With no Cassius Clay /Muhammad Ali around to take their title ,who lasts the longer ..Liston or Foreman ? With no one immediately on the horizon looking to beat either ,which in your opinion hold s on been champ the longer? Hypothetical question but any guess s?
Liston was getting old...but most of his challengers were people he had previously beaten. Would have to be a boxer type on his very best nite..maybe sparring partner Ernie T? Then Frazier or Leotis Martin. Foreman legitimately lost to Jimmy Young, plus Holmes is coming up. So, Liston lasts longer...I guess.
I think younger Foreman would have bought confidence and fought as always aggressive. Nevertheless, without changing his faults, I see him losing to Holmes in 78. Liston would have continued too and might have even beat Frazier by 66/67 due to styles. In this case without Ali, Frazier won´t get ATG status. Liston might have lost a decision to Terell or Chuvalo that time, with Frazier taking over the devision afterwards until clashing into George.
I'll say Foreman. To paraphrase an Emanuel Steward quote, by the time Liston faced Ali, Sonny was largely living a life of comfort without the hunger. That would remain true if there was no Ali.
This was the exact quote... I watched Sonny Liston when I was a teenager do something that I’ve never seen any heavyweight do—walk through the whole division almost from being the number ten guy all the way up to the champion because he was that devastating like around ’57, and ’58, and ’59. I mean he had unbelievable brutal punching power. He was mean, punched with both hands, and I think that the time that he finally got to the title, I think his best years had gone and right after he won the title he began to live the life of a middle aged wealthy man. He lost the real focus that he had earlier. ’57, ’58, and ’59 he was one of the most vicious machines probably ever in boxing, but after he won the title, from my reports and from what I gather, he started drinking a lot and he was golfing and he just lost that total edge. He was living the life of a comfortable man and then here comes exactly what the computer prints out—the worst thing in the world for him. A fast, young fighter, good movement, a solid amateur background, and who had been fighting on a regular basis, so therefore when the match-up came it was just perfect timing for one, terrible timing for another guy who had slipped past his prime—but if they had fought, in like say ’58 or ’59, a prime Sonny Liston and a prime I would still say Cassius Clay or whatever—I don’t know. I don’t know. Sonny at that stage was just such a really powerful wrecking machine and I remember the fights he had with Cleveland Williams—oh my God. I don’t know, Sonny might have won if they would have fought at that time.
Excellent overview of ’57, ’58, and ’59 Liston . I remember reading the boxing mags & sport pages at that time of the Liston intimidation...and of course we had no idea the 2 Clay/Ali fights would transpire as they did, with questions even to today.
But it make's you wonder how Long Foreman would have kept up his regime. With a few more Norton type defence s under his belt ,he may have fallen in to the same trap as Tyson and so many others. Believing his own hype and thinking his punching power is all he needs. And there s always someone ready to test that .
Liston was getting old, fat and complacent...and someone...maybe Leotis Martin may have been the one to finally "get him", or maybe Frazier. If there was no Muhammad Ali for Jimmy Young to fight and gain notoriety by getting screwed over, who's to say that Foreman would have even bothered fighting him? Maybe he would have rolled right along until Holmes was ready for him.
History tells us one thing. When a champion stops taking his preparation seriously, however talented he is, then his is only heading in one direction. For a beating! Somebody would have upset Liston, even if it was a James Douglas style upstart, who came out of nowhere. It would not have taken a prime Frazier to do it! As for Foreman, he might have ran into a Jimmy Young type, but at least he was focused and training properly. He could have been around for a while, with the right match making.
It's true Liston did all his best winning prior to being champ. He cleaned out a division BEFORE becoming champ. Truth is he should've been champ far sooner than he was. Despite the Clay losses he did regroup and won a string of lower level fights . If no Clay , there wasn't anybody obvious on the horizon for a while.Clay/ Ali spent the first 3 years or so beating guys Liston had beaten , or his sparring partner, Williams, Folley, Terrell and Ali's other opponents around this time ( London, Cooper etc) wouldn't have troubled Liston . Foreman would've run into Young ( maybe earlier than he did) and Holmes wasn't far away, so in terms of how long they last it might be fairly equal. Depends on when a young hungry Frazier gets in the ring with an ageing Sonny or when Young/ Holmes matchup with George.
It's also important to examine what Liston and Foreman did after their respective losses to Ali to get a sense of who really wanted it more at that stage of their careers. Foreman was younger, hungrier and seemed to go to greater lengths to prove to himself after losing in Kinshasa. I truly think the loss to Ali is what got him through the Lyle fight. Liston on the other hand was older and he took a long layover after the 2nd loss to Ali and never really took on the kind of dangerous challenges post Ali, the way Foreman did with Lyle and Frazier. It should be noted that he was a pariah post Ali 2 so not having that stigma over his head might have changed the trajectory of his fight path but his age would always work against him. It's a very interesting thread to be honest, never really pondered this with great detail but I guess I'd say Foreman based on desire and youth.
