Sonny Liston barely makes any top ten lists, if he makes them at all. Yet, he seems to be the king of the h2h fantasy fights- never losing one, except when he's pitted against Ali (as everyone does) I think it's the stigma of the Clay/Ali fights. Pairing Liston up with individual fighters, it's obvious he has the power and technical skills to beat almost all of them. Looking at his career as a whole, the dirty baggage of the Ali fights overshadows everything else. Agreed?
I don't think that Clay (of the first fight) was all that special. He was skittish and at times confused. Sonny couldn't capitalize and Clay grew overnight into a confident champion in the truest sense of the word. The second fight was just bull****. I think a fair share of champs and non champs from the 80's and beyond give Liston more than he can handle.
Sports Illustrated has him at #3 as do I. I agree. Liston was very underrated. Chuck Wepner once stated "I don't think anybody could've beaten Liston in his prime, including Ali". Something I just happened to agree with.
Unfortunately, I am old enough to have seen this Liston pendulum swing back and forth between underrated and overrated. This pendulum seems to make the most dynamic swings. In the end, he was a guy with one successful championship defense, who cleared out a division in a fairly weak era and succumbed to a neophyte. He is absolutely a great fighter but not some top 5 monster.
Liston gets mythologized way too much. He looks good on film, but no better than a whole host of good heavyweights. He looks great in destroying a petrified small cruiserweight in Patterson but barely fought anyone his own size. Cleve Williams was never all that to start with. We have some quaint stories about what a tough guy he was on the streets but he folded like a cheap deck of cards against the green Ali. And he often gets an automatic pass for Losing to Ali, as many Ali victims do. As I said in another thread ( and I am glad that Seamus agrees) stack him against the better 80's and 90's guys, and suddenly the monster would look all too human. Good fighter sure, but in my opinion horribly overrated by many.
Agreed. His stock is at a high now and has been for the last couple years, for whatever reason. I'm seeing him routinely picked to knock out guys that, 5-7 years ago, were sound favorites against him (on this board). These things tend to ebb and flow before a fighter is ultimately just forgotten about and not actively discussed at all (it's more rare for heavyweight champs to be completely forgotten, but the effect is still there). It's always funny to me to see how interpretations change (and with such conviction) years, sometimes decades, after any new information could possibly be factored in.
Strangely enough l think those who over rate him and those who under rate him more or less cancel each other out. 20-25 years ago my opinion of Liston wasn't too great because it was largely based on his Ali fights, but as time goes on l've come to appeciate him more. Now l think on a H2h basis he, Louis and Dempsey are likely the best pre Ali, and that's about all l can say about him. Guys like a prime Ali, Holmes, Lewis, Tyson, Wlad, Bowe, Foreman and possible Holyfield, Vitali could beat him but l have no idea how many of these fights he would win. My guess would be about 1/2 perhaps less.
"Cleveland Williams wasn't that great." Yet he had the handspeed of Mike Tyson and the power of Liston. Unfortunately both Liston and Williams are underrated.
Yeah, let's instead glorify an illiterate, violent alcoholic and drug addict with a rap sheet longer than his reach. atsch
When I was a teenage boxer in the early 70s both my coaches rated Liston highly even though they were both Ali fans too and both picked Ali to beat Foreman. I rate Liston in the top 10, below Ali, Lewis and Holmes but how high I can't decide