Dance84, if you haven't already, have a read of Night Train by Nick Tosches, the definitive biography of Liston. You can put his career in the context of his back story. Because Cus D'Amato wouldn't let him near Patterson, he lost possibly the best 2 years of his career. Other than Ingemar Johansson, he beat every other highly rated Heavyweight of his era. I mentioned on another thread how Joe Louis was the blueprint for Heavyweights before Ali and you can see that Liston was built very much in his image. Had he come along a decade later, I think he could have held his own in the Golden Age of the 70's although he would not have been Champion.
@Dance84 I´ve gone though the same: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/teach-me-about-sonny-liston.603777/ Comparing Liston with past 60s (=70s onward) reigns is pretty much a total guess. Why? Because most this fellows are total cannon fodder for boxer-puncher of Sonny Listons size. I did another thread to demonstrate that its impossible to integrate Listons "KO-artist pattern" into what Mike Tyson did for example: https://www.boxingforum24.com/threads/rate-mike-tyson-with-another-resume.603860/ Its simply not there and you would not be able to sell Liston as an intimidating monster in the 80s, or in the 70s either (Foreman). The 50s is the worst "HW era" since Louis up, to some amount prob due to WW2. I have no idea how Liston could fight a 5'7" fellow like Westphal before going in with Patterson, a guy half the class of a CW Qawi. Patterson (21-25lb weight disadvantage), Machen (15lb weight disadvantage), Folley (14lb weight disadvantage) and Williams (no disadvantage) were the best guys he fought, the rest had tons of losses (Valdes, Besmanoff, King etc.). If I remember correct, just by the numbers, he got the highest avarage weight advantage against his opp. of any HW champ. You could give him a chance of doubt due to looking extremely solid on film, very good balance of boxing and power. He seemed a little bit slow on the other hand sometimes, which makes his jab overrated imho. But power may also result often to weight advantage, which of course is a problem in therms of comparing him H2H. So for me, its a alot of guess how he´d look against good boxers of his own size like Of course there is the biased, unrational fairy tale glass wearing "Everything was better before" fraction with a mind of its own regarding 80s and 90s HW-boxing....
Where were the giants of the day sir? If size was everything then the bigger men should have ruled? Where were they? Are you suggesting big men didn’t roam the boxing world then? You’d be wrong. Listons reach is shw length and his height and weight are around average. Foreman kind of broke the modern is better myth already. If a 45 year old man can comeback and win the hw title maybe the era you worship wasn’t as good as you thought it was.
Ah, the dumblab path. Telling me you don´t know? https://ourworldindata.org/human-height Whats the chance to find >= 6'5" SHW ATG material, even today? I know 2, three of them in the making atm. SURPRISE you didn´t find any in 30s/40s/50s But I forgot, you ain´t have it with numbers and logic, right? Maybe trying the "roids made the thin necked long fellows work" route ? Regarding your RBV, I´m sorry to tell these 185LHW-CWs Rocky fought didn´t met anything. Sorry. Did not happen. Not there. Sry. Oh sure, 45old Foremans one in a million homerun punch (who was a young modern 220lb ) is proove for anything Gotta love this place.
Nice of you to fail to answer any of the questions while trying to mock me, while speaking extremely unintelligible English. There were big men then but they weren’t the better fighters at the time and there is a cruiser weight division now hence the lack of smaller men competing. Even then you have smaller men moving up and making noise.
Oh, like our last therapy session, when you´d try to play dumb another time, telling Rocky had a "HW resume", resulting in a couple of good laughs checking the issue ? Regarding english: I´m pretty sure your second best language looks much more solid than mine, Mr. Well-Educated
What fights of Liston and Foreman did you think theg would've won? I don't think Liston could've ever beat Ali, and he was sick (had the flu according to Foreman) and old in his loss to Martin. I do believe Foreman may have been able to beat Young had he fought a little smarter.
I agree with all of your points. I think the Young fight was yet another example of the psychological trauma Foreman experienced at the hands of Ali. He should have been able to beat him ala Moorer.
I'd be interested to hear your examples for Liston and I'd like to show you a post a member made that echoes your throughts about Foreman and his neglect of the jab.
Actually I take that back about Liston and the jab, I think I was pushing a point too hard. Nothing would have saved him against Ali. That was me not thinking enough. As for Big George, I guess I was at least partly wrong there, too. It was the psych damage as much as anything else by Ali that afflicted him against Young. I do believe his fight against Lyle (and even the second against Frazier, for instance) would have been much easier and swifter had he jabbed more often (and at the right times). I also believe George (though he used the jab more in his comeback) would have been more impressive overall in both the 80s and 90s had he used the punch a lot more. Thanks for calling me on my mistakes, my friend. I spoke too soon.
