over the names I put

and why did you point out 1 fight like that means something cause he was easy to read in that match to like the rest and was slow he never had fast punches anybody knows that who seen him so you lied

if u watch the match with floyd agian you will see how he makes son miss and ducks mutiple times cause of those slow tell punches they looked like slow motion

his easy to read looked so bad looked like he had a trainer in front of him saying punch here now punch there ridiculous how your acting so blind to this it's on vid

floyds problem was he stayed close trying to go toe to toe instead of using his speed advantage to outbox him anybody would get dropped if they that none of the boxers I named would just stand there like floyd they would have the thought of staying outside or moving in and out

like I said he wasnt hard to beat with that style

son was just a upgraded ver of the joe louis era a lil better movement but easy to read punches and bad footwork just the same

 

Joe Joyce from the so called "top crop of modern evolved heavyweights" makes Liston look like Barry Allen and Joyce went the distance and got rounds taken off of him from Brynt Jennings who is Foreman sized and not on Ali or Liston or Frazier or Nortons level, However Joyce also happens to be an Olympic silver medalist and the consensus is that he got robbed of the gold medal against Tony Yoke who is both taller and quicker than Joyce. Joyce also beat a faster, more explosive prospect in dubois

You see by your logic Joyce should be an unskilled journeyman who should be loosing to everyone because he's slow as molasses

 

I disagree. Byrd is amazingly slick and finds angles arguably as good as prime Ali, and has quick hands himself. It would not be a walkover job for Liston, at all. That would be a nightmare style for Liston. If he wins a guarantee he'd have a few rounds stolen off of him before he'd stop Byrd, if he even stopped Byrd

 

I never said just any name i said specifically big and middle names only so no it's not by my logic it's by specificity the type of skill level or a person who is good at a certain style not just any person like your trying to flip on me

now the point that you said on joyce is the way I do feel boxers from louis era get treated you seen my comments mutiple times on that era so you know already I have a low respect for it cause the skill and movement there was trash compared like I always said and always will say

 

I can't understand you bro

 

Videos are one tool to use when doing a full evaluation of a fighter. A second tool is the fighter's record overall. A third tool is what knowledgeable boxing people who saw him fight in person had to say about him. A fourth tool is his style and how that style compares against other styles. A fifth tool is who he fought (the boxers on his record and how their records were). A sixth tool is what rule set did the boxer we are evaluating fight with? What was the scheduled number of rounds, the gloves, the number of fights he had in a normal year of boxing? How was the boxer living when not fighting (at various points in his career)? Was he adaptable? (What adjustments might he be capable of if he fought in a different era?) How much experience could he bring to the table against different kinds of fighters?

Watching videos alone will not give you a true measure of the fighter or how he might do in hypothetical matches across eras. I think you need to go deeper in your studies of some of these fighters. Much of what you are saying would be true if videos were all we needed to evaluate a boxer. It is not. The other tools are also needed. And in some cases we do not even have good videos to watch. Sometimes we have to do the best we can with what we have. I think you are selling some of these old fighters short by evaluating them strictly on black and white videos seen from distances and poor angles that our modern eyes are not used to. That is why we need to use all the tools we have available to study and fully understand their capabilities.

 

Which people count as "knowledgeable"?