So where exactly would you rate Liston all time at heavyweight? I just want to understand the context of your comment of him being overrated.
not top 10 any thing nvm his clumsiness ..his resume is extremely weak , against hall of fame fighters hes 1 and 1 with a record of 2 and 2 in 4 fights he was 2 and 0 vs the past prime floyd patterson and 0 and 2 vs ali . Thats awful he beat 1 hall of fame heavy (or light heavy) compare his record to oh say Jeff Clarke who beat Joe Jeannette Sam Langford Battling levinsky Kid Norfolk, and he doesnt make anyones top 10 and I will say I dont rate liston very high at all.
definitely not top 10 and probably outside the top 20 , again do you think a guy who beat a past prime Floyd patterson has a better resume than someone who beat langford ,jeannette ,Levinsky, Norfolk. I judge by resumes and his is weak !
Part of rating is having a list in mind. So when you claim someone is overated, you should be able easily rattle off the names that you rate higher. For arguments sake you put Liston at 30. To me that still makes him a very very good fighter despite his limitations. E.g. with his jab as you say. Also if you have Liston at 30, give me the 29 above him so I can find a flaw with one of them and then use that to call them overated and as you eloquently put it, say they "ain't ****."
thats how you do things dude , I will say a guy like Jeff Clark doesnt get any of the praise that liston gets and has the superior resume that is what I mean by overrated!
I haven't seen any footage of Jeff Clark. And footage of Listons jab, his resume and an interview with Ezzard is what you're basing your claim on. So if we go by resume. Are you ignoring all of Jeff Clark's losses? Even if I was Jeff Clark's great grandson I'd have a hard time ranking him higher than Liston. But I come to classic to be educated. So my friend, break it down for me, how do you rate Jeff Clark over Sonny Liston?
Only a nut would ever put Clark ahead of Liston. Liston is top 10 all time. He learned to box relatively late and became the best in the world, cleaning out the whole division. He's top 10, or top 15 in the worst case scenario.
When measuring his "greatness" you can't overlook his disgraceful performance in Lewiston. After that fiasco, the entire boxing world shunned him -- and he deserved it.
And by the way, I disagree that Patterson was past his prime after the losses to Sonny. He beat Machen, Chuvalo, Cooper by KO, drew with Quarry, beat Ellis for the title but lost a controversial decision, and in his last fight at age 37 turned in a creditable performance against Ali. He retained his dazzling hand speed until the end, if not his punching power. Give Floyd credit for all that.
So the mid 20s Patterson was past his prime against Liston, but the mid 30s Liston who'd fought less than five minutes in three years against Ali (who came into the bout with a recorded shoulder injury) is still in his prime. Forgive me for thinking you have an agenda here.
I'll reply to this. Patterson was a clean-living fighter who stayed in shape and whose weight fluctuated very little. That's partly why he fought quite well into his miid-30s. Liston was by all accounts a heavy drinker who didn't like to do roadwork. Because he knocked out opponents so consistently, he may have come to believe he only needed to train for two or three rounds against most opponents (including Ali the first time). I think training hard for the ill-fated "hernia fight" against Ali and then having it postponed discouraged Sonny,which led to the Lewiston one-round loss. I never thought Liston got paid to take a dive in that fight. I just think after he got floored in the first round he didn't feel motivated to rise and take another beating. He was too old and slow to have any hope of winning so he intentionally waited to be counted out. That's a very dark stain on his record, but nevertheless because of his pre-Ali record and his huge talent, I put him near the bottom of the Top 10.
