Sonny Liston Ranked Above Tyson and Foreman - Why, And How?

Good post and i agree in general, but i want to comment on the last bit. Foreman wasn't as feared or seen as invincible during the 90's as he was during the 70's. He did retain the title, but was he really seen as the best HW in the world for any sustained period?

Tyson was seen as the best heavyweight in the world and even more feared/renowned in 95/96, until Holyfield ended that party prematurely.

Of the three, Liston is the only one who never regained that status, and i rank him below Tyson and Foreman.

 

I've heard George Foreman say that Liston was the only one who managed to back him up/absorb his best punches.

Liston also said that Foreman did not have one punch knockout power, but one punch killing power.

Never heard anything about either getting the better of any sparring sessions though.

 

After the Clay bouts, no sane promoter was going to risk their money by investing in him. Too unpredictable and hard to sell. In that sense, Liston did not really get the chance to redeem himself. Then again, he got in that scenario in the first place because of his own actions.

Whose fall from grace would you rate worst?

Tyson loses one-sidedly to an afterthought, who turned out to be much better than expected. Gave all he had, but was still embarrassed. Reportedly out of shape, but looked in great shape to me.

Liston went in against a similar underdog perceived as fragile, got toyed with and quit after he couldn't hurt a blind Clay. Reportedly out of shape, but the fight never went far enough for that to matter.

Foreman went in against an aging former champion and gave it all, which didn't amount to much. He shot his bolt amateurishly and got KO'd in the mid rounds, despite supposedly having an iron chin.

 

I rank Liston below both of them. Both in accomplishments and H2H. Liston is entirely too overrated.

 

It wasn't just about losing. Him quitting had a lot of people thinking the fight was fixed, i think. The second fight certainly polarized any fence-sitters that were left. Maffia rumors are very hard to get rid of. People still think today that Carnera's entire career was mob fabricated, or something.

Yep. All things considered, all three are pretty much on the same level now that i think about.

 

WTF are you bringing up Tommy Morrison from Foreman's second career, he was in his ****ing 40s for christs sake.

 

Mainly because of the notion that all one had to do to beat Liston was stick and run like Morrison did to George. But Whitehurst and Martin tried this with Sonny in bouts that took place over a decade apart, and both got essentially whitewashed in the scoring, even though Liston was rapidly aging (and widely rumored to be in his 40s) when Martin upset him. Leotis needed that knockout to win.

 

Yes, hell Briggs is a better win than Seldon. Who was really almost a filler joke at the time. Guy flopped so fast in that Tyson fight it's alleged as a quit job or something. Golota never really impressed me, he gets his name from a past-prime, lazy, unfocused Bowe. Besides, that was also a style thing to boot. His losses, were also reasonable better. Especially the Holyfield one, rather than getting TKOed, disqualified, or KOed by Lewis.

 

Foreman was mentally weak post Ali. Even if he wanted to show hurt in the Lyle fight he just wasn't the same. Besides, he didn't let his body to acclimate to the PR weather, and fought under a completely new strategy of pacing himself. It just wasn't Foreman to do that and he neither the experience or tools to fixiate under this new method of fighting. All a combined recipe of disaster.

Foreman's H2H ability is underrated to the "Slick boxer" cure for him. In reality, Ali couldn't out-box him for 15 rounds. He had to out-tough him, out-think him, and then out-box him on the ropes after extensive tiring and in sparse exchanges. And we're talking about the GOAT here. Honestly, when did Liston really go about against great slick tall boxers with range? Like a Jimmy Young? Liston blew at cutting the ring off. In fact, he didn't know how to and didn't have the smarts to figure out how to. He just followed. This works against smaller, more limited fighters... even counter-punchers like Folley. But against slick movers like a Young... who is to say an upset wouldn't occur. Liston was excellent moving forwards and backwards, as long as he didn't have to move too much.

 

I have Liston and Foreman in the same bracket around 8-11 and Tyson in the next one around 12-15. Their careers are pretty similar but what puts Liston and Foreman above Tyson are that both beat genuine Top20 hws while Tyson did not.

 

So you hold the Patterson win highly? Holmes not a genuine top HW? I know he was past it but still...