BoxRec

his chin is grossely underated by todays fans. liston had an incredibly thick 18" neck. he used to stand on his head and roll his neck back and forth(not many men can do this) and this gave a huge thick neck and this enabled him to be able to abosrb shock blows.sonny liston was never knocked down in his prime. the only legit knock downs suffered in his career were against marty marshall(a flash off balance kd very early in his career and when he was 39 years old against huge punching leotis martin).


was listons chin great? well lets see


- he fought 8 rounds with a broken jaw against marty marshall. any other fighter would have quit. broken jaws are incredibly painful, its incredbily hard to continue with one. yet the incredibly tough liston fought on 8 painful rounds with a broken jaw taking hard punches in the process yet still refused to go down.


- nino valdes a huge 6'3 215lb powerful cuban was at the tail of end of his career when he fought sonny. yet even at 34, valdes was still a dangerous contender. valdes hit sonny with his best shots and sonny took them with ease. valdes could really wack too, especially with his right hand.

"I hit him a couple of solid shots and he did not buckle. Sonny was the strongest man I ever fought and he was very tough. When I fought him I still could hit very hard."- Nino Valdez



- big 6'3 205lb mike dejohn had a repuation has a huge puncher. he scored 34 knockouts in 47 wins. chuvalo said mike dejohn hit him the hardest. dejohn landed his best on sonny in the fight and sonny took them and didnt budge. dejohn like valdez was a very hard hitter.



- the cream of the crop 6'4 212lb cleveland williams. one of the hardest hitting heavyweights in history. he was considered outside of sonny the best puncher of that era. his left hook was absolutley devastating. williams hit sonny in both fights with flush punches even breaking sonnys nose and sonny them took them without blinking. in there 2nd fight, williams hits sonny with a thunderous right hand and it just bounces off sonnys head. then williams follows it up with 2 dynamite left hooks and they just bounced off sonnys head. these punches would be knocking any other heavyweight out cold...yet not sonny. they didnt even floor him.


-floyd patterson a very hard puncher hit liston with a couple hard punches in there 1st fight and they just bounced off listons head like they were nothing.


its clear liston had a great chin in his prime. its also clear judging from the shots liston took in his prime, that a light tap from muhammad ali was defintley not powerful enough to floor him. i dont care if liston didnt see it coming, it still wasnt powerful enough to floor sonny. leotis martin did legit KO sonny out cold..but martin was a helluva puncher. rated in the rings top 100 greatest punchers of all time and sonny was 39(probably older) when he fought martin. bottom line.....liston had a great chin. in his prime he took flush shots from huge punchers. his huge neck and those exruciating neck exercises he did formed a great shock absorber.people talk about foreman having a great chin, i think listons was just as good. Sonny liston stood on his head doing those incredible neck rolls(not many men men including wrestlers have strong enough necks to do this)

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:

its clear liston had a great chin in his prime. its also clear judging from the shots liston took in his prime, that a light tap from muhammad ali was defintley not powerful enough to floor him. i dont care if liston didnt see it coming, it still wasnt powerful enough to floor sonny. leotis martin did legit KO sonny out cold..but martin was a helluva puncher. rated in the rings top 100 greatest punchers of all time. and sonny was 39 when he fought martin. bottom line.....liston had a great chin. in his prime he took flush shots from huge punchers. his huge neck and those exruciating neck exercises he did formed a great shock absorber.people talk about foreman having a great chin, i think listons was just as good. Sonny liston stood on his head doing those incredible neck rolls(not many men men including wrestlers have strong enough necks to do this)

Another thing about Leotis is that he was Liston's sparring partner and had the keys and the knowledge to be more effectve than he had the right to be and he came up very lucky. Leotis was also a smart fighter and parlayed both his inside knowledge and experience with some luck and it did the trick.

I understand the ongoing belief in some sort of "conspiracy" around that punch that Ali floored him with. But something in Sonny was simply not up to the long drawn out whippin that he knew damn well was coming his way that night. Whatever he DID feel from that punch discombobulated him enough early on to dampen his spirits and just say "forget this". I don't buy anything further than Sonny gave up from a lack of intestinal fortitude on one particular night. No one wants to be judged on their worst moment and I don't judge Sonny by this incident. On another night he would have taken his whippin honorably. It was a "No Mas" moment.

But the moment was an honest moment, one that's greatest drama was contained in the heart and mind of one Charles "Sonny" Liston and nowhere else. No "Islamic Threat" Or "Mob Threat" just a momentary lack of ability or more likely lack of determination. And in this case (as in many others) it's what seperated the winner from the loser on one historic evening.

Seems he wasnt real thrilled about people hasslin him about his age either.

liston was most likely 34 by the ali fight

Decagon wrote:33 or 34, but less than 35.

there are some people who claim liston was 40 by the ali fight which is laughable. that would mean the liston of 1958-59 was 34-35 years old which is ridiculous

sonnys mother said he was born in january

Sonny was actually hurt in the end if the first round of the second Bert Whitehurst fight. Maybe more a punch high on the head than a punch to the jaw.

Woller

- he fought 8 rounds with a broken jaw against marty marshall. any other fighter would have quit. broken jaws are incredibly painful, its incredbily hard to continue with one. yet the incredibly tough liston fought on 8 painful rounds with a broken jaw taking hard punches in the process yet still refused to go down.

I think you are correct in the fact that Liston had a very solid chin watch his fights with Cleveland Williams and see the punches he takes.

However about any other fighter would have quit didn't Ali get his jaw broken aginst Norton and stood the distance and swedish fighter Bosse Hogberg got his jaw broken in the 1st round of his european title defence and stood for another 14 rounds.

Decagon wrote:The 1930 Census clearly shows that he hadn't been born by October/November of 1930.

