Prime Sonny Liston vs Prime Leotis Martin

Enough of the baby talk 7th grade little boy stuff already, this is about boxing.

 

A prime Liston would have stopped a prime Martin.

 

I think at his best Sonny takes it. Martin was no mug though and would have given him problems. Sonny was winning the fight they had up to the KO and he was well past his best. I would imagine at his best he would wrap up either a comfortable points win or late stoppage.

 

Martin never fought again after defeating Liston. He was able to make a good living as a machinist in the Philadelphia area. An old Liston knocked Leotis down in the 4th round and had him in trouble. I think a younger Liston would have finished the job. In losing, Liston was still able to damage Martin's eyesight and end his career after what should have propelled Martin to bigger, more lucrative fights on the strenghth of that win.

 

Ah, ESB Classic..............the only place on planet earth you will hear the phrase "prime Leotis Martin."

 

Well to be fair it's gonna be more or less the way the actual fight went.

Liston will dominate unless he is caught by a hail Mary.

 

Exactly. Liston fought a prime Leotis Martin. The problem was that Liston was not prime. Despite being past his prime Liston was winning handily when he freaked out at the sight of his own blood and got caught. This B.S. about Martin setting him up is just that, B.S. Martin was limited but had some effective tools. Ive seen him at his best (decapitating Karl Mildenberger) and at his worst (losing a lopsided decision to Bonavena) and Im quit comfortable picking a prime Liston to defeat Martin.

 

Considering he fought this fight with the flu, he was still handing Martin's ass to him. Not only would he have KO'ed Martin in 4 rounds during his prime, he would have KO'ed him had he been 100% this fight, 40 years old and all. Sonny Liston is an underrated legend.

 

Liston's punch resistance might be a tad overrated. Martin KO'd him and had Lison out cold for something like 60 seconds.

But Liston in the mid to late 60's had lost some hand speed and wasn't as sharp. If we are talking Liston from 1958-1962, I think he KO's the best version of Martin.

 

nahh, that combo would've cold ****ed anybody. If anything his punch resistance is underrated as he was only down once, (unless you consider The phantom punch)