Sonny Liston: Baddest man ever.

You're right with this point. Whilst I'd agree with that, however I reckon Liston would be the more formidable head to head force and would prevail in a fantasy matchup between the two.


Ps: I'd favour Liston against Foreman as well, providing he boxes smartly behind what is one of the best jabs in HW history.

 

liston was a real intimidating presence,a real uncompromising tough *******.however he certainly wasn't a brawler,he had really good all round boxing skills,had one of the best jabs ever,a devastating left hook and put his combinations together really well.also his chin was solid.to know what listons about,people should largely ignore the ali fights,instead go onto you tube and see both of his fights against a hard punching and young cleveland williams.it's great stuff.

 

Liston did have an amateur career. According to most sources he was born in 1932.

And it's a bit disappointing that "the baddest man ever" quits on his stool after 6 rounds of moderate punishment against a not so hard puncher, in the very next fight after his peak win.

Give me a 'not so bad' man who at least finishes fights when faced with adversity any time of the day.

 

She lost his hand?! How did she remove it? Did she actually use it as a shovel?

I've never thought Liston looked intimidating out of the ring personally. Most of the time he just looks like you've stolen his pudding and he's upset. Now, in the ring, he looked supremely intimidating because of the cold perfection of his performances. It's similar to Joe Louis: not an intimidating guy out of the ring, but a cold ruthless destroyer outside of it.

Now, Bennie Briscoe looked like serial killer's worst nightmare, inside and outside of the ring.

 

So what if he annihilated Patterson? Patterson is significantly smaller than Liston and had terrible chin. Tyson terrorised much better fighters in Spinks, Holmes, Tucker, etc.

 

Sonny was the sweetest man outside the ring and a complete loving family man, but if when Geraldine was out of town and he had access to liquor then he was buck wild, he had a habit of driving drunk and antagonising cops late in the evening just for kicks which is largely why they picked on him.. I was fortunate to look at some of Listons family photo albums with Johnny Tocco just before he died , i never saw so many smiley pictures of sonny in all of my life, he was uncle to a lot of neighbourhood kids because he had none of his own (only a daughter , not by Gerry). Tocco had a speed bag that sonny used to hit and that thing was hammered, not the bag itself because he went through 1 every 3 weeks but the board which was an overturned casino 21 table sawn down.. it had a thick crimson ring running around the swivel through constant slamming of the leather. One thingh was very striking wheni saw old gym footage though, he was a fast mother who had a trick that he pulled over every sparring guy he went at it with, he would feint the jab then in a heart beat double and treble the jab a the most ferocious speed it was superhuman.. The house he and Geraldine lived in was on the old part of the desert inn golf course and country club and was initially bought by his so called friends .. Ash Resnick and Frank Palermo... he and Davey Pearl would meet for coffee at a place called bagel mania in las vegas and joke around before training .. We often don't associate laughter or fun around Sonny but he was a very fun guy, if you ever spoke to Hank Kaplan he would tell you about his dry humour , he was ****ing prankster .. Sonny always looked moody because his better known pictures are press photos and he hated being stalked by the press.. or police pictures.. Sonny and George would have been a great fight, he was a hard puncher George, His trainer confedent Doc Broadus was longtime friend of sonnys but only occasionally allowed them to spar, he said to me Sonny used to trip off George, he was a brash kid who like a young puppy would argue back at sonny when on trips abroad, Sonny would put up with Georges youthful adolecent outbursts purely because it reminded him of his youthful former self.. I wish i had the chance to meet sonny .. but i doknow most of his old time frinds that remain.. God bless...

 

Someday they're going to write a blues song just for fighters. It will be for a slow guitar, soft trumpet and a bell. -- Sonny Liston

Late Jack Newfield stated on ESPN and concerning the 1962 Patterson-Liston bout that neither Sonny nor Floyd were the persons the media made them to be. Stereotypes that's all they were - fixed impressions, exaggerated or preconceived ideas about particular social groups, usually based solely on physical appearance:
Sonny Liston was the big black N***o in every white man's hallway, waiting to do him in, deal him under, for all the hurts white men have been able to inflict on his world. Sonny Liston was "the huge N***o," the "bad n****r," a heavy-faced replica of every whipped-up woogie in the world. He was the underdeveloped have-not (politically naive) backward country, the subject people, finally here to collect his pound of flesh.

The mock contest between Liston and Patterson was a "brushfire" limited war. Neo-Colonial policy to confuse the issue. Patterson was to represent the fruit of the missionary ethic; he had found God, reversed his underprivileged (uncontrolled) violence, and turned it to work for the democratic liberal imperialist state. The tardy black Horatio Alger offering the glad hand of integration to welcome 20 million into the lunatic asylum of white America....

 

Dorfmeister your copy and paste comments are from the black racist radical Leroy Jones/Amiri Baraka not Jack Newfield.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000110/1960s

 

Jack Newfield said in ESPN classic that Sonny Liston was not the baddest man ever and Floyd Patterson was not the family man, the Gent that they were stereotyped to be - the black activist quotations portray those stereotypes and the contest between them in short manner and that is the link. My post is about Jack Newfield's position on these matters and the Sonny Liston stereotype ( in parallel to Floyd Patterson's) and it is not to be understood as a black racist, radical position of my own - I can not confirm that I have used these knowing to be Leroy Jones' or that I know this individual in case the same has some relation with the truth. I am not supposed to believe you are Carmen Basilio just cuz you use the nickname C Basilio, am I wrong?

 

Sonny Liston was great in his own time, but get real, he was a big HW in his era at 218 pounds and fought guys like Patterson who would be cruiserweight today. What would the Lewis/Klitschko HW's be if their best opponents were cruiserweights? Undefeated legends. This glorification of the past is unique to boxing, every other sport accepts that modern athletes are superior to greats from the past. Is there a sport that requires tremendous athletic skill were anybody from 1960 could compete with today's best? Exactly.

 

here we go size,size,size.

 

Any great heavyweight over 6'3 owns Liston. Frazier, Louis, Tyson, Holyfield, and Marciano all would beat him. Spinks, Byrd, and a few others are a pick'em.

Liston is the most overrated HW great of all-time.

 

Dont play the idiot with me.

FIXED FIGHT.

 

he's a "great" but overrated? a little bit of a contradiction in terms?

 

There were too many fights surrounding mob related fighters at that time that i sometimes have trouble watching the fights seriously, Liston v Clay , and the Liston Ali fight are sketchy for me.. I have no DOUBT AT ALL saying the Liston v Ali fight was fixed (shabbilly) and the Marciano v Moore fight was completely fixed.. It would not be surprised if the Clay fight was a set up too.. I wish i could have the truth on hand but something tells me that the mob got to liston for both fights.. Tocco and Davey Pearl saw and heard too much that they became suspicious of Sonnys behaviour around that time.. The night he faced Wepner i think sonny lost the mob money by rebelling and thrashing Chuck although advised to lose convincngly.. Johnny Tocco told me before he passed away that Sonny had met with Carbo & Palermo prior to the Wepner fight but didn't take well to being told that he was to act upon mob advice, I personally think Ash Resnick saved Sonnys life by paying them off after a solid monitary loss.. I wish i knew for sure... Its so interesting.

God bless..