Sonny Liston had a great chin

Not for me, sorry. Williams never really hit him with a clean, solid shot. The times where his chin flopped are more significant evidence that this.

 

I wish the Valdes and DeJohn fights could magically appear on film, shut up the naysayers for good.

Nino Valdes said "I hit him with some big shots, and he took them without buckling".

 

So Liston suffered a badly broken nose by walking into the ring post? :roll:

 

Williams hit him with all KINDS of shots.. I'm glad your not a judge at ring side because those left hooks were all deadly!
Oh yeah.. And is there anything suggesting he had a bad chin?
Nope. Being floored only 3 times in a professional career is damn good.
Plus, 2 of those knockdowns were probably controversial, I guess the Marty Marshall k/d wasn't a real knockdown,
and the knockdown with ali was too controversial to debate about Liston's chin.
IMO, he had a great chin.

 

Let me see.
78 wins. 58 Knockouts. That's an impressive record.
Ali said that he was the 3rd hardest puncher he's ever faced. Shavers, Frazier, and then Williams. That says a lot. Maybe he's underrating Foreman and Lyle. Who knows.
I quote from Ring Magazine- "...He is best known for the two brutal bouts he had with Sonny Liston. Liston often said Williams was the hardest puncher he ever fought." That means Williams is a harder puncher then Martin, Patterson, Folley, and Ali.
Everyone considered Williams to be a very hard puncher. Fast hands too.
So you're telling me that this guy does not have a nice powerful left hook?
I beg to differ.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfPYF3Tom8k[/ame]

 

"Nino Valdes hit's hard. He tries to kill you with that right hand."- Bob Baker

Damato turned down a fight with Valdes

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...821,2271619&dq=nino+valdes+hard+puncher&hl=en

"I hit Liston with a couple of solid shots and he did not buckle. Sonny was the strongest man I ever fought and he was very tough. When I fought him I still could hit very hard."

He also admitted he was over the hill, but that he still had his punch, and that Sonny took the best he had to offer.


Here is film demonstrating Nino's big knockout power

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucXgHJ0s8qg[/ame]
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xucbDkwcH5A[/ame]



Mike DeJohn was a huge left hooker. He nearly classified as a giant, standing around 6'4-6'5 and weighing 207lb. John Garfield talked about the way he hit the heavy bag with the left hook. Woohh seemed like a devastating punch. All the contemporary sources I have read, tab DeJohn as a big puncher. I also read Liston took a few big DeJohn shots, without blinking. This is impressive.

 

That's what the clips seemed to show to me. Liston covering up a lot. If anything it made me think his defense was good and counteracted the idea that he had an iron chin.

 

That's what I'm saying. Most of the shots glanced off his gloves or landed near the top of his head. A nose isn't that hard to break.

 

Crazy is it? Really? If you think that that's evidence of Liston having a "great" chin, I'd like to know what you think Ali/Foreman says about Ali's chin, or Holmes/Shavers II says about Holmes' chin. Not everybody has a great chin.

 

That's all very well, but I'd rather go with what we have on film, which suggests that Liston's chin is nothing special.

 

The fact that he was laid out by a nothing-punch by Ali? Oh but that doesn't count, because the fight was a fix blah blah blah ...

Basically, the argument of the Liston fans on this thread is that if you ignore all the evidence against Liston having a good chin and exagerrate all the evidence for him having a good chin, then you can conclude that he had a great chin. I can't disagree with that.

 

Also, I'm not sure than being past prime and knocked out makes all that much difference, except in special cases like Roy Jones.

 

as far as chins go, sonny was in the elite class.tommy farr had a granite chin and got knocked down a lot more than sonny did.