Rocky Marciano vs. Sonny Liston

The kidney shot is impossible to miss.

Identical to openings of many other Patterson fights, as i've described. Are you saying that Patterson was too terrified to fight in those fights also?

Common for him.

Common for him. He is relying upon his speed to counter. I've already been through this in minor detail, but you ignored me.

Normal for him early in a first round. He's exhibited everything you describe in other fights, as I've already described. What i'm more interested in is how you can simultaneously accuse Patterson of being too aggressive in this fight AND criticise him for failing to take more chances, in a fight that is two minutes long?

This is inaccurate; Liston gets in to range and then Floyd moves. You are so incapable of looking at Liston or anything relating to him with any sort of objectivity. What you want to happen is what you describe above. But what you describe above does not include Sonny in any kind of positive fashion; he's a negative presence.

When you can see what is really happening - Liston moving forwards, Patterson taking account of him, like he did against Johansson, Bonavena, others, then moving out of range and waiting for a chance to land his left.

This is all normal for him.

But you've previously claimed he doesn't have an advantage in speed? Again, these two things cannot be true. Regardless, I think you are wrong. All the punches he throws are faster than Liston. What else do they need to be to establish the advantage in speed?

Right, YOU might, with your supposed extensive boxing history, but LOTS of fighters did not, amongst them are Larry Holmes, Ken Norton, Lennox Lewis, Wladimir Klitschko and yes, often, Floyd Patterson. What you're saying here isn't even remotely true, it's just something you've conjured because you think you can use it to criticise the fighter to hand. It's bull****.

Yes, he does, but it is a high risk strategy that leaves him open to punches. Most of all, why is it unreasonable not to do it in the first minute?? You make out that this is a strategic failing that somehow would have spared him, but it is also the case, inarguably, that it makes him MORE likely to be punched. Throwing punches is the most likely thing to get you hit. This is obvious. You have said, in this thread, that Patterson going directly for Liston is the example of his bad strategy, and why he could do better, and it isn't true, it really isn't, it's something else you've made up, but now, when it comes to it and you actually respond to the questions I ask, it turns out that you want him to be more aggressive. It's just bull****, and lots of it.

I think he is punching very fast, he punches fast enough to get through with a single lead left hook from the outside, perhaps the single riskiest shot in boxing, without getting countered against a top pro. You're confusing combination punching with a lead. Floyd looks fasters in combination.


All in all, I don't think you know very much about boxing or boxers, and I think that shows.

 

It is interesting that you set yourself up as this surgeon regarding Patterson's strategy and then immediately convert that into an indication of his state of mind. But as I have already explained to you twice, the strategy that Patterson uses against Liston is the strategy that he used against both Oscar Bonavena and at least once, Johansson. Patterson didn't fight overly aggressive in fights where he didn't feel the opponent was "there" without his having had a look.

Patterson's inability to absorb Liston's punches - proven - means that his avoiding any heavy blows in the opening round was even more important. Basically, the idea that he had to be more aggressive in the opening 120 seconds to "prove" himself or something is asinine, and proves very little, especially as he exhibited this exact strategy on previous occasions. He was less aggressive in the opening 120 seconds against Bonavena.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL28lM6lmzk

Right, so what we have here is you drawing two points from the same source, believing one because it suits you and discounting another because it doesn't.

That is absolutely unbelievable that you have said that to me. I don't ever take that attitude with what a fighter said - in fact, I find the notion that you are taking Floyd at his word regarding his reason for his loss and then proceeding as though it were a truism ridiculous. I responded by pointing out to you that Patterson had said things that contradicted what you said - in other words, playing you at your own game. More lies. More wriggling.

Your lack of objectivity was explained to you, and had absolutely nothing to do with your acknowledging the above. I will presume that you are not so stupid to believe that "bias" does not mean "never saying anything good about one guy ever no matter what" and leave it at that.

Is Liston moving forwards? Yes. Is Patterson moving back? Yes. So generally, it's just flat out true that Liston is the one "moving into range", not Floyd, rather than "how I see it."

