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Ali probably still would have won - Sonny was way past his prime - but it would have been a far closer, more dangerous fight for him, with a far greater chance of an upset Liston win, a very real chance for a Liston win.A very close fight would also have affected Sonny’s place in history. The Boxing Establishment which hated him would not have had the litany to demean him that he was wiped out by a kid or gave up - neither of which were true.CREDIT PICTURE TO LIFE MAGAZINEThose who know boxing know how great Sonny was. Boxrec ranks him #5 of all time, despite his being denied title shots, and fighting most of his career way past his prime years.What injuries was Sonny dealing with when the two met in 1964?If only Sonny had been either healthy, or young again, for his fights with Ali…Sonny Liston, who did not know when he was born, was at least 36 for the first Ali fight, according to the best records available, police and prison records from his arrests and incarceration in 1950 unearthed by Paul Gallender and Rob Steen in Sonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch by Rob Steen and Sonny Liston in a New Light: With 4 Excerpts from Sonny Liston by Paul Gallender.Sonny suffered a knee injury before the second Patterson fight which required not one, but two postponements. That fight was then postponed a third time for a Patterson medical issue, but Liston’s knee was still sore when the fight finally happened. Had the fight lasted longer than 2 minutes, Liston would have been in trouble.That knee injury was still troubling Sonny 7 months and 3 days later, when he met Ali in 1964.But that gimpy knee was not the worst injury Sonny went into the fight with!Sonny was suffering from a severe shoulder injury in his left shoulder from his training camp. When you figure in that Sonny, a left hander fighting orthodox, depended on his jab to set up everything else he did, offensively and defensively, he was a shell of what he should have been.Liston had tried to postpone the fight to rehab the shoulder or have it surgically repaired. (his knee was bad enough to warrant a postponment as well - but Sonny never got a break from any boxing official, ever)Liston had sought a postponement after the injury in training camp, of the fight for several months to let the injury heal, which the Florida Commission denied. He evidently worsened it dramatically during the fight. (Liston said it was partially torn before the fight, and tore completely in the first round - nonetheless by force of will he fought on until after the sixth, when he was in agony and literally could not lift the arm at all)How we know the shoulder injury was seriousIt is certain that Sonny had suffered a torn biceps muscle and tendon in his left shoulder, and a severe rotator cuff tear. His purse had been ordered seized following the loss to Ali in the first fight, and the Miami Beach Boxing Commission did not officially release it until it had accepted medical verification of the injury.The Commission, confident it could steal Sonny’s purse, refused to accept his doctors, or even neutral doctor’s evaluation and verification of the seriousness of his injuries. No, they insisted on selecting their own doctors.And those commission Doctors determined that because of the injury, Liston was unable to answer the bell for the seventh round in the fight at Convention Hall.Those were commission doctors, hired to justify the seizure of Sonny’s purse - but the injuries were so severe they could not ignore the extent of them, and ruled he could not possibly have gone on.Dr. Alexander Robbins, chief physician for the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, diagnosed Liston’s injury as a torn tendon in his left shoulder.Tex Maule, writing for Sports Illustrated said that Liston's shoulder injury was serious, citing first Liston's inability to lift his arm:“There is no doubt that Liston's arm was damaged. In the sixth round, he carried it at belt level so that it was of no help in warding off the right crosses with which Clay probed at the cut under his left eye."Maule also got access to medical records:“A team of eight doctors inspected Liston's arm at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach and agreed that it was too badly damaged for Liston to continue fighting. The torn tendon had bled down into the mass of the biceps, swelling and numbing the arm.”Liston went to his Denver home after the fight, then went to Philadelphia for consultation with an orthopedic surgeon. The full extent of his incapacitation, and any treatment he received for it, surgery, or otherwise, will never be known.Dr. Richard C. Bennett of Detroit, who was been the personal physician of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson, said that the injury, caused by a sudden overstrain, was akin to tennis elbow. Doctor Bennett said the pain alone would have been disabling.Why would a healthy Sonny have been a much, much, greater threat to Ali?Sonny had 5 inches of reach on Ali, and if healthy, might have used that reach and his superior boxing skills to ward off Ali’s incredible speed until he got a clean shot at the youngster.Indeed, despite the shoulder injury, and the bad knee, the cards were dead even when Liston could no longer raise his arm after the 6th, and had to throw in the towel. (One 58–56 Sonny, one 58–56 Ali, one even)Had Sonny been healthy…Sonny Liston was a truly outstanding technical boxer. Despite his awesome strength and power, Angelo Dundee is quoted in Liston and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King by Bob Mees, summing up the Young Liston who destroyed the top ten on his way to the title, saying:“He [Liston] took his time to set his opponents up, to gauge their skills and reaction time, before finishing them.”Muhammad Ali always said he was lucky in both fights with Sonny, and his manager was more candid. Angelo Dundee is quoted again in Liston and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King, saying:“I don’t know what might have happened if Sonny had been completely healthy. Had he been five years younger and healthy - I don’t want to think about it!”In his book, The Gods of War, boxing