WHO do you rank higher, liston or schmeling in legacy?

Say goodbye :hi:

 

To you, everyone with a different opinion than you is "a simpleton" "stupid" ect. You are a hypocrite. You have (wrongfully) accused posters such as me and Surf-bat as lying while doing so yourself. When me and Surf-bat called you out on it and provided proof that you were lying. You conveniently ignored it.

 

Don't worry. He'll be gone shortly. They banned the little internet tough guy once before, they will do it again. And again if he tries to slither in here again with a different handle.

Time for this message board to return to its respectable roots. No wonder guys like Stonehands rarely come here anymore. The bad posters drive out the good.

 

Exactly

 

A lot of people are buying into the "aura" of Liston as a destroyer rather than the resume left behind. Quite simply the better resume belongs to Max. He possesses the best win and even after that he still defeated more hall of famers than Sonny did.

 

Skip their posts or simply laugh at them. Boxing has always mixed the cream of the crop with the lowest of the low.

 

I voted Liston, just, altho the Clay fights are a stain on his record. Schmelling is a guy I mostly know from one spectacular fight. No doubt he has the best career win.

 

***

 

Probably Max Schmeling deserves to be ranked above Liston.

But I wouldn't completely discount Liston's 1 round KOs of Floyd Patterson.
I mean, Ali fought Patterson twice, and it took him several rounds to wear down Patterson. 19 rounds in total.
Ingemar Johansson couldn't beat Patterson twice, in fact he lost two out of 3.
Jerry Quarry fought Patterson twice, couldn't knock him out at all.

 

Good points

 

If this came down to who had the "single" best win between the two of them, it would probably go to Schmeling by virtue of his incredible victory over a rising Joe Louis. But as most of us know, there's more criteria than just looking at a single match in two combined careers consisting of well over 100 fights. Sonny Liston spent his whole career at heavyweight, defeated almost an entire generation full of top contenders and retired with far fewer defeats than did Schmeling. And whilst I rank Max's win over Louis higher than Sonny's wins(s) over Patterson, the difference isn't so cut and dry when dissecting the facts. Floyd Patterson was a reigning heavyweight champion in his prime when Liston dethroned him. Joe Louis was a rising "contender" who had been a pro less than two full years. The victory was still phenomenal given that Louis was an early bloomer and had already had a huge impact on the division. But respectively those wins aren't so far apart in value given their context at the times.

 

A pro that never fought a preliminary bout, and had already defeated quite handily two lineal ex champions. It was widely known and accepted the Louis was the champ in waiting by the time of the first Schmeling fight.

Louis fight aside, Schmeling engaged in 4 Ring fights of the year winning three of them and was the recipient of fighter of the year once. All nice Accolades that eluded Liston.

Schmeling defeated four Hall of fame fighters.
Liston defeated one.

 

As I said initially... He was an early bloomer and had already had a huge impact on the division.. But I think the rematch, followed by a lengthy title reign indicated a bit of improvement.

Ring magazine awards and acknowledgements are nothing to rate fighters by. So the ring thought he was the fighter of the year and never gave that honor to Liston? so what?

And Liston also defeated a long list of rated opponents and had only four losses to Schmeling's 10. Sonny's final record at heavyweight was 50-4-0-39. Schmeling's record at heavy was 22-7-1-13. Kinda outweighs receiving " sales person of the year" awards by a magazine.

 

Schmeling lost 3 fights while still a teenager in the light heavyweight division. Two fights after an 8 year layoff due to world war 2, was in his mid 40s and one fight during his prime was so bad the sports term robbery spawned from the deciscion. Digging deeper shows a man with a prime run of 32-1-1.
As for Liston's long line of contenders I can assure you that Max's contenders have deeper resumes. Nino Valdez, Cleveland Williams, Eddie Machen and Zora Folley do not have the same level of wins on their ledgers as do the likes of Sharkey, Uzcudun, Walker, Hamas, Baer.

Liston also has a quit job on his resume and likely a dive or a second quit job. That does tend to tarnish a legacy.