Hmmmm. Two fighters, besides Tyson and Ali (among scores of others) that push prime Foreman's sh*t in. I'll get back to you on this...:yep
Holmes would be facing a guy who has a jab just as good as his, maybe a bit harder. Holmes has the footwork, Liston has the power. Its really a tough fight to call.
Liston had the best jab in heavyweight history. He KOd men with his jab! 84' reach! Maybe not the fastest but he put mustard behind it.
Holmes' speed and ability to take a big punch are the keys for his victory. I like Larry here, and would not rule out a later round TKO for him. Liston has the punchers chance, but failed to finish quote a few guys not as good as Holmes was, so I think he needs a stoppage.
Ring magazine did this matchup in "battle of the legends" about 25 years ago. Can't remember everyone on the panel, but Ferdie Pacheco was among them and from memory I believe he picked Liston. I might go with Larry, but he'd have his hands full. Not only would he be facing a man who's left jab rivaled his own, but also a deadly right handed puncher who had the arm span to land it. And this is assuming that we're talking about the best versions of both these guys, which for Sonny was around 1960.. Not in 1964 when he fought Ali.
Liston remains the singlemost overrated heavyweight in history. Not to say he wasn't real good, because he was, but he wasn't this unstoppable beast he's sometimes played up to be here. He gets a lot of man love from the ESB faithful, that's for sure. Holmes by late stoppage. He would hardly miss with that jab, and play it cautiously like he always did against punchers with big reputations. Relatively easy fight for him.
Not disagreeing with you on the outcome. But Larry did get careless against some guys who could crack on more than one occasion and paid for it.
I don't know............against Shavers the first time, he was hardly touched and played it very cool, and really only got hit that one time (or during that one round, is maybe the better way to say it) in the rematch, so during 23 rounds of action against Shavers, he got hit really in only one round. Against Cooney, the left was almost completely nullified and he took very little leather at all. He got dropped by Snipes, but that's really more the exception than the rule. Snipes wasn't considered to be a huge threat anyway.
That's at least two examples though which shouldn't be disregarded. Witherspoon was clocking him fairly regularly with his overhand rights as well. Weaver very nearly had him down and hit him reguarly throughout the fight. The Shavers knockdown almost resulted in a KO. And while he more or les dominated Cooney he did get hit with some big shots. Not all of these instances were the result of carelessness though, as some of those men were good fighters who were bound to land something at some point. But Holmes was prone to getting hit, especially by right hands. Liston had a longer arm length than Holmes, comparable jab and deadly right. I picked Larry to win, but this would be a dangerous fight.
competitive fight because of styles, Holmes had the height advantage at 6'3 to 6" for Sonny but Sonny had a good long right hand that he may touch Larry with and make a difference in the fight. A big battle of jabs Larry had the edge in speed but Sonny had the edge in power.......I have to give this one a bit more thought but this may make for a good match-up...Sonny can be a dangerous style for Holmes....I give Larry the edge in mental toughness