The Four Who Baffled Liston Feb 1964 article.

I defy anyone to convince me Liston was baffled at any time in that fight,I defy anyone to tell me he was baffled by Folley who couldn't manage to last 9 minutes with him. I defy anyone to tell me he was baffled by Marshall in their second and third fights. Liston had him down multiple times in the second one and Marshall never won a round their third encounter.
The third Marshall fight
." Liston had Marshall on the verge of a knockout on several occasions, but the safety-minded Detroit fighter found a way to survive."

Liston baffled by Howard King? He stopped him both times. Liston was not baffled by Machen, Machen did not fight to win he fought to survive. DeJohn was beat up by Liston and stopped in 6rds.

I think Whitehurst should have been taken out of there by the referee in the 9th he was being used as a punch bag Liston was momentarily off balance at 5.53, he regroups instantly and his hands are up.
Whitehurst grabs Liston to try and stop himself from going down and both hit the floor ,he then goes down to one knee, and is staggered just after and touches down again with a glove on the canvas, he attempts to land just one punch a right to the body at the 15 seconds to go mark.
As I said ,you see and believe what you want to. I think you're talking absolute nonsense,and that's being kind!

 

Sorry if I offended you. The article, to me, seemed more indicative of the disregard Liston was shown as champion, where he was basically not appreciated, or acknowledged.

I didn't see the baffling in the fights with Folley, or Williams, battering perhaps, baffling, no.

Marshall seems to have baffled Liston to the extent that after winning the first encounter, he managed to lose the next two, so I would say, not baffled.

Machen ran away from Liston for 12 rounds, that is more frustrating than baffling.

I actually think Liston is overratted as a heavyweight, h2h. The tone of the article however seemed more that the aforementioned somehow outsmarted him, or bested him, and with the exception of Marshall, in 1 of 3 fights, I see nothing of the sort.

I meant nothing personal against you, in my assessment of the article, and it is nice to see/read in that it is rare to find much on Liston, so thank-you for that, but really, it was an attempt, in my opinion to put him down, more than anything else. Sonny suffered from having a personality that was roughly equivalent to a porcupine. He may have wanted to be loved, but he made it 'difficult'

Personally I think Liston is rather overrated, especially h2h, but he did just fine against the fighters in the article.

 

If you have Mendozy for support you're in deep sh*t!

 

I agree with your points ,now what does that say about the author of the article, [not the poster who put it up for our interest.]?

 

Any genuine fan would welcome it if it was accurate ,which it most certainly is not.!

 

Very strange, this idea that Liston's reputation was based on the Westphal and Patterson fights. In 1960 Liston scored one-sided victories over Machen, Folley, Williams and Harris within the space of 6 months. I've never heard anyone suggest that beating Westphal was more significant than that.

 

This alone is BS!
Liston had blown away:
Williams x2
King x2
Folley .no 1
Harris. no7
Bethea. no 8 previous year
DeJohn. no8
Valdes. no2 previous year
Hunter . no6

And convincingly outpointed Machen. no3.
That is what his reputation was built on ,not demolishing Westphal and Patterson!
Liston was seen as the uncrowned champion.
He ran through the contenders like Sherman marching through Georgia!

Sonny was the 8/5 favourite to beat Patterson ,and it wasn't because he had decapitated Westphal!"