historian and writer Springs Toledo argued that Liston, when at his peak in the late 1950s and early 1960s, could be favored to beat just about every heavyweight champion in the modern era with the possible - and just possible - exception of Muhammad Ali.The fights which best exemplify Liston’s strengths are his two short contests with Cleveland Williams.Monte Cox said it best:“Liston used beautiful head movement and what may be the division’s greatest ever jab to avoid most of Williams’ punches and to keep him off balance. Williams does occasionally land with extraordinarily powerful shots, but Sonny shakes each one off. In their combined five rounds of boxing over the course of their two fights, Liston is only shaken briefly once, and never in danger of being dropped. The most astounding thing about his approach is that he is equally comfortable coming forward or retreating—which he does whenever he feels pressured. This runs entirely contrary to the perceived wisdom about Sonny Liston. Although he was a finisher of comparable stature to Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, and Frazier, he was the only member of this shark-like group who was a boxing conservative.”A barometer of how good Sonny Liston was comes with his twice destroying a very good heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson, in the first round each time - when he was already way past prime, and Floyd was only 27!Sonny Liston - Skills - Reemus BoxingNor was it a freak accident when Liston wiped the floor up with Patterson - Boxing writer and historian Bobby Franklin said, while marveling at Liston's boxing skills at such an advanced age, and commenting on his masterful offense:“It is interesting to note that while the fights were blow outs, Liston did not come out swinging wildly. He took Floyd apart methodically, setting his man up with left jabs and solid body shots. Sonny showed fast hands, using an accurate left jab, along with hooks and uppercuts. He had a definite game plan and executed it perfectly. If they fought a hundred times during that period the result would have been the same."Sonny was one of the few heavyweights who was just as comfortable coming forward or retreating, and used what is generally considered the best and heaviest jab in history to control distance.Sonny Liston was an excellent defensive fighter. He knew all the tricks, had excellent head movement, slipped and ducked, and used his incredible reach, the hardest jab in boxing history, and his strength to move in and out, slip shots, and hold when he had to.Finally, Sonny had shown with Floyd Patterson he knew how to defeat a lightning fast boxer; Patterson was second only to Ali in hand and foot speed in the heavyweights.Ali said in Ali: A Life:“The thing with George, I had to let him hit me, the thing with Sonny, I had to make sure he didn’t hit me!”In fact, Sonny landed the harder punches in the second and third rounds of their first fight despite his injuries!Would a healthy Sonny have caught Ali sometime and hit him with a clean shot in a 15 round fight?We will never know.CREDIT TO:All rankings and statistics to BoxrecA Blues Song Just for Fighters: The Legend of Sonny Liston by JJ ParkerAli: A Life by Jonathan EigGods of War by Springs ToledoListon and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King by Bob MeesSonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch by Rob SteenSonny Liston in a New Light: With 4 Excerpts from Sonny Liston by Paul GallenderSonny Liston - Skills - Reemus BoxingThe Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick ToschesThe Gods of War by Springs ToedoUnbeaten : Rocky Marciano's Fight for Perfection in a Crooked World" by Mike Stanton

Because the boxing establishment, the commissions, the media, made a concerted effort to diminish what Sonny had accomplished, and to forget him.Indeed, after Ali’s first victory over Sonny, a Boxing Illustrated editorial remarked: "Nobody wants to be reminded of Sonny Liston. The idea is to forget him." And shamefully, forget him people did.CREDIT PICTURE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRERSonny was never the “good Negro” the boxing establishment wanted him to be - and the Black establishment didn’t like him eitherBecause his father worked him in the fields from the time he could walk, Sonny had not been allowed to go to school, and thus, was illiterate. The media loved portraying Sonny as an unintelligent brute, when sadly, nothing was further from the truth.Joe Louis, a close friend of Liston’s, described him as an intelligent, sensitive and witty man, who desperately wanted to be accepted and loved as Louis had been. “Can’t they give me a chance,” he would plaintively ask Louis?No, they could not. The Poet Amiri Baraka (then LeRoi Jones) called Liston “the big black Negro in every white man’s hallway, waiting to do him in, deal him under for all the hurts white men, through their arbitrary order, have been able to inflict on the world.”As the illiterate Sonny Liston moved up the ranks in boxing, he faced not only problems from the white authorities, (he was constantly harrassed by the police) but also from black organizations such as the NAACP, who were worried that Sonny’s criminal record and surly manner presented the “wrong” image compared to that of Floyd Patterson, who was a popular and articulate champion. After Liston's victory writer James Baldwin headed for a bar "to mourn the very possible death of boxing."Despite the attacks from the white and black establishments, and the media slanders, people who knew Sonny paint a far different picture of himNick Tosches, in his book The Devil and Sonny Liston, found that Liston was far from being the grim and surly figure the media painted him. Liston in person with people he liked, such as Joe Louis, was both intelligent and funny. Sonny had a cutting and subtle sense of humor: he once asked his lawyer, should he ever be sentenced to the electric chair, to arrange that his manager George Katz got "10 per cent of the juice."But the same James Baldwin who had written so negatively about Sonny after he won the title,, got to know Sonny personally in covering his fight against Muhammad Ali. Baldwin wrote, in a