The fight lasted seconds.

So there is no fire in a defensive sense? Sorry, i have no idea what this means. I know that Patterson makes Liston miss an absolute shitload in the opening minutes and I know that this constitutes good defence. I also know that it doesn't matter because the first time he gets hit hard, he's in bad trouble.

You said that Liston was "able to beat Liston to the punch" and suggested in the same post that Patteson's speed was inhibited because he was tense/scared/some ****. I have no idea what you were talking about and asked you repeatedly to no avail but I think we'll just call it a day on that.

No, having fast hands is a sign of fast hands. There are several other fights where Patterson does not throw in combination in the opening minutes. It is very, very, very common for fighters to avoid the risks involving combination punches early in fights. It happens in most fights. I suspect there are more fights where one or the other fighter does NOT throw cobinations in the first two minutes than there are where both fighters do. In fights where a fighter is taking on a huge puncher it is even more common. Trying to use it as a sign that Patterson was unable to fight properly when a) he does it all the time and b) loads of fighters do it lots is utterly, utterly ridiculous. It is sheer stupidity.

Liston was never, ever disturbed by hand speed. Footspeed yes, handspeed no. He once said that the only fast that interested him was how fast a guy could knock somoone.

But your observations are bias, have meanings assigned where none exist and seem bereft of any real knowledge of how Patterson actually fought. You want to have this argument in the vaccum of Liston-Patterson where you can ignore the fact that what Patterson did against Liston is extremely common in boxing, extremely common on the part of Patterson himself. It's boring in the extreme and is not grounded in reality.

I'm ridiculing it and you because it's bull**** and you're something of a troll. Yes Patterson fought aggressively in the opening on occasion, against Jackson and Moore most notably, but he also fought extremely conservatively in the opening minutes.

In the third fight against Johansson, Patterson threw more jabs in the opening than he did against Liston, but was the less aggressive of the two fighters. Still, he was dropped. This, this specifically is why Floyd sometimes fought conservative openings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6vU8Os4CN4

Fighting a conservative opening is not strage; it is not odd; it is not indicative of some deeper problem. It is absolutely normal for all fighters, at times, and completely normal for Patterson.

No, i'm not joking. You seem to me to be deeply confused, often. It's why you keep changing your position even in your own argument - it is why "Floyd didn't want those fights" becomes "Floyd wanted those fights but only out of a sense of duty" becomes "Floyd was a shell" becomes "you think Floyd is a shell." Do you see how someone responding to you would find this difficult? You continually change the position you are trying to defend.

With all due respect choklab, **** off. I insult you. But i've been on this forum for years more than you, have been one of the more active posters in that time, and I disagree with guys every day. I would do nothing but insult posters if this was the case, but as with most of what you say, it is total bull****.

I treat other posters as I find them. The ones I do insult tend to be trolls.

No, I won't commit to that. I find you absolutely ludicrous for "committing", like it's somehow positive to believe fervently in something you don't understand - and I know I know more about those two fights than you - and it's something I won't do. I know that Bob Mee, Nick Tosches, Rob Steen and Mark Kram all disagree with your notion that Liston quit dog twice, which you've actually tried to pass off on this forum as a truism that we "have to accept."

My answer is, "I don't know." Your answer is, "what answer most helps me to pick Rocky Marciano over Sonny Liston?"

Your ludicrousness knows absolutely no bounds.

Not only do I not accept that Liston got "old over night" as you've suggested I do, not only have I explained to you on two occasions before how it might be true i've even explained it to you in this f*cking thread. You're either a dummy or just an out-and-out troll. If it's the latter, I congratulate you.

http://www.boxingforum24.com/showpost.php?p=15875193&postcount=598

"Sonny was inactive. Sonny was an alcoholic. Sonny may already have been using heroin. Sonny didn't train seriously."

Ffs.

 

Sorry if I hurt your feelings, but you have come across as rather lunatic.

 

I am not hostile to you because you "bring in more points." I've been as clear as possible about why i'm hostile.

