Were Does Sonny Liston Rank in ATG Heavyweight list?

Never thought about Wills to be honest. He does have some great wins, better than Liston's when it comes to the era he fought in. Wills was number one challenger for quite a while, and ended up with a few no decisions on his record. He beat Langford 6 times, which shows you how handy he was. Because Sam was among the greatest ever. The man was a beast. I do like Langford, trust me. McVey was another feared man who Wills defeated. It's not stictly about winning titles. Quality of opponent holds weight outwith a title on the line.

Apart from reigning for under 2 years and defending his title once against Patterson, tell me all about the truely great fighters Liston beat. I don't want to hear about him beating other top 10 contenders during the late 50's and into the 60's. Thats not going to do your arguement much good for a top 3 placement. So lets hear it.

 

This thread is all over the place. What are the measures? Some posters count H2H, others consider what he did before becoming champion. I have Liston at #12 -but it's after considering scoring him in categories that are consistent across the board. Both H2H and pre-title days are not considered -the first because it is far too subjective and the second because we should rank champions according to what they were and who they fought during their reigns.

Now, if you ask where he ranks H2H, in other words if all the HW champs faced each other, who would have the best record, I got 1959 Liston very high, like #1.

 

**** it, I'm going to have Liston at #4, Bowe at #6. I have Liston at #4 because it means nothing that he made one defense and never had any longevity as champion. Apart from this, he was thrown to the wolves and was consistently beating top heavyweights when he wasn't champion. All of these top rated heavies never got a shot at the title themselves, or even went onto win the title. But hold on, he got beat by Ali, who was the greatest of all-time. Ahhh well, he was only the champion for short period of time, but we'll just take it for granted that if Ali never came along Liston would have reigned for so long that it would taken Tyson to beat him over 20 years later. Maybe Foreman could have got him 10 years later. It took Liston years to get a title shot, and it was long overdue when he got it. So he's excused. Lets just imagine he was champion in our biased minds since 1959. He was the heavyweight champion then, not Patterson or Johansson. He was the unoffical champion. Sonny Liston, look at the mans resume. He was actually inferior to many other champions when looking at his record and quality of wins, but lets just make a case for having him inside the top 5. Everyone holds different opinions anyway.

Michael Moorer, he's in my top 10.

 

The highlighted part, and the words enlarged are exactly what I was looking for. This is what you call a carefully and well balanced way to rate fighters. So this applies to Liston and whoever is placed anywhere, #1 or #25.

If we are rating fighters stricly H2H then you could easily have Tyson up there not far behing Liston. Rating fighters should be across the board. Lonevity as champion, career length, coming back from defeats, getting off the canvas to win, quality of opponents, etc. Number of defenses, etc. Thats what you call looking at the broader scheme of things.

 

I'm not saying that Liston fought cardboard cut outs prior to winning the title and after he lost it. But lets hear all about these fighters that he beat that somehow catapult him into a possible #3 placing. Being in the top 10 heavyweights while not reigning as champion and also beating other top rated heavies during this period gets him a top three placing? Did these fighters win the title before or after Liston beat them? Lets hear about these greats.

 

if he didn't have ali he coulda reigned for a long time into the mid 60s and beyond. if ali was around in the 40s or 50s then louis and marciano's records would look a lot worse.

 

I have him place at 9.

 

McGrain. My top three heavyweight list looks like this.

1. Ali
2. Louis
3. Holmes

You happen to rate Liston very highly. Fair enough. No hard feelings at all. We are just a million miles apart on his greatness. I like Liston as a fighter and not many would have beaten him on his best night. He had tremendous power, was seriously underrated for handspeed at his best, was patient, and cuter defensively than he's given credit for IMO. However, I just can't rate him as high as you when looking at everything across the board.

I'm not anti Liston by any means. I just happen to rate him where I do based on what I think. It maybe sounds like I'm biased towards him, but thats not the case.

Stonehands also has similar feelings on Jones when he sees how highly other posters on here rate him.

It's all about bouncing off each other on here. You gave me the motivation to start bouncing off each other, back and forward.

You need to get yourself swimming down the Moray Firth more often.

 

Ezzard Charles is also one of my favourite fighters of all time and for me the greatest light heavy of all time .. But Tunney is associated with Dempsey and it was 30 years before Charles, and as ive said, the era must be taken into account .. Ezzard suffers because of his losses to Marciano and Walcott. I'm with you, i believe that Charles is a better fighter than Liston by a mile, in fact Ezzard reminds me of Holyfield, a brilliant fighter but can be beaten with a certain style ..
This wasnt a thread comparing Tunney to Charles, it was about Liston and without doubt Tunney and Charles were better fighters than Liston

 

Dempsey would never fight Greb and he wouldnt fight Wills or Langford so based on his wins against,

Willard
Carpentier
Firpo
Sharkey

were do you rate Dempsey, none of those guys are fit to clean Max Baer's jockstrap, so how is Dempsey rated in the top 5 so often ....

My top 5 heavy's of all time are,

Ali
Louis
Johnson
Holmes
Marciano

Surely that has to to be the top 5 of all time ..... I have Frazier at 6, Lewis at 7, Tunney at 8, Holyfield at 9 and Liston at 10 ....

surely this is the top 10,

Ali
Louis
Johnson
Holmes
Marciano
Frazier
Lewis
Tunney
Holyfield
Liston

 

I like your rating of Bowe at 6, i wouldnt rate him that high myself but in his prime he was a very dangerous, attacking heavyweight with all the shots and all the skills .. On his day he could have beaten plenty of the top ranked heavy's we see in the top 10, he faded badly but Bowe had serious talent ..