stunning portrayal of Sonny, “[Liston] is far from stupid; if not, in fact, stupid at all. And while there is a great deal of violence in him, I sensed no cruelty at all. On the contrary, he reminded me of big, black men I have know who acquired the reputation of being tough in order to conceal the fact that they weren’t hard. Anyone who cared to could turn them into taffy.”Kids did turn Sonny into taffy, he loved them. As he rose in the boxing world, kids began clamoring for his autograph, and Sonny told his wife, “they must not know folks are supposed to hate me.” Sonny loved their attention, and secretly had his wife teach him how to painstakenly scrawl his name so he could “give the kids something to make them smile!”Baldwin wrote that Sonny was nothing like he had been portrayed.Sonny also quietly helped anyone he cared about - he and Max Schmeling supported Joe Louis through the years. Every time he fought, he quietly gave part of his purse to Joe. He also helped his sisters.But that didn’t help Sonny with the media, or with the police.A very proud man, he chafed at the way the police treated him - and was not afraid to show it. He was pulled over just for driving, approached and questioned just for being in public, and he hated it.Arrested 19 times, in prison twice, Sonny once took a gun away from a police officer who was harassing him, beat the officer and broke his knee. On another occasion when he was again being harassed, an enraged Sonny took the officer, picked him up over his head like a sack of wheat, and put him in a trash bin.Sonny was not allowed to fight after May 5, 1956, for a year because he was in custody, though there was no formal commission suspension. Why was there no formal commission hearing or suspension? Because the police didn’t want their harrassment of Sonny aired in a public forum.The 1956 incident occurred because a cop confronted him and a friend about a cab parked near Liston's home, (which Sonny of course had nothing to do with, it was just an excuse to harass him). Goaded till he lost his temper, Sonny assaulted the officer, and took his gun. Liston received nine months in the city workhouse, plus the time he had already served waiting for trial. Sonny did not fight again until January of 1958.J. Edger Hoover, the director of the FBI, was another establishment figure who despised Liston and was reportedly livid when Vice-President Lyndon Johnson met him at a charity event in 1962. (Ironically, Sonny himself was not at all pleased with the fawning Vice President and told one of his handlers: "Let's blow this bum off.")The media never reported anything that Sonny did in a positive lightSonny would spend hours signing autographs for kids - and there are no pictures of that because the media did not publish any. There are almost no pictures of Sonny smiling unless they included his wife, or Joe Louis.Sonny himself was virtually always portrayed in a negative light.Johnny Tocco, who worked with Mike Tyson, Foreman and Liston, said the reputation of Sonny as a brute was a media creation, “they made him a monster,” Tocco complained.The media made a huge effort to diminish what Sonny had accomplishedIn general, people have forgotten how dominant Liston was in his prime. Boxrec ranks him 4th of all time among heavyweights. Ring magazine ranks Liston as the number seven greatest heavyweight of all time, while boxing writer Herb Goldman ranked him second. Boxing writer and historian Springs Toledo, in his book, The Gods of War," believes that Liston, when at his peak in the mid 1950s, would be favored to beat every heavyweight champion in the modern era with the exception of Muhammad Ali.Ali certainly thought so. He said Sonny Liston was the best heavyweight who ever lived, other than himself, and Sonny was the only man who ever scared him - though Ali was proud he never showed Sonny he was afraid.George Foreman, who sparred with Sonny when he was over 40, says Liston was the only man he ever set foot in a ring with who physically overpowered him and forced him backwards.Sonny was a vastly underrated boxer, with excellent fundamentals, a poleax jab, and knockout power in either hand. During the 50's, in his prime, he was avoided like the plague; ie. Henry Cooper said "I don't even want to see him walking down the street, let alone in a gym!"Those who faced him in his prime were just destroyed. Big Cat Williams, another feared puncher with devastating power before his shooting, was simply battered and stopped by Liston twice, both times in Williams best days.The fights which best exemplify Liston’s strengths are his two short contests with Cleveland Williams.Monte Cox said it best: “Liston used beautiful head movement and what may be the division’s greatest ever jab to avoid most of Williams’ punches and to keep him off balance. Williams does occasionally land with extraordinarily powerful shots, but Sonny shakes each one off. In their combined five rounds of boxing over the course of their two fights, Liston is only shaken briefly once, and never in danger of being dropped. The most astounding thing about his approach is that he is equally comfortable coming forward or retreating—which he does whenever he feels pressured. This runs entirely contrary to the perceived wisdom about Sonny Liston. Although he was a finisher of comparable stature to Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, and Frazier, he was the only member of this shark-like group who was a boxing conservative.”A barometer of how good Sonny Liston was comes with his twice destroying a very good heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson, in the first round each time - when he was already way past prime, and Floyd was only 27!Nor was it a freak accident when Liston wiped the floor up with Patterson - Boxing writer and historian Bobby Franklin said, while marveling at Liston's skills at such an advanced age, "it is interesting to note that while the fights were blow outs, Liston did not come out swinging wildly. He took Floyd apart methodically, setting his man up with left jabs and solid body shots. Sonny showed fast hands, using an accurate left jab, along with hooks and uppercuts. He had a definite game plan and executed it perfectly. If