Prime Sonny Liston vs Prime Evander Holyfield, 15 rounds.

How they are weak?
Puggy said that Ali was lying and that Machen is crazy so they were not blinded, isn't that a weak argument?

 

If Liston had intentionally blinded his rivals, it would have been discovered long ago, proven, and Liston's license taken away. Perhaps he used Vaseline which got into his rivals' eyes through sweat, maybe they complained about it but it didn't really matter. You have already made the decision to claim authoritatively that this was the case, although it is only speculation and in fact we all know that Liston did not build any career on dazzling his rivals, but on what kind of boxer he was. I don't know what not to understand here... no one claims that he was omnipotent, only that for many he was better than Holyfield. After sparring with him, Foreman claimed that he had never met anyone so dangerous and Sonny was already an old man... did he blind Big George too?

 

Foreman said he was scared of Frazier and Norton but we all know what he did to them.
Again it was young undeveloped kid Foreman who was 18 years old with no professional record.

Again, I won't buy the Liston hype.

 

Who would discover that?
4 opponents claimed they were blinded and two of them I can be sure did not lie?
You fogrot that those were old times when fixing and cheating were common things.

 

Liston's best victories were Patterson twice and Clevland Williams twice. I think that in a moment you will be looking for something about their eyes but you will not find anything. He didn't look impressive with Machen, but you can theorize that if it weren't for Liston's crime, Eddie would have destroyed Sonny. No one will believe it but you can convince people, try...
I remember Manny Steward saying that he had never seen a more dominant boxer than Liston and that if Clay had faced Sonny 1958-1962, Liston would have won. The flight attendant watched it live and didn't know anything about the blinding, he probably got caught up in the hype. Angelo Dundee once said that Liston would crush Holyfield with one hand like a bug. And you can join these two and say that if Sonny could fight today, he would blind everyone.

 

Nuts.
Stewards opinion is not valid because he's not boxing historian or boxing expert, he's just a coach.
Not any single boxing historian rates Liston in top 10 because he was domimant against smaller guys and quit twice in the biggest fights of his life.
And we could not rate someone because what he could achieve but what he did.
Muhammad Ali would beat any version of Liston, 1967 Ali would beat the drums out of Liston because he's not Machen or Besmanoff.

 

ok, it's just that for me the opinion of someone who watched and analyzed fights all his life and was known for it is quite credible. Another thing is that I also have my own opinion and I presented this one as a curiosity. Rivals and coaches respected Liston greatly. In my opinion, he is greatly underrated. No one else crushed Floyd Patterson or prime Clevland Williams like that, so he couldn't just be very good, he had to be extraordinary. And the opinion of Dundee and Steward confirms this. Your opinion is very biased, so it loses credibility, especially since it is completely devoid of arguments. You keep saying over and over that you heard that Machen and Foley had eye problems. All of Holyfield's rivals accused him of illegal headbutting, and anyone who watched the fights knows he did it. Should I therefore consider his victories invalid? or consider him a coward because he withdrew from the fight with Sherman Williams? Duran turned away from Leonard, Vitali stayed on the stool with Byrd, everyone has moments of weakness because people are not robots

 

Nope but it downgrades his wins and his resume.

Floyd was crushed before Liston by Ingo who destroyed Machen which Liston could not.
Williams was destroyed by LHW Satterfield who was beaten by MW LaMotta.

Yeah, but they are not champion caliber because they do not have hearts, which is what makes champion a champion.

 

Someone who cheated few times by blinding opponents and quit twice can not be called champion and can not be in top 10 boxers of all time.

 

Holy loses a decision. His face a mass of lumps and bruises.
Sonny also sports wear and tear on his face.
Sonny s jab and strengh get him a close but unanimous dec

 

Thanks Richard. Appreciate it pal.

 

You could replace "Liston" with "Lewis" and this paragraph would be just as accurate. And a past-prime Holyfield gave Lewis all he could handle, and arguably deserved the win. I know the whole A=B=C thing doesn't work, but roughly speaking, Lewis and Liston ARE similar kinds of fighters.