Sonny Liston vs Ken Norton, both prime, 15 rounds.

At least for me, it's not like a have to watch a boatload a crap before I finally get to the Liston fights.

 

Yeah. I love them.

 

Sonny would Butcher him

 

Sonny Liston had no defence? You don’t know **** about boxing my friend

 

Oh, I mean the quality of the fights. There were so many great fights from the late 30s to late 50s.

 

What the hell do you need defense for when you just bomb people out. What the hell did Liston need defense for, say, when he fought Floyd Patterson? Duh. Cuz Liston was on the offense, that's why. Basic math my friend. You should really do it sometime.

 

I love Ken, but yeah.

 

Liston was better defensively than some seem to think. He was a really good boxer, it's just that he was so powerful it superseded his other skills.

 

Norton was beyond fragile when forced back on a consistent basis. His chin could take a hit up to a certain point (he could take Ali and Holmes power basically all night but certainly not that the big hitters) but somehwere beyond that he capitulated. This really isn't a difficult one. there would be no cute battle of the jabs for round after round.

 

Foreman was reasonably slow too. Norton probably the better stamina than George too. How did that go for Ken?

If you think Liston had no defense to speak of you need to watch him again. His defense is both good and multi faceted. One only has to watch the two Williams fights to see how he rolled defensively.

 

I agree that's an outlandish claim, but I wouldn't go that far. Will is only 18 years old, and is still learning about boxing. He evidently has a ways to go, but he is definitely passionate and eager to learn. Just take it easy brother.

 

Yes, I went into depth about his defense in post #17. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it and the video I posted if you don't mind. I think people just associate Liston as a not very intelligent, one trick pony (based off the Ali fights), which couldn't be further from the truth.

 

Excellent way to put it Rules. As I was trying to explain to JT1, it's like people only focus on his power and associate him with a limited slugger who didn't offer much else.

 

Sonny certainly deserves the edge..but again the comparisons with Foreman are deciding too much here.

we know Norton succumbed to Shavers, Foreman and Cooney which is why Sonny should get a strong chance here. But even on that basis Norton is more imposing than Floyd Patterson.

Norton did very well against Larry Holmes. Rather than Foreman, why are the comparisons not equally made with Larry?

Against Pattterson sized men Larry was actually fairly devastating himself. Ocassio, Leon Spinks and Marvis Frazier. The thing was, Larry was mostly against good fighters a size bigger of which were not around during Sonnys times.

So I think it is a tad lazy to bracket Sonny in with Foreman and Shavers for results against Norton. Those guys flattened more big men who could really fight.

kenny could really fight. He should be the underdog but don’t write him off. It might just be competitive.