they fought a hundred times during that period the result would have been the same."Liston only lost 4 fights, two to Ali when he was probably far older than his listed age, one to Leontis Martin when he was at least 42 and hit with a lucky punch,(Martin had to retire after the beating Sonny gave him) and one early in his career when his jaw was broken, yet he fought on, to Marty Marshall.Sonny's first pro fight lasted 33 seconds: Liston leveled Don Smith with his first punch, and Smith was out for 3 minutes!From February of 1959, to his march to the title, Sonny decimated the top ten ratings, knocking out 8 out of the top 10 contenders. Only Ingemar Johansson and Henry Cooper, of those fighters rated in the top ten during Liston’s prime years, escaped beatings by him - and they declined to fight him."Liston does not merely defeat his opponents," Jonathan Eig wrote of the fighter. "He breaks them, shames them, haunts them, leaves them flinching from his punches in their dreams."And there is more: No one had ever won the world’s heavyweight championship by a first-round knockout before Liston knocked out Patterson, and no one has won the undisputed title by one since. Another record the boxing establishment buried is that no man has ever knocked out another heavyweight champ in one round twice.NO other fighter in history has destroyed the top 10 the way Sonny did, no man ever so dominated another undisputed champion twice the way Sonny did - and yet the media and boxing establishment basically buried Sonny’s accomplishments.Nothing was worse than the way Sonny was treated after winning the titleUpon winning the world heavyweight title, Liston had a speech memorized for the crowd that friends had assured him would meet him at the Philadelphia airport. not able to read or write, Sonny had carefully memorized what he wanted to say - that he was going to be a champion for all people, of all races, and he hoped that young men, especially young Black men, who had made mistakes, would be able to see in his triumph that it was possible to overcome mistakes and a past.A vital clue to who Sonny really was, as a man, was his reaction to the reporters attacking Floyd Patterson for being a coward. Liston was the one man who would have no part of the theory that Patterson was cowardly. "There's a big difference between having fear in you and being a coward," he said on the plane ride back to Philadelphia. "I can have fear in me, too, and that kind of fear is good. Then I'd go into the ring and because I had this fear I'd try to take the other guy out as quick as I could. Patterson had fear in him but he wasn't no coward.""He got in there with me," said Sonny, "and he did his best."But upon arrival in Philadelphia,, Liston was met by only a few reporters. Writer Jack McKinney said, "I watched Sonny. His eyes swept the whole scene. ... You could feel the deflation, see the look of hurt in his eyes. ... He had been deliberately snubbed. Philadelphia wanted nothing to do with him."Sonny’s wife would say in later years “Sonny knew then nothing would ever be different. People wouldn’t let it be different.”During an era when white journalists still described black athletes in racially tinged and vicious labels, Liston had always been a target of racially charged attacks; he was called a "gorilla" and "a jungle beast" in print.To his shame in later years, Larry Merchant, then a writer with the Philadelphia Daily News wrote for the paper: "A celebration for Philadelphia's first heavyweight champ is now in order. ... Emily Post would probably recommend a ticker-tape parade. For confetti we can use torn-up arrest warrants." Merchant then wrote that Liston's win over Patterson proved that "in a fair fight between good and evil, evil must win."Nor was Merchant alone, The New York Times's Arthur Daley wrote: ''Whether Patterson likes it or not, he's stuck with it. He's the knight in shining armor battling the forces of evil.''Liston moved to Denver, saying he would rather be a lamp post in Denver than the Mayor of Philadelphia.The media coverage around the Ali fights was also especially poisonousIt is almost unknown that before the first Ali fight, Sonny had badly injured his arm, and requested a postponement for it to be treated.Sonny had suffered a torn biceps muscle and tendon in his left shoulder, and a severe rotator cuff tear. But when his team petitioned the Florida commission for a postponement, it was denied. There was no publicity on the pre-fight injury, the postponement request, or its denial.Then the commission ordered Sonny’s purse seized following the loss to Ali in the first fight, and the Boxing Commission did not officially release it until it had accepted medical verification of the injury.The Commission, confident it could steal Sonny’s purse, refused to accept his doctors, or even neutral doctor’s evaluation and verification of the seriousness of his injuries. No, they insisted on selecting their own doctors.And those commission Doctors determined that because of the injury, Liston was unable to answer the bell for the seventh round in the fight at Convention Hall.Those were commission doctors, hired to justify the seizure of Sonny’s purse - but the injuries were so severe they could not ignore the extent of them, and ruled he could not possibly have gone on.Dr. Alexander Robbins, chief physician for the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, diagnosed Liston’s injury as a torn tendon in his left shoulder.Only a very few writers covered any of this, one of them, Tex Maule, writing for Sports Illustrated said that Liston's shoulder injury was serious, citing first Liston's inability to lift his arm: "There is no doubt that Liston's arm was damaged. In the sixth round, he carried it at belt level so that it was of no help in warding off the right crosses with which Clay probed at the cut under his left eye."Maule also got access to medical records: "A team of eight doctors inspected Liston's arm at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach and agreed that it was too badly damaged for Liston to continue fighting. The torn tendon had bled down into the mass of the biceps, swelling and numbing the arm.”What other major publications