Just how good was his defense in your eyes? I watched a lot of his earlier fights today pre Patterson, I noticed he was faster going backward than forward it seemed. Many times he would leap back to avoid shots with surprising agility which seemed sort of out of place, and he was also good at slipping and dodging punches.
Liston was good at predicting what his opponent would do generally. If he could fight on the back foot he was in his element. If you were coming forward then he would use that against you.
Liston had good defense for a heavyweight. He had a high guard, good head movement, and could move back or forward with some agility. However Sonny wasn't much of a clincher, or skilled at making the other guy miss. Then again, most of the time the other guy was out gunned so he did not have to make them miss much. A hole in Liston's defense was he wasn't fast with his hands, and could be counter punched or beaten to the punch.
Very true but if you try to beat him to the punch, there's a good chance that he's going to land one of his big shots right after you land a quick shot anyway. That's a very dangerous thing to do against a power puncher like Liston.
Janitor said it best, awhile back, when we described Liston as a "monitor". A superheavy with true big man firepower, yet with a low profile so that he was harder to hit than one of the titans.
Decent, not great. Good chin, though. His best defense was his offense, as the cliche goes. Guys were rightfully scared of him, especially that band of hacks he fought pre-Clay.
I'm wondering how you can think he had good defence when you don't think he was skilled at making the other guy miss?.
Liston was fundamentally very sound -more than the vast majority of HWs ever. Defensively, he prefered to slip shots and block, but he could also weave and parry as well. He moved his head, but not unecessarily. He would at times extend his jab and leave it out there which at first glance looks like a flaw, but was really designed to keep his opponent off balance and at bay. I see Liston as a bit like Lennox Lewis in that he had basically three speeds -the "I'm gonna kill you" mode, aggressive boxing, and patient stalking. When he was aggressive, he was a tough man to handle because he was so strong -he'd get right up on his man, bend his knees and throw hard combination and 3,2s or 2,3s. He could also stand off a bit and work behind that telephone pole jab -demonstrating sound boxing, a wide array of shots, and a grasp of fundamentals that exceeded Lewis's.
