Where Does Sonny Liston Rank As An ATG Heavyweight?

Are you denying Liston was past his prime by 1964? Liston was anywhere from 31-34 years of age for this fight....showed up a career high 218lb....had boxed less than 8 rounds in the past 4 years a recipe for RUST... his reflexes and timing slowed down visibly to the point where trainer Willie Reddish paid listons sparring partners to make him appear faster than he was so he could keep listons confidence up......Films show Liston was clearly sharper and faster 1958-1960 on film.

Yes but Clay/Ali really came into his own for this fight...all of a sudden his body changed from a boys to a mans....he was actually clearly bigger than liston when they were in the center of the ring.

no he didnt, he got the **** beaten out of him and outboxed badly, and his shoulder was badly hurt, and he knew he wasnt going to win....so he packed it in. If ali isnt there, liston defends his title all the way thru 69 probably.

 

Yet you see a whole lot in Chagaev and others today? what exactley do you look for in fighters???

Only one man ever knocked out a prime cleveland williams....Sonny Liston. Williams certainly never got knocked out 3 times near his prime by UNRATED fighters like wladimir klitschko has been. Too question williams chin when only one man 1957-1964 was able to floor a prime williams is very nitpicky.

Williams had a combination of Speed Power and Mobility few big heavyweights have had....he is a nightmare h2h

Terrell was a good boxer with a tremendous jab, and ruiz style clutching ability. it made him a very difficult nights work. He may lack power, but he certainly had enough to keep top rated heavyweights off of him.

With Folleys Jab/Fundamentals/and handspeed, he could easily compete today. In fact he would be at least top contender....His skill level surpasses most today. Sure he might suffer a few kayo losses here and there, but he would outbox most in the division.

Kind of like Alexander Potvekin then huh? I think Machens handspeed is considerably faster than potvekins

This doesnt make sense. Men Like Folley Machen Patterson beat some of the best late 1960s heavyweight contenders when they were way past there prime like Chuvalo, Quarry, Bonavena, Ellis proving that Liston's era was indeed a better one than the preceeding era.

 

No one was bitching about Liston looking "old" when he was blowing out Patterson, and reports on his training camp all indicated he was training hard and in shape (218 wasn't his highest weight at that time BTW). Trying to portray him as "too old" and/or "undertrained" is revisionist.

That's just pure unsubstantiated speculation. He weighed 207 for the first Cooper fight, 210 for the first Liston fight, 206 for the rematch, and 201 for the second Cooper fight. There was no glaring "change" in his body over this time.

No he didn't, it was still a dead even fight.

Based on what? You just made a point of describing him as "old" and "out of shape" by this time.

 

I have him around no5,his right was a heavy punch but not in the class you have put it ,imo,his best punch was his left hook.
Liston is a little like Johnson ,and to a lesser extent Dempsey ,you have to rate him on what he did BEFORE he became champ,imo.

 

SQ, what's your source for Reddish saying he payed Liston sparring partners to make him look faster? Sorry, but this sounds like a typical story that was made up AFTER he lost, just like Dempsey's KO loss to Flynn became a "fix" years after it happened.

I mean, for Christs sake, you're talking about him asif he was a corpse by that point. The only situation where i've heard these stories is when Jeffries had to lose 100lbs after 5 years of inactivity, and had his sparring partners go easy. Going into the fight, list was described as being "his awesome self" and certainly the reports of him not doing enough all came AFTER he lost. Going in, he was still seen as the invincible monster that was unbeatable. Not this old, rheumatic man you're talking about. I also heard a story from a trainer before the Clay fight, who said that he knocked a sparring partner's helmet off, but they thought he knocked his head off! Liston came off his career best win; fact. And he folded like a cheap suit. Twice.


As for him being a heavy drinker, other than this being pure speculation, how does this help his legacy, anyway? Like M2S said: it's about what you do with the talent, or we would be having Roy Jones rate higher than Robinson and Greb.

 

That's because Johnson and Dempsey, as lackluster as champions they were, actually had title reigns to speak about. Liston magically turned into an ancient mummy after he just repeated his career best win in impressive fashion.

 

Cooper was badly cut in the London fight and didn't fight for about eight months after that fight. The referee nearly stopped it due to Henry's bleeding after the 7th round, but let it go on because it was a title fight. Cooper won going away, thoroughly outboxing London. So, of course, D'Amato saw in London all the ingredients in a Patterson-era title challenger and the match was made.

 

5th-10th. A top 10 lock at the least. He's gone up in my estimation with time more than any other HW. I place him 5th or 6th.

 

Wouldn't you say though, that producing a 160 second blowout of a just-dethroned champion in the first place, is an indication of still being a dangerous mother****er?

Film. What about film? I hardly think he looks any slower than he normally does on either occasion of the Patterson destructions.

 

I also have a UP report about one of his sparring sessions with Leotis Martin, that says he hurt Martin so badly with a body blow that Martin refused to continue sparring with him. The report also says Liston has been training hard and looks to be in top form.

 

How about the reports saying Terrell was giving Clay a good hiding before Liston I and was binned accordingly. :hey

 

Every single report (i'm talking BEFORE the fight) i've read says something similar. Maybe they were just in awe of Liston's destruction of Patterson without a critical eye, but certainly they weren't saying he was a stranger to the gym. And there's a reason Clay was an 8-1 underdog.

I see your point, but someone who hasn't trained a lot and is rusty, usually is off in his timing. And i don't see how you can knock out such a high rated opponent so quickly when your timing is off, or when you're rusty, or when your training regiment consists of 12 glasses of STOUT per evening.