Yes - you quoted him and then chucked the part you don't care for and insist the part you do care for is God's own truth - then you insisted that i'm guilty of quoting fighters and insisting it's true

Right - but Floyd's behaviour is almost identical in other fights. Not literally identical, but very, very similar. But you seem unable to acknowledge this. I don't think you've even mentioned it although I've brought it up multiple times.

Why do you think you have to "verify" a man being dis-satisfied with being knocked out in seconds twice? Who is going to be satisfied with that? Why do you keep bringing this up like it means something? Of course he was dissatisfied!

If you say "Floyd didn't want those fights" people will think you mean "Floyd didn't want those fights." I'm sure if we're at it long enough we'll come across plenty of other sh1t you didn't really mean.

Nah, having spent more time looking into these fights than almost any other living human being his opinion is still of interest. But it doesn't matter - the over-reaching point is your insistence that it's a positive to just vomit up a concrete opinion and insist on its truth when most of the guys who looked into it in great detail when in fact, nobody that has looked into it in any great detail can do that. It's too difficult. Only Toches comes down concrete and he says Liston did not quit dog. Obviously you're not going to believe him, and I take it under advisement also.

Well I'll take the opinion of a man who has spent years researching and writing about Liston over yours, which is generally badly informed.

Right. But instead of saying "oh yeah, i'm sorry i accused you of something that wasn't true" you say "he let himself down then." More wriggling.

Of course he let himself down if he was using heroin at this point (and you've overlooked that it can be hot-railed or smoked) but that is not the point. The point is it has been explained to you in great detail prior to this, and even in this thread how he might come to age overnight but you prove consistently unable to absorb new information that might change your bizarre position on Liston (and Rocky, I think).

I have almost no doubt you will be asking the same question again next year.

 

"A chance" to watch 120 seconds of footage?

Why? That footage is demonstrating what Floyd gets when he fights in the aggressive fashion you want him to against a puncher. In no way is it meant to represent the non-aggressive tactics Floyd sometimes used agianst hitters, it's the opposite of that. SO this:

Is a total waste of your time.

I don't "agree with him." I take it under advisement. I take possession of the information allowing for the source. I don't dismiss it out of hand like you do. SO far every word you have written is a waste of time, including this six-hundred word rant about Tosches.

I doubt that, you've just been ranting about Tosches, dismissed everyone else out of hand and offered your respects to Mee, probably without having read his book, even though he probably wrote the least well researched book of the lot.

So far, there's nothing to meet you on in this post. It's all just you mis-reading or mis-understanding then waffling for hundreds of words.

I am going to say this to you one more time, and i really, really want you to try to understand:

YOU asked (for the fifth or sixth time since you started posting here), how can Liston have gotten old overnight (or words to that affect)?

I responded (for the fourth or fifth time since you started posting here) with a list of things that might have caused him to age overnight.

Yes, there is evidence of alcoholism. No, there is no concrete proof that he was an alcoholic. Like a series of blood tests or something



Really, I don't know what to say to you any more. Most of your post is completely non-responsive.

 

You see, this whole exchange has been about what you mean by "psyched out" and you have just struggled desperately to tell me - you avoid the issue, you are non-responsive, you talk a lot of ****. I accept that Floyd was uncomfortable - Mike Tyson said recently that only Mexicans fight with the attitude that they knocked out the guy who knocked them out in the rematch. It's unlikely that even the toughest of fighters - and Floyd was fragile - can come into the ring after being brutalised without feeling some affects. Even Frazier was affected a bit.

But that affection isn't always bad. It can mean a variety of different things.

:-( you dummy. No I don't think that's okay at all, I haven't said anywhere that it's okay, there is no post saying that it's okay by me anywhere.

You must, must be trolling me. I feel kind of stupid for falling for it at this point. I told you my opinion on Tosches and how his information should be treated "in the light of the source" two posts ago.

http://www.boxingforum24.com/showpost.php?p=15886116&postcount=660

"I don't "agree with him." I take it under advisement. I take possession of the information allowing for the source. I don't dismiss it out of hand like you do."

