Who is the more accomplished heavyweight: Frazier or Liston?

You never mentioned Harris as a C level guy when Liston fought him.

 

Of course not, he got promoted to "A" on the simple pretense that he was in the prescence of greatness with Liston....

 

Harris was C level.......the fact you listed him as one of listons best wins either shows your lack of intelligence of the era(i dont think its that) or your ignorance of liston(bingo)

 

Well he was a ranked contender, and given the fact that you consider him to be the #2 HW of all time, you should be thankful he was.

 

Joe Frazier had ten consecutive HW championship wins, and did so as an undefeated professional. (I date his ascension to the throne from his NYSAC Championship win over Buster Mathis, a triumph which avenged Joe's only amateur loss, just as I date Mike Tyson's first reign from his dethroning of Berbick for the WBC HW Title.)

Frazier: Ten consecutive heavyweight championship victories.
Liston: Two

Frazier: Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year (all divisions) three times (1967, 1970, 1971).
Liston: Never became Ring Magazine Fighter of the Year.

Frazier: Fight of the Year winner (all divisions) in 1969 and 1970.
Liston: Lost his championship in the 1964 Ring Magazine Fight of the Year (as did Frazier to Foreman in 1973, but as previously mentioned, Joe had already come out on top in two of those). Frazier was also indispensible to making Manila the Ring Magazine Fight of the Year for 1975.

After winning three National Golden Gloves Open Weight Division Championships in three years, Joe Frazier was the first boxer to win the Olympic Open Weight Division Boxing Gold Medal (with a busted left thumb by the way,-why do knowledgable boxing fans so stupidly insist he was only a left armed fighter after an achievement like this?), AND the Professional Open Weight Division World Boxing Championship.

Why is anybody even attempting to suggest that Liston's heavyweight accomplishments can remotely approach the historical precidents Smoke will forever claim to have realized first is beyond me.

Finally, Frazier won the FIGHT OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, the first time two undisputed heavyweight champions with perfect professional records ever met to establish who the best boxer on the plane was.

Joe successfully defended his title twice in 1968 (after taking care of Mathis), twice in 1969, twice in 1970, and twice in 1972 (a reasonably active and regular schedule for someone with his demanding style).

In very sharp contrast, Sonny only made one successful defense, wiping out somebody he'd already destroyed in a single round, then losing that title to an overwhelming underdog.

Concerning the fact that Scrap Iron Johnson made Liston give ground, Sonny was hardly fat, as he weighed less than he did when he dropped the title. Machen failed to go the distance with Smoke for the same reason Scrap Iron was stopped against Liston: purely on the referee's subjective whim and discretion. Both those matches should have gone the ten round distance, as neither Joe or Sonny could punch their experienced and tough opponents out with their artillery alone.

Scrap Iron made Liston retreat at the precise point in time that Foreman stated he was unable to in sparring. At age 40, legs, reflexes and endurance can be diminished, but the reverse is usually true for the physical strength and punching power of a trained heavyweight boxer.


Cus D'Amato ducked Sonny Liston. Floyd Patterson himself personally made the decision to defend the championship against Liston, so any accusations that Floyd ducked Sonny can only come from posters who have no business playing in the Classic Forum. Liston won the title precisely because Patterson did NOT duck him. (Ditto for Tommy Burns with Jack Johnson.) Not only did Floyd refuse to duck Sonny, he actually defied President John F. Kennedy's personal entreaties not to defend the championship against Liston. For rejecting JFK's wishes, and giving Liston a shot, Floyd earned his 1991 IBHOF induction simply by virtue of redeeming the legitimacy of the title. Like Frazier and Ali, Patterson was a fighting champion. Liston was absolutely no kind of fighting champion. (That's a damned shame, because with his size, strength, reach and jab, he had the ability to remain extremely active as a fighting champion.)

 

John F Kennedy personally REQUESTED that Patterson give Liston a shot and did so when Patterson visited the White House. I saw Patterson interviewed on just this subject.

 

I defer to lobotomy on this occasion as he has laid out a wonderful exposition on the subject.

 

Lobotomy nailed it, as usual.

 

Huh?:huh When Floyd passed on, extensive mention was made of his reply to JFK on this matter. "I'm sorry Mr President. The title is not worth anything if the best fighters can't have a shot at it. And Liston deserves a shot."