Sonny Liston vs Lennox Lewis

Another piece of your ridiculous hypocrisy. "Vitali is a quitter whos quit job against a cruiserweight made Liston's quit job against Ali look like gatti like exit", right.

Liston and Vitali did exactly the same thing, quitting against a light hitting opponent. The only difference is that Vitali was dominating the fight whereas Liston was being dominated.

You now will probably say that Liston proved his toughness by going the distance in a losing effort and getting off the floor off a dangerous, 180lbs never ranked Marshall, which neutralised his quit job against Ali. While of course Vitali fighting with his eye hanging on a thread and three of the worst cuts in history against a 245lbs beast of a man didn't redeem him at all. :nut


p.s. why do you refer to Byrd as a cruiserweight? You imply that it's something negative about him. Not very smart considering Liston's entire resume is built on cruiserweights and his record against ranked heavyweights is appallingly small.

Of course the same goes for bringing up that Vitali is a quitter while Liston did the same.

Well he was 8-2 ahead against Byrd so it's not like he got outclassed. And Vitali is not unproven. He beat 4 ring ranked contenders and was winning the other two. Unlike Patterson, Byrd has a chin. If you think Patterson will beat Vitali Klitschko then you are seriously deluded. A skilled 180lbs man with no chin will beat a skilled 250lbs man with an iron chin and bone crushing power? This is a no brainer.

p.s. Ingo was every bit as unproven and he still knocked Patterson out. We would've probably seen that more often if he didn't avoid every challenger like the plague. Hell, what am i saying? When he stopped doing that he indeed got knocked out in one round, twice.

Just keep telling that to yourself. Make a poll and see what the consensus is on a 180lbs man with no chin against Vitali.

Why should Patterson be really careful not to be caught "late"? It's not like Liston and Ingo caught him "late". Tua had a short prime, the Ibeabuchi-Tua would annihilate Patterson. By the way, do you ever take styles into account? Did you think of the fact that Patterson doesn't fight like Rahman, Maskaev or Byrd?

Tell that to Ingo, another limited but big puncher.

 

Lewis KO by round 5. Liston didn't have the abilities to hang with a post-modern heavy. He might not even be able to crack the top-ten in the 1990's.

 

that's because of the alphabet titles. Do you really think either Foreman or Holmes were top 5 contenders in the era?

 

Botha, yes. Hide and Bean would be pick'ems.

 

Botha, durability, modern athleticism, good body attack, thudding right hand, unintimidated. Vastly under-rated fighter who I think would have given Bowe a good run for his money.

 

Thankfully being a dumbass is slightly more interesting than swabbing the drool from Liston worshippers.

 

I think if Floyd Patterson, Ingo Johansen or even Sonny Liston fought Vitali Klitschko, they'd have a lot to deal with. Klitschko wasn't an all time great while those other guys may have been, but head to head his size, strength and chin might have proven as too much for them. Liston was overly accustomed to intimidating and bullying fighters who were smaller and weaker than he was. This would not be the case against Klitschko. The best that Sonny could hope for is to open a cut or hope for something to go wrong with Klits body. Knocking him out early or out jabbing him for 15 rounds isn't likely going to happen.

 

I think Liston would win a close decision, working behind the jab.