Liston grew up dirt poor. His father produced over 20 children. Sonny could not read or write. I'm not sure if his parents could read or write either. USA Census data in the 1930's missed out on some poor people who could not read or write. Many beleive Liston was older than reported.

Sonny had a 17 yearold daughter in 1960... which would make him 13 when she was born if he was only 34 when he fought Ali... its hardly inconcievable that the 1930 census missed liston out... are we to beleive that the authorities would be so rigorous to detail the births of every poor black child born to illiterate parents... I hardly think so!...

silkov wrote:Sonny had a 17 yearold daughter in 1960... which would make him 13 when she was born if he was only 34 when he fought Ali... its hardly inconcievable that the 1930 census missed liston out... are we to beleive that the authorities would be so rigorous to detail the births of every poor black child born to illiterate parents... I hardly think so!...

The census didn't miss out on the rest of Liston's family. The 17-year old daughter was not Sonny's but his wife's.

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:
- the cream of the crop 6'4 212lb cleveland williams. one of the hardest hitting heavyweights in history. he was considered outside of sonny the best puncher of that era. his left hook was absolutley devastating. williams hit sonny in both fights with flush punches even breaking sonnys nose and sonny them took them without blinking. in there 2nd fight, williams hits sonny with a thunderous right hand and it just bounces off sonnys head. then williams follows it up with 2 dynamite left hooks and they just bounced off sonnys head. these punches would be knocking any other heavyweight out cold...yet not sonny. they didnt even floor him.

I don't put too much stock in these two wins. There's been talk that Liston juiced his gloves with the same stuff he used against Ali in both of these fights.

Decagon wrote:Williams and Liston ended up friends, and both deny the story.

Thanks for the follow up on that. I had asked for more information about it in another thread but no one responded.

Liston ended up good friends with Ali too... Ali liked him a lot...

Terence wrote:

wouter wrote:

silkov wrote:Sonny had a 17 yearold daughter in 1960... which would make him 13 when she was born if he was only 34 when he fought Ali... its hardly inconcievable that the 1930 census missed liston out... are we to beleive that the authorities would be so rigorous to detail the births of every poor black child born to illiterate parents... I hardly think so!...

The census didn't miss out on the rest of Liston's family. The 17-year old daughter was not Sonny's but his wife's.

Yes. Didn't his wife have two kids and Sonny adopted them both and treated them like his own off-spring? Beneath the surly attitude and the thuggishness he always comes across as a very witty and possibly deeply sensitive guy. I don't know if it is true but I hear he never recovered from the fact that there was no parade to celebrate his world-title win. He saw that win as a new chance but his old rep held him back.

I remember reading something about Larry Merchant who was a Philly sportswriter at the time writing that for confetti for Listons parade we can use the paper from torn up arrest warrants.
Liston was upset by this .If its true that Merchant wrote that, one could see how Liston could get alloof with the press. That incident combined with Listons constant run-ins with Phillies finest led to Sonny moving from Philly to Denver and uttering what was one of his most famous lines." Id rather be a lampost in Denver then the Mayor of Philladelphia".

Sonny was savagely treated by the police... a lot of it was down to just plain old racism and Sonny becasue of his record and gruff exterior was a great target...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTQUBfINJCU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffYWr-MG ... ed&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0k0RiVI ... ed&search=

Terence wrote:

BoxBuzz wrote:

BrocktonBlockbuster49 wrote:

its clear liston had a great chin in his prime. its also clear judging from the shots liston took in his prime, that a light tap from muhammad ali was defintley not powerful enough to floor him. i dont care if liston didnt see it coming, it still wasnt powerful enough to floor sonny. leotis martin did legit KO sonny out cold..but martin was a helluva puncher. rated in the rings top 100 greatest punchers of all time. and sonny was 39 when he fought martin. bottom line.....liston had a great chin. in his prime he took flush shots from huge punchers. his huge neck and those exruciating neck exercises he did formed a great shock absorber.people talk about foreman having a great chin, i think listons was just as good. Sonny liston stood on his head doing those incredible neck rolls(not many men men including wrestlers have strong enough necks to do this)

Another thing about Leotis is that he was Liston's sparring partner and had the keys and the knowledge to be more effectve than he had the right to be and he came up very lucky. Leotis was also a smart fighter and parlayed both his inside knowledge and experience with some luck and it did the trick.

I understand the ongoing belief in some sort of "conspiracy" around that punch that Ali floored him with. But something in Sonny was simply not up to the long drawn out whippin that he knew damn well was coming his way that night. Whatever he DID feel from that punch discombobulated him enough early on to dampen his spirits and just say "forget this". I don't buy anything further than Sonny gave up from a lack of intestinal fortitude on one particular night. No one wants to be judged on their worst moment and I don't judge Sonny by this incident. On another night he would have taken his whippin honorably. It was a "No Mas" moment.

But the moment was an honest moment, one that's greatest drama was contained in the heart and mind of one Charles "Sonny" Liston and nowhere else. No "Islamic Threat" Or "Mob Threat" just a momentary lack of ability or more likely lack of determination. And in this case (as in many others) it's what seperated the winner from the loser on one historic evening.

The most compelling explanation, for me, is that the politically charged atmosphere was too much for Sonny and part age and part fear of being caught-up in an attempted assassination of Ali led him to sit out the count.

You are right, he should not be judged on this moment.

And the fight was stopped because of Fleischer's interference and Walcott's ineptitude. Liston claimed to have been in great shape for the rematch until the postponment. This must have been psychologically debillitating for Liston. He just couldn't get motivated as he needed to be again when he returned to the gym.

Liston's jab had been so potent than when Ali so easily outjabbed him Liston was without his compass.