Sonny Liston TKO 1 Roy Harris 1960

Harris wanted no part of Sonny. He looked scared stiff from the opening bell.

 

solid win against a rated fighter.

 

If memory serves, this is the bout where pre-fight Sonny said if the fight went to the 10th round, you could give it to Harris. Not exactly what an opponent would want to hear facing that guy at that time.

 

roy harris from cut and shoot texas

 

Harris won the first minute easy.

 

The first and 4th knockdowns are noteworthy.

The first one I thought "That's why they say not to move to your right against a guy who's looking to left hook you"...

The fourth knockdown was similar, but this time, Roy moved to his left and was met with a big right hand...

I think it was more Liston's reaction to Roy's movement, doing a good job of cutting him off and meeting him with the appropriate punches.


Good timing by Liston.

 

Liston was great at anticipating opponents' movements in order to land the heavy punches. He mainly used the jab as a set-up to throw the uppercut against Patterson who always ducked below and tried to come up with a punch. I don't know if he scouted opponents or just had a natural sense of timing, probably the latter.

Use of footwork alone was not enough to avoid Liston because he had KO power in both fists and knew how to set you up. It had to be extremely clever footwork with head and upperbody movement and feinting mixed in to throw him off. The difference between a Muhammad Ali or Eddie Machen and a Roy Harris who in fairness was a decent boxer but rather one-dimensional. He'd move around to one side and then the other which led to him getting handled very quickly by Liston.

Physically he was obviously no match for Liston either.

 

Thanks for posting the fight suzie. Good footage and a nice showing of Liston's skills and power. Sonny was damn good in 1960.

 

This was Listons absolute prime, nobody else did this to harris and that is the mark of a special fighter. On this form Liston H2h is hard to beat.

 

Agreed. This version of Liston might have been a good fight for Ali.

 

styles make fights but I just dont see cleveland beating alejandro lavorante, bob baker or willie pastrano. harris was no world beater but he was no james wiley either.. who was the best fighter williams ever beat in one round???