If you are not trolling but literally that stupid I will spell it out, as though for an infant or someone with learning difficulties.

" I don't "agree with him." I take it under advisement. I take possession of the information allowing for the source [which is compromised because of a scandal surrounding Tosches]. I don't dismiss [everything he ever said] out of hand like you do."

Again, I will try to explain this to you like you are a small child.

When a big person is told a lot of different things and they all sound like they might be real, a big person might decide that he can't in good judgement make up his mind completely for one over the other.

For example, when you are demanding that the entire boxing world accepts that Liston quit dog in those two fights, I might bring up the fact that the original investigation, begun within days of the first fight, concluded within weeks of the first fight, found that Liston had suffered an "honest injury" that "there was no wrong doing". It went on to state that eight (Actually nine) doctors accepted Liston's story that after throwing a left hook "he heard something snap and lost control of his left arm." They also accepted that he continued to box despite considerable pain for some rounds before cracking.

The Miami Beach boxing commission, who set out determined to hang Liston, found overwhelmingly in his favour as did numerous medical professions. The week of the fight. Now, fifty years later, you want to throw all of this out based on...****, i'm not sure what you base it on?

Me, I treat the very reasonable amount of evidence that suggests that Liston was too hurt to continue cautiously. Why? Because there is a reasonable amount of evidence that Liston was forced to quit by the mob. And that Liston quit dog.

I'm sorry to say that despite some small investigation on my part, I don't have any hard opinion on the identity of Jack The Ripper - there are two very good suspects - the exact identity of William Shakespeare - there is much confusion - or exactly what happened to JFK.

It's not fence-sitting. It's an adult understanding of a complex situation that makes an absolutely determined point of view almost impossible. That you try to criticise this position in favour of yours, which seems to me to be described mostly by bias and also seems very ill informed, is ludicrous.

Absolute nonsense. Boxers who win in one round land their best punches in the first round. They are training for months to land those punches and do exactly what they trained to do. Only a really stupid boxing person or someone who doesn't know boxing would actually say that. It is a totally ridiculous indefensible claim which I utterly reject.

You are either trolling me or you don't understand fighting.

 

A boxer that thinks that a fighter who goes out to knock his opponent out in the first round and then knocks his opponent in the first round has struck it "hit it pretty lucky." Yes. Get a group of fighters together to discuss that one why don't you.

And I love that you presume to "pull rank" and that you think you're talking to a "non-participant." I look forwards to hearing about your failed world title shot in the near future.

And I hate to say it, because I've spent most of the day pointing out your weird inability to absorb information that is written on your screen when you click the link but i've already acknowledged this possibility:

"You see, this whole exchange has been about what you mean by "psyched out" and you have just struggled desperately to tell me - you avoid the issue, you are non-responsive, you talk a lot of ****. I accept that Floyd was uncomfortable - Mike Tyson said recently that only Mexicans fight with the attitude that they knocked out the guy who knocked them out in the rematch. It's unlikely that even the toughest of fighters - and Floyd was fragile - can come into the ring after being brutalised without feeling some affects. Even Frazier was affected a bit.

But that affection isn't always bad. It can mean a variety of different things."

Look, i'm basically addressing you by copying and pasting parts of other posts that i've made that you've failed to address/notice/whatever I have no idea what else to say to you really, i spend as much time now helping you follow the thread as i do replying to what you write.

Surely you can see the folly of asking me to just take your word for it when I clearly have very little respect for your point of view? I mean I can't be any more clear: despite your attempts to paint yourself as some sort of boxing jedi in this last post, your opinion is almost meaningless to me. There is something strange about both your opinion of Marciano and Liston and you bang that drum endlessly, regardless of the provision of new information. That is probably pretty close to the definition of a troll if you read what you googled between the lines.



If i felt like it and if i thought you might be able to address the point, I might ask you to explain what you mean by "switched off". But you can't or won't explain it and i've already asked you multiple times. And you can't. So I guess that's that.