Resume Floyd Patterson 2x- 5'11 195lb, 26 years old. Heavyweight Champion of the World. # 1 rated in the world by Ring Magazine for rematch. Eddie Machen- 6'0 195lb- 26 years old. # 2 rated in the world by Ring Magazine. Zora Folley- 6'1 200lb- 28 years old. # 2 rated in the world by Ring Magazine. Cleveland Williams 2x- 6'4 215lb, 25 years old. # 10 rated in the world by National Boxing Association going into 2nd fight. Roy Harris: 6'0 195lb. 26 years old. # 6 rated in the world by Ring Magazine Henry Clark: 6'3 215lb. 23 years old. # 9 rated in the world by Ring Magazine. Mike DeJohn- 6'3 205lb. 27 years old. # 10 rated in the world by Ring Magazine Nino Valdes- 6'3 215lb- 34 years old. Unranked. Wayne Bethea- 6'0 200lb 26 years old. Unranked. Amos Johnson- 200lb 24 years old. # 9 rated in the world by Ring Magazine. Johnny Summerlin 2x- 6'1 195lb. 23 years old. Unranked. Rated in top 10 by Ring Magazine the following year. Marty Marshall- 5'11 180lb- 22 years old. # 7 rated in the world by Ring Magazine for Light-Heavyweight Division. Chuck Wepner- 6'5 230lb 25 years old. Unranked.
I see your point, it's pretty obvious that Liston gets overrated on this forum. It really doesn't matter where these guys were rated in those days...what matters is (now that they are retired, or in most cases passed away), where they really good fighters? Folley and Machen were pretty much on par with each other in my opinion. Machen did better against Liston. Machen was stopped in the 1st round by Johansson, Folley did not fight Johansson. Folley gave Ali a decent fight unti he was stopped in the 7th round. A faded Machen was stopped in the 10th round by a young Joe Frazier. Far from great HWs, would have been good Cruisers, good skills, not the most durable HWs ever. Williams had some good wins but could be stopped by fighters who were not great. He beat Terrell (lost the rematch) and drew with Machen. Patterson was a great fighter but not a great HW in my opinion. He was a blown up LHW. Quick and a good puncher for a man of his size but he was not very durable. He was down 20 times in his career. Liston wasn't able to do shlt against Ali. Yes, Ali (Clay at the time) struggled with Doug Jones and Henry Cooper. He was even down vs. Sonny Banks. Jones had stopped Zora Folley and Bob Foster.
Liston was fighting well in the first Ali go with the scoring being dead even going into the seventh round (one judge had Liston up by one, one Ali up by one, and one had it a draw). If Sonny had been in top condition and could have kept that same pace up he might have pulled off a win. Going into the rematch and just before it was postponed those in Liston's camp said Sonny had whipped himself into great shape and looked sharp, however when training later resumed Sonny became old overnight, tripping while sparring and jumping rope and battered day after day by sparring partners. Scribes who watched him wrote he looked awful and had lost what he once had.
Only Harris , folley, machen and Patterson were rated ahead of Liston when he fought them. Great wins though. But still a slim resume of 5 top wins. Williams only got rated in 1961 not sure about dejohn either. Both dejohn and valdes were losing every other fight (in albeit good class) at the time Liston beat them. Liston got rated to begin with (as fighters often) do by beating familiar names after they slipped out of the ratings. Then in 1960 he started to land fights with the real deal.
As Suzie says, Williams was ranked 10th by the NBA going into the second Liston fight. They had actually had him in their top 10 as early as 1958, but booted him for walking out of his rematch with Dick Richardson (Williams apparently received a "message from beyond").
