Recently found an early 1962 interview that NY Post writer Gene Smith did with Sonny Liston. I thought this part was especially interesting: "Before a fight they always want you to have a big smile and a wave. Well, I don't smile. There's nothing for me to smile about, there's nothing about fighting that makes me laugh. This is a business to me. As a matter of fact, the only time I ever saw anything funny about it, I lost a fight. That was the only fight I ever lost in my life. I was fighting Marty Marshall and I knocked him down. When he got up, he ran at me barking like a dog. He was going woof-woof-woof. So I laughed. I couldn't help it. While I was laughing, he hit me one and broke my jaw. I didn't do so well, then, and he got the decision. Later on, we fought again and I beat him. But that first fight still taught me a lesson." I'd never heard him describe the particulars of what caused his broken jaw before. Only that Marshall had made him laugh. Never knew exactly how...
I saw that while going through my school library's newspaper resources. One of those double takes you see in somebody. Ever hear about the time he had dinner with writer A.J. Liebling? Almost caused him to have a heart attack! Liston's humor...well lets say he was in his own world.
Okay, I found it. This is in King of the World by David Remnick: Even when Liston was trying to be funny with a reporter, he could be intimidating. A.J. Liebling once went up to visit him in training camp and was told he would get an interview at a local restaurant after the day's workout. Liston arrived at the restaurant and everyone around the banquette ordered cups of steaming tea. Suddenly, Liston's expression soured and he began screaming at his cornerman, Joe Pollino, about the two dollars he owed him. "You lie you hound!" Liston shouted. "Gimme my two bucks!" As Liebling remembered it, "A vast fist shot out, and I heard a tremendous smack as Pollino went down, amid a shower of teeth." Liston then pulled out a pistol and started firing away at his cut man. Pollino slumped in the banquette. Then Liston turned the revolver on Liebling and fired. "I threw up my hands and, in doing so, I spilled my tea." (said Liebling) Liebling's self-description gives him more credit for calm than was genuinely due. He nearly died of heart failure on the spot. When he recovered, his overcoat now blotched with tea stains, Liebling heard Pollino explain that the teeth were actually white beans and Liston explain that the bullets were blanks. "You come see us again, hear?" Liston told Liebling. "You come back!"
lol I love it Yea I read about these two in King of the Ring But I never knew that Marty Marshall actually barked lol! Nice thread
