Sonny Liston, why is he ranked so highly?

"Liston cleaned out the division"

I don't agree. Not exactly, by any means. Here are the Ring Magazine yearly ratings for 1962 and 1963

1962
Champion--Sonny Liston

1. Floyd Patterson
2. Cassius Clay
3. Doug Jones
4. Ingemar Johansson

1963
Champion-Sonny Liston

1. Cassius Clay
2. Doug Jones
3. Ernie Terrell
4. Cleveland Williams

A total of six men are listed among the top four. Liston defeated two--Patterson and Williams. He lost to Cassius Clay. He did not fight Ingemar Johansson, Ernie Terrell, or Doug Jones. Of the three men who were champions from the late fifties to the mid-sixties, Liston beat Patterson, lost to Ali, and never fought Johansson. That is not exactly a Louis-style cleaning out the division. There were also plenty of other guys out there for Liston to fight which he did not, like Chuvalo.

 

Those 1958 ratings are not accurate according to the 1981 Ring Record Book which prints the year rankings up to 1980.

These are the 1958 rankings.

Champion--Floyd Patterson

1. Ingemar Johansson
2. Nino Valdes
3. Zora Folley
4. Henry Cooper
5. Willie Pastrano
6. Archie Moore
7. Eddie Machen
8. Brian London
9. Sonny Liston
10. Mike DeJohn

Johansson was actually the Ring Magazine fighter of the year in 1958. He was rated #10 in 1957 but moved up to #1 in 1958 with ko's of Erskine, Neuhaus, and Machen. He was also pretty well known. In early 1959 he appeared as a mystery guest on "What's My Line" (a celebrity panel was blindfolded and had to guess who was the guest while questioning him). Johansson was guessed by the very first panelist who questioned him, showing how popular boxing was back then.