Should Harry Wills rank over Sonny Liston ?

Excellent and very fair post.

I won't object to an assertion that Louis did a slightly better job of cleaning out the division prior to winning the title than Liston, but I think it's close & debatable either way, especially when you consider that there were no ranked contenders who had beaten Liston when he won the title, whereas Louis had a losing record to a ranked contender when he won the title. I think it's reasonable to consider this material to which had done the better job of "cleaning out the division".

Either way, I'm satisfied with my initial assertion that Liston did just about as good a job as anyone in history at cleaning out the HW division up to & including him winning the title.

I've not done a deep dive specifically on a Liston vs Wills resume comparison, but according to the notes I made, some years ago, to in support of my ATG HW rankings:

Liston:

• HW Record = 50-4
• HW world title record = 2-2, with a 17-month reign
• Best wins = Floyd Patterson x 2, Eddie Machen, Zora Folley, Cleveland Williams x 2, Nino Valdes, Roy Harris, Billy Hunter & Wayne Bethea.
• Prime losses = 2, both vs most people's pick as the GOAT at HW when Liston was past his absolute peak

Wills:

• HW Record = 70-9-3 (was 66-5-3 and went 36-0-2 during his prime run after losing to Battling Jim Johnson aged 27 up to a DQ defeat to Bill Tate aged 32.
• HW world title record = N/A
• Best wins = Sam Langford, who Wills went 13-2-2 with, Langford was past his peak for all of these wins & I consider Sam past prime for all but the first of Harry's victories, Sam McVea (3-2), Joe Jeanette (8-round newspaper decision), Fred Fulton, Jeff Clark x 7, Luis Firpo, Willie Meehan, Gunboat Smith, Kid Norfolk, Charley Weinert, past prime Denver Ed Martin in Martin's final fight & Battling Jim Johnson (2-1).
• Prime losses = 5, Sam Langford x 2, Sam McVea x 2 & Battling Jim Johnson.

I consider Liston's win resume pretty deep, but Wills is on another level. Tbf, aside from Ali & Louis, and perhaps at a push Holmes, Lewis & Johnson, Wills has the deepest win resume in HW history.

The reason I rank Liston higher, despite his win resume not being as deep, is that I value dominance during a fighters prime years very highly. Liston completely & unequivocally removed himself from the field up until he defended against the boxer most consider the GOAT at HW, when Liston was likely past his best. It wasn't just that he fought all of the very best HWs in the world, aside from Johansson, in his 5-year charge towards the title, without losing, it was that he didn't even come close to losing. Iirc, they were all stoppages, aside from a clear points win over a defensive Machen who appeared to fight to survive, rather than win.

Wills record is amazing too, in the sense that he had winning records over each fighter he lost to during his prime years, and obviously I appreciate an argument can be made that he lost more times in his prime for the same reason he has a deeper win resume, i.e. he fought against world class opposition far more often & regularly than Liston did.

On balance, it's Liston's dominance, that makes me believe he was the greater fighter during their respective primes, but please bare in mind, only #4 spots separate them on my all time list so I don't think there's huge amounts to choose between them and that at #13, above both Dempsey & Holyfield, I rank Wills higher than most.

 

Fair enough mate.

It sounds like you may be in a tiny minority that rank Wills slightly higher than me, which makes for a refreshing change from the vast majority who rank him way lower than I do.

 

I like how you give worth to numbers while balancing out with some context. A lot of time people say numbers is proof of lacking context (mainly when it pertains to Floyd Mayweather and Wladimir Klitschko) and not being able the delve deeper but numbers are still a very important part of the sport.

 

Wills DID fight Sam Langford around 16 times and beat him about 12. Of course the very first time they met Langford had already been in the pros 12 years and had around 140 fights.

 

Cheers mate, much appreciated.

I agree, statistics, including win/loss records, title defences, numbers of ranked contenders beaten, etc, should neither be the sole definitive barometer by which we assess fighters careers, nor ignored entirely. Rather, they should be considered in proper context. You can distinguish the best posters here from the not so good, by how they do this.

 

I agree. In era's were there is so much missing footage which is so much of boxing numbers/stats as well as accounts from other from other people around in that era is pretty much all you have to go with. Obviously with context but there is a limit when you can't actually see the fights.

 

Liston wasn’t in the strongest era, but he did beat nearly everyone around except Ali.
Machen, Williams x2, Folley, Patterson x2, Valdes.
Could’ve fought Terrell and Johansson, but Patterson was better than both and not many people in any era beat literally everyone.