or media covered this story?NONE.Instead, they published claims that Sonny quit because he was paid off, or was told to, despite their being no proof of either, and a records vault full of medical records showing he was badly injured, which worsened during the fight.As for the second Ali fight, the media made it appear it was somehow Sonny’s fault that Jersey Joe Walcott screwed up the count!Fanboys and the media still play up the false narrative Sonny quit or took a dive against AliFirst, in 55 years, through six major investigations, three of them official, Senate hearings, and every reporter in the world, NO evidence has ever been found to support any of the wild theories on Sonny taking a dive.NO evidence, none, zilch, zippo.Contrary to popular belief, Sonny put up a stout fight against the lightning fast Ali in their first fight, even though he was badly injured, and, a minimum of 14 years older than Ali!Sonny landed the only hard shots thrown in the first two rounds. Ali landed lightning fast, but basically ineffective, jabs. In the 3rd round at the end of the round, Sonny got Ali against the ropes and landed an effective heavy body attack.But his arm was worsening, and Ali began to take over.Sonny was suffering from a severe shoulder injury in his left shoulder from his training camp. When you figure in that Sonny, a left hander fighting orthodox, depended on his jab to set up everything else he did, offensively and defensively, he was a shell of what he should have been.In addition, Sonny was operating on a gimpy knee. His last fight before meeting Ali had to be postponed twice due to a left knee injury. It was still bothering him 8 months later when he faced Ali.He had sought postponement of the fight to have time to heal, but it was denied.The fact he was able to battle Ali evenly speaks volumes of his ability. The fight was tied on the cards, one 58–56 for Sonny, one 58–56 for Ali, and one tied at 57–57, when Sonny’s shoulder tore apart, and he had to stop because he could not raise his arm.Indeed, Ali freely admitted the rest of his life that luck was on his side in both Liston fights!Sonny was badly injured before the first Ali fight, but fought anyway, despite having tried to postpone the fight to rehab the shoulder or have it surgically repaired.As for the second fight, the media treated Sonny even worse.Sonny Liston, and the vast majority of experts who were there said it was a legitimate knockout, and because in 55 years, no one has proven it was not.People continue to claim Sonny took a dive, but when asked for proof, have none except their own beliefs. SIX major investigations of the fight over the last 55 years have not turned up one single verifiable bit of evidence the fight was fixed, not one.There is no doubt though, and almost all historians agree that the second Liston vs Ali fight was a huge mess, and the officiating a disaster.But somehow, with hints of a dive, (without any evidence of one), the media managed to blame Sonny for Jersey Joe Walcott failing to referee the fight as he should have.And to add insult to injury, the boxing establishment and media made sure Sonny never got a chance to fight for the title againSonny spent the rest of his life trying to get a third shot at Ali - who was perfectly willing to fight him, if someone put up the money. Interestingly, Ali had come to like and admire Liston, and far from the days of his driving a bus to Sonny’s house to harass him, Ali made a point of visiting Sonny when he was in town, or when he was present at one of Sonny’s fights, and the two men became friends.The media never bothered to report that, of course.For over a year after the second loss, Sonny could not get a fight anywhere - no promoter would put him on a show. (Sonny’s license was not revoked - that is a never was fantasy)And shamefully, forget him people did. And, in doing so, they downgraded the incredible accomplishments of Sonny prior to the Ali fights - like beating 8 of the top 10 contenders, (with the other two refusing to fight him - while trying to get Patterson to fight him, or his two incredible defeats of Patterson, a two time world champ.Fifty years on, Cassius Clay v Sonny Liston remains a pivotal moment | Sean IngleWhen the WBA stripped Ali for giving Sonny a rematch, the WBA, WBC, and Ring, refused to rank Sonny so he would not be able to fight for the title, despite Sonny being 36–3 and the clear number one contender.Meantime, Eddie Machen, who Sonny had beaten while Eddie ran for his life, losing by a huge margin, was allowed to fight for the WBA title against Ernie Terrell. I asked my father, a real fight fan, why Liston, who had handily defeated Machen, was not allowed to fight; my Dad looked me in the eye and said, “Sonny Liston will never be allowed to fight for the title again. It is not fair, but he is blackballed.”Make no mistake, Sonny was not officially suspended, he was just plain blackballed.When Sonny finally began fighting again, he won four fights by knockouts, and yet, mysteriously, was still unranked when Ali was stripped in 1967, and the “eight top contenders” were assembled to fight for the title. Included, incredibly, among the eight was Floyd Patterson, who Sonny had KO’d twice in a total of 246 seconds. Patterson even told reporters Sonny should have been in the tournament, but they didn’t print that either.Ellis defeated Leotis Martin, Oscar Bonavena, and Jerry Quarry who had beaten Patterson), to win the vacant title.When asked if he would defend against Sonny Liston, Ellis said NO.Joe Frazier had declined to take part in the tournament, and was awarded the heavyweight title in New York. He held that interesting title until he beat Ellis and became undisputed champion.Joe’s camp also refused a fight with Sonny, who had remarked fighting Joe would be “like shooting fish in a barrel, it would be that easy.” Interestingly, Joe was willing to fight Sonny - but his management team, which had promotional control, refused absolutely.Sonny then ran off 10 more wins, for 14 straight wins since Ali, 13 by knockout, until he fought Leotis Martin in December of 1969. Sonny, who was at least 37, and perhaps as much as 10 years old, was easily winning the fight. Liston had dropped Martin at 2:11 of the fourth round, but Martin recovered. In the 9th, he caught Sonny with a freak punch, for the only stoppage of Sonny’s career other than the Ali fights. Martin, even though he “won” the fight, had to retire from the beating Sonny had given him.Sonny would fight one last time before he died, against Chuck Wepner, on June 29, 1970.Appropriately, since this was Sonny Liston’s last fight, it was a slaughter, literally.Chuck Wepner, who fought great heavyweights like Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, said no one ever hit him harder than Liston.Wepner said getting hit by Sonny was like getting hit with a baseball bat, literally. Chuck wasn’t exaggerating, as he walked out of that fight with a broken nose, a broken cheek bone and 72 stitches! Knocked down in the 5th, Wepner quipped afterwards he should have stayed down. Wepner said "Sonny made George [Foreman] look like Mr. Friendly!"That was Sonny Liston’s last fight, and he won 15 of 16, 14 by stoppages, after he fought Ali five years earlier.Despite his deserving it, he never got another title shot. Sonny spent the rest of his life after the second Ali fight trying to prove he never took a dive, and earn another shot at the title - and was denied by hateful people who were determined to forget him.Sonny told Joe Louis all he had ever wanted was to be respected, and be allowed to be a good influence on young people so they didn’t make the mistakes he had.Sonny came from the cruelest beginning of any fighter, and ended in obscurity, buried by a media and establishment that hated himSonny was the product of a harsh, unforgiving, life. Charles "Sonny" Liston was born into a sharecropping family who farmed the rocky, poor quality land of Morledge Plantation near Johnson Township, St. Francis County, Arkansas. Sonny said, confirmed by other family members, that his father inflicted beatings and whippings so severe on Sonny that the scars were still visible decades later."The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating," Liston said. "We hardly had enough food to keep from starving, no shoes, only a few clothes, and nobody to help us escape from the horrible life we lived," he would later say. "We grew up like heathens."Sonny went on to say “I had nothing when I was a kid but a lot of brothers and sisters, a helpless mother and a father who didn't care about any of us," Sonny said. "We grew up with few clothes, no shoes, little to eat. My father worked me hard and whupped me hard."Indeed, many days in his youth, Sonny Liston went without food. Sonny told Boxing Illustrated in 1964: "On the good days I ate. On the bad ones I told my stomach to forget it." Sonny told his sister when he went to prison he thought things were better than he ever knew them - he had three square meals a day for the first time in his life.Beaten and abused as a child, he grew up to stay in trouble, and even in prison, other cons were terrified of making Sonny mad. He grew up in a world with no kindness and no forgiveness, and he gave none to anyone.Sonny was born into a family that couldn't afford for him to go to school, and when the family mule died, Sonny's father hitched his 9 year old son to the plow and made him the mule.Ironically, it was in prison that for the first time in Sonny’s life someone actually believed in him, and helped him. A Catholic priest recognized something special in Sonny, and taught him to box. Father Stevens believed that boxing would take Sonny out of a world of bars and beatings and to the places he deserved to go.He was at least partially right.For Sonny, a man denied the right to learn to read and write, a man who had his wife teach him in secret how to sign his name so he could give kids autographs - his wife would say after his death “one thing in life used to make Sonny happy, those kids coming up and asking for his autograph” - for a man like that to be denied a chance to compete and fight for the title again is despicable.For a man like that to be born with so little, come so far, and be denied any chance to go further, is more than a tragedy, it is criminal. Shame on the people who did that, shame on them!Perhaps a profile of the then world champion in the 1964 Boxing Yearbook captured the awesome power and tortured soul of Sonny Liston best by saying: "For Sonny Liston, it was easy being a superman. It was being a man that was often difficult."The tragedy of Sonny Liston began with his life on a miserable sharecropper's farm where he was literally starved and worked like a mule at 9 years old, and ended with his fading from memory after losing two fights to Ali as the establishment which hated him wrote him out of history.CREDIT TO:All rankings and statistics to BoxrecCREDIT FOR QUOTES AND DETAILS TO THE FOLLOWING:A Blues Song Just for Fighters: The Legend of Sonny Liston by JJ ParkerAli: A Life by Jonathan EigBoxing Illustrated March 1964Cox’s Corner by Monte CoxGods of War by Springs ToledoLarry Merchant Philadelphia Daily News 9–26–1962Liston and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King by Bob MeesSonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch by Rob SteenSonny Liston in a New Light: With 4 Excerpts from Sonny Liston by Paul GallenderSonny Liston - Skills - Reemus BoxingThe Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick ToschesThe Gods of War by Springs ToedoUnbeaten : Rocky Marciano's Fight for Perfection in a Crooked World" by Mike Stanton

In his peak period, his “March to the Title” from 1958 to 1962, he showed no weaknesses at all.By 1963, when he was probably around 35, (Sonny never knew exactly how old he was) Sonny, like many older fighters, had become injury prone.Those repeated injuries, and time slowing his hand and foot speed, were his only real weaknessesCREDIT PICTURE FIGHT CITYSonny at his peak had it all. He was:the strongest fighter to ever enter the ringthe hardest puncher to ever enter the ringa truly generationally great technical boxer, withgood hand and good foot speed (according to real experts, like Floyd Patterson, Sonny had good handspeed and astonishing footwork for a man his size and age)nimbleness and agilitya solid china great ring IQ and the ability to adapt on the flyhad a reach rarely equally in boxing history, and by no one his heightLegendary trainer Ray Arcel said:“Sonny Liston was a great boxer. Lot of people never recognized that, because of his power, but Sonny really could box.”As to his footwork, which some fanboys critisize, Monte Cox analyzed it as:“Liston used beautiful head movement and what may be the division’s greatest ever jab to avoid most of Williams’ punches and to keep him off balance. Williams does occasionally land with extraordinarily powerful shots, but Sonny shakes each one off. In their combined five rounds of boxing over the course of their two fights, Liston is only shaken briefly once, and never in danger of being dropped. The most astounding thing about his approach is that he is equally comfortable coming forward or retreating—which he does whenever he feels pressured. This runs entirely contrary to the perceived wisdom about Sonny Liston. Although he was a finisher of comparable stature to Dempsey, Louis, Marciano, and Frazier, he was the only member of this shark-like group who was a boxing conservative.”Nor was it a freak accident when Liston wiped the floor up with Floyd Patterson - Boxing writer and historian Bobby Franklin said, while marveling at Liston's skills at such an advanced age:“It is interesting to note that while the fights were blow outs, Liston did not come out swinging wildly. He took Floyd apart methodically, setting his man up with left jabs and solid body shots. Sonny showed fast hands, using an accurate left jab, along with hooks and uppercuts. He had a definite game plan and executed it perfectly. If they fought a hundred times during that period the result would have been the same."Liston’s technical skills, and mastery of boxing, is at least the equal of any other heavyweight who ever lived…Sonny Liston - Skills - Reemus BoxingUp to 1962, Sonny showed no major weaknesses at all. But Father Time was catching up, and starting in the Floyd Patterson rematch, Sonny began suffering a series of injuries that dramatically altered his style and results…Sonny at his peak, 1958–1962, in the March to the TitleSprings Toledo, in Gods of War, laid out a powerful and compelling case, based on Sonny’s incredible march to the title, that he was the most talented heavyweight in history - seconded by Joe Louis - and would have been favored to defeat every heavyweight ever, except possibly a Young Ali.Joe Louis thought Sonny could whip every heavyweight who ever lived.Muhammad Ali thought Sonny in his peak period beat every heavyweight ever, except possibly him in his fastest iteration.Manny Steward thought the Sonny of his march to the title could beat any heavyweight who ever lived, including perhaps Ali, saying:“when the match-up came [in 1964–65] 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.”Heavyweight History With Emanuel Steward: Part 3 Of 3 • East Side Boxing • News ArchivesThe March to the TitleListon’s 1958 to 1960 march to the title is a feat unmatched by Ali, Joe Louis, Foreman, Tyson or anyone else. Sonny knocked out 7 of the top 10 contenders in less than 2 years, and beat the 8th, who ran for his life, by points.He fought every single top 10 contender who would meet him, and his destruction of the top 10 contenders on his march to the title in 1958–1960 is unmatched in history.Read that again: Liston’s feats from 1958–1960 are unique in boxing history.Sonny’s march to the title and his complete destruction of the top 10 contenders, had never been done before, and hasn’t been done since, in any weight class.Manny Steward, who loved boxing from the time he was a child, said:“Sonny Liston, 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.”Heavyweight History With Emanuel Steward: Part 3 Of 3 • East Side Boxing • News ArchivesOnly Ingemar Johansson and Henry Cooper, of those fighters rated in the top ten during Liston’s prime years, escaped beatings by him - and they declined to fight him.His 8 top 10 contender opponents during this period had a combined record of four hundred nineteen wins with only ninety-nine losses. (Bear in mind that thirteen of those losses came from fighting Liston!)Nino Valdes, one of those destroyed in Sonny’s march to the title, as he lay dying of cancer, spoke to his fight against Sonny in his march to the title:“It [cancer] doesn’t hurt as much as getting hit by Sonny Liston!”NO other fighter in history has destroyed the top 10 the way Sonny did.Manny Steward thought the Sonny of his march to the title could beat any heavyweight who ever lived, including perhaps Ali, saying:“when the match-up came [in 1964–65] 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.”Heavyweight History With Emanuel Steward: Part 3 Of 3 • East Side Boxing • News ArchivesMonte Cox marvelled of Liston:“No one else in boxing history knocked out an undisputed heavyweight champion in the first round - and then he did it again.”A Case for Sonny Liston by Monte Cox.But Father Time, and Injuries, proved Sonny’s downfallSonny’s first major injury (other than the freak broken jaw he had suffered almost a decade earlier) was a serious injury to his left knee as he prepared to rematch Floyd Patterson.The fight was originally scheduled for April 4, 1963, in Miami Beach, Florida, but had to be rescheduled to April 10 when Liston injured his left knee. The match was then rescheduled a second time to June 27 in Las Vegas, Nevada, because of a recurrence of the knee injury.Sonny, who usually ran 6 miles a day in camp, was limited to a few hundred yards. His sparring had to be curtailed. Today the knee would be scoped, repaired, and in fine order in no time. Back then, major knee surgery ended one’s career, so Sonny tried to rest it, and hoped for the best.Floyd Patterson should have listened to the Great Cus D’Amato, who like a shark smelling blood advised Floyd to go on the bicycle outside and wait for Sonny to either gas from his compromised conditioning, or collapse on the bad knee.Instead, Floyd once again attempted to rush inside on Sonny, and was knocked out again in a little over 2 minutes of the first round.But the knee problems persisted.However, the knee paled compared to what happened to Sonny’s shoulder in 1964…Sonny was suffering from a severe