Which Heavyweight Is Possibly Overrated Because Of Nostalgia?

I'd favor several guys outside Usyk to beat Fury in 2024 and Joshua in 2021/22 so can't agree there.
And Fury and Joshua largely didn't fight other SHWs. Povetkin and Parker are not SHWs, neither is Wilder.

If Liston were to thrive as a smaller man I would think attributes like quickness and durability would be most important but he's not especially quick or hard to hit and his chin is largely untested against big punchers and was cracked by Ali and Martin.

 

As and when Usyk defeated them, AJ and Fury were considered the very top HWs.

Certainly, they held the belts that Usyk expressly sought to unify in order to become undisputed Champion.

AJ and Fury also fought their fair share of opponents who would be classified as SHWs in terms of their actual weights at the least.

Wilder came in at 231 and 238 for Fury fights 2 and 3 respectively.

Liston was not actually KO’d by Ali in Lewiston Maine. The actual Martin KO occurred when Liston was somewhat older again and when it was understood that Sonny was indulging in both drugs and alcohol.

Suffice to say, In little over 1 year after the Martin fight Liston was dead with drugs found in his system.

Prime Liston took flush bombs from a reputed puncher in Williams whose demonstrated power went clearly well above and beyond his own actual weight.

Liston wasn’t fast but nor was he notably slow. Possession of elite speed would be nice but Liston’s reach and weight transcendent power are formidable enough attributes to be getting on with.

Liston’s reach in particular would negate him having to necessarily quickly dart in and out to safely land fast combos to get his punches home.

Sonny could fight at fair range but he was also adept at infighting once he got in close.

I don’t know that you do but it would be interesting to know if you consider Fury to be highly durable and Wilder to be the hardest hitter he faced whilst also believing that Wilder doesn’t qualify as a SHW.

 

AGREED! The pop-ups are suddenly making it near impossible to post and even controlling the cursor is getting hard. There's a lag between typing and the letters appearing.

 

I thought I might be the only one experiencing lag perhaps due to my own network/wifi.

A problem shared is a problem halved! Lol.

Still, that lag and ensuing catch up (which can then also reveal hitherto unseen typing errors) can really do your head in. Haha.

 

Liston was on his way to being kayoed in both Ali fights and was hurt early in fight one and dropped in fight two before quitting. That's certainly not a good look for him even though he quit before he could be put down for the count.

As far as power goes Liston was generally fighting smaller men who would be cruiserweights and light heavyweights by todays standards. I think Povetkin and Haye could probably stop everyone Liston stopped and might even improve on some of his results.

It's true Liston could fight at long range or up close effectively. I'm just not sold on him holding up to the power of some of the bigger hitters. Someone like Parker would probably be a winnable fight though or Whyte

 

I thought I was the only one getting the popups. It's insane.

 

Liston did quit in Ali 1 and yes, Ali did hurt Sonny in round 3 or 4, can’t quite recall the exact round atm.

As to whether Liston was on the way to being KO’d is speculative.

Fight 2 was a sham all round, Ali and Walcott being major contributors to same.

At any rate, those two fights hardly reflect the prime version of Liston. Most would agree that the punches Williams laid on Liston in their two fights were much harder than Ali’s so called anchor punch.

I think Liston KO’d/stopped his fair share of relatively big men of the day in quick time. Williams chin is unjustly maligned. While one might quibble about the Cat’s opposition, the fact is if you removed the 2 Liston KO’s, all one has is a KO loss going back to when Williams was just 20 years old and late sub against Satterfield.

Besides that early KO loss and removing the 2 Liston KO losses, all one would have is a Williams going all the way thru to 64 plus several fights post gun shot wound before he was KO’d again at age 33.

I hear your point re smaller opposition and perhaps the relative greater effect of punch power which might not translate as well against bigger opposition - though, as I said, Sonny does have examples of that power translating very well against larger opposition.

Remaining on the subject of his smaller opposition, the question might be - what more could Liston do to uphold his power and the strong follow through promise of same against that much larger opposition again? Of course there might be need to account for a bit lesser effect without necessarily suggesting that Liston wouldn’t remain a serious puncher to be respected and duly wary of.

Even if one has someone, like say, Usyk defeating that same smaller opposition, just imo, it would be unlikely that he would do it as quickly and as emphatically as Liston did.

Certainly, for one example, the back to back, power personified, outright 1st round KOs of Patterson would be hard for anyone to replicate.

 

Hi Buddy.
I didn't guess your age, where some members have their avatar there is also a snippet of info about that poster, yours says " male 70 " there you go, as to my error with your title, the 3 keys are close together, an honest mistake, my bad.
stay safe Fitz56, chat soon.
Mike.

 

Name all the experts who watched the bout live that gave the decision to Shavers. The decision WAS NOT controversial.