Sonny Liston found dead shortly after the second Paterson fight. How does this affect his historical impact?He goes out as a unbeateble looking, monster of an Heavyweight champion. Never having faced Ali, how much did this change our perception of Sonny?
His dominance would be seen as highly impressive, especially to forumites here. He would probably also benefit from 'Salvador Sanchez syndrome' in that he 'could've been even better' as we only saw him at his peak. His form, and lack of fall, would mean people always envision him at his best and dominant. Still, others would pick into his resume quite extensively as is done to some other dominant, late fighters on here, which is natural, especially if some things have questionable circumstances.
As the other talented posters have alluded to, there would have been a nagging question of how good Sonny Liston could have been? Could he have beaten no.1 challenger Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali). Depending on Sonny's cause of death, there might have been a good size investigation, which could have possibly held up a 4 man WBA Tournament to determine Liston's successor. If the tournament were to continue, I could see Ali, Floyd Patterson, Ernie Terrell, and Cleveland Big Cat Williams as the 4 men listed to fight each other. If the circumstances surrounding Sonny's death was a homicide connected to the underworld for instance, it is conceivable that many people would have been in favor of a Federal Boxing Commission to overtake perhaps the WBA, and the start of the alphabet soup sanctioning bodies that we see today, especially with the recent ring deaths of fighters like Benny Kid Paret. Liston, again would have caused fans and historians of boxing to speculate Liston's place in boxing history.