shoulder injury in his left shoulder from his training camp before his first fight with Ali. When you figure in that Sonny, a left hander fighting orthodox, depended on his jab to set up everything else he did, offensively and defensively, he was a shell of what he should have been.In addition, Sonny was operating on a gimpy knee. His last fight before meeting Ali had to be postponed twice due to a left knee injury. It was still bothering him 8 months later when he faced Ali.Sonny was reduced to jogging a few hundred yards, instead of his 6 miles a day.Sonny was badly injured before the first Ali fight, but fought anywayListon had tried to postpone the fight to rehab the shoulder or have it surgically repaired.Liston had sought a postponement after the injury in training camp, of the fight for several months to let the injury heal, which the Florida Commission denied. He evidently worsened it dramatically during the fight. (Liston said it was partially torn before the fight, and tore completely in the first round - nonetheless by force of will he fought on until after the sixth, when he literally could not lift the arm at all)In addition, he was still operating on a sore knee, which had caused his last fight, eight months before Ali, to be postponed twice!Nonetheless the commission mandated he fight on.Medical evidence that he was badly hurt during the fightIt is certain that Sonny had suffered a torn biceps muscle and tendon in his left shoulder, and a severe rotator cuff tear. His purse had been ordered seized following the loss to Ali in the first fight, and the Miami Beach Boxing Commission did not officially release it until it had accepted medical verification of the injury.The Commission, confident it could steal Sonny’s purse, refused to accept his doctors, or even neutral doctor’s evaluation and verification of the seriousness of his injuries. No, they insisted on selecting their own doctors.And those commission Doctors determined that because of the injury, Liston was unable to answer the bell for the seventh round in the fight at Convention Hall.Those were commission doctors, hired to justify the seizure of Sonny’s purse - but the injuries were so severe they could not ignore the extent of them, and ruled he could not possibly have gone on.Dr. Alexander Robbins, chief physician for the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, diagnosed Liston’s injury as:“a torn tendon in his left shoulder.Tex Maule, writing for Sports Illustrated said that Liston's shoulder injury was serious, citing first Liston's inability to lift his arm:“There is no doubt that Liston's arm was damaged. In the sixth round, he carried it at belt level so that it was of no help in warding off the right crosses with which Clay probed at the cut under his left eye."Maule also got access to medical records:“A team of eight doctors inspected Liston's arm at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach and agreed that it was too badly damaged for Liston to continue fighting. The torn tendon had bled down into the mass of the biceps, swelling and numbing the arm.”Liston went to his Denver home after the fight, then went to Philadelphia for consultation with an orthopedic surgeon. The full extent of his incapacitation, and any treatment he received for it, surgery, or otherwise, will never be known.Dr. Richard C. Bennett of Detroit, who was been the personal physician of Joe Louis and Sugar Ray Robinson, said that the injury, caused by a sudden overstrain, was akin to tennis elbow. Doctor Bennett said the pain alone would have been disabling.And yet the cards were dead even when Liston could no longer raise his arm after the 6th, and had to throw in the towel. (One 58–56 Sonny, one 58–56 Ali, one even)The second Ali fight - injuries also a factorThe fight was set for November 16, 1964, at the Boston Garden. Liston was listed as a betting favorite by 13-5. Three days before the fight, Ali suffered an incarcerated inguinal hernia. He underwent immediate surgery at Boston City Hospital. "It was such a marvelously developed stomach, I hated to slice it up," said one of the attending physicians.Sonny had made one last giant effort and whipped himself into great shape for this fight, but at least 37, (and probably a lot older) he couldn’t hold his conditioning when the fight was delayed.The fight was rescheduled for May 25, 1965. That delay ruined completely Liston’s timing, and in addition, forced him to go back into training after the New Year, and strained his chronically injured left shoulder, and his knee both.He was completely unable to run leading up to the second fight after the reschedule.Sonny, at least 37 in 1965, was never completely healthy againHis knee and shoulder continued to trouble him the rest of his life. Yet he won 15 of 16 fights after losing to Ali.After his defeats by Ali, Sonny took time off, and tried to heal his injuries, then he begun a 5 year Quixotic journey to force another title fight, and repair his legacy. Despite his best efforts, the establishment sabotaged him.Liston won his final fight, a tough but one-sided match against future world title challenger Chuck Wepner in June 1970. Wepner, who fought great heavyweights like Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, said no one ever hit him harder than Liston.Wepner said:“Sonny made George [Foreman] look like Mr. Friendly!"Sonny was at least 42 for his last fight.the boxing establishment and the mainstream media spread tales of Sonny eating hot dogs and drinking beer before his bouts with Ali. They never mentioned his injuries, Every effort was made to demean the legacy of Sonny Liston…After Ali’s first victory over Sonny, the boxing establishment really got even with Sonny, A Boxing Illustrated editorial remarked:“Nobody wants to be reminded of Sonny Liston. The idea is to forget him."Fifty years on, Cassius Clay v Sonny Liston remains a pivotal moment | Sean IngleHow should Sonny be remembered?Perhaps a profile of the then world champion in the 1964 Boxing Yearbook captured the awesome ability and tortured soul of Sonny Liston best by saying:“For Sonny Liston, it was easy being a superman. It was being a man that was often difficult."CREDIT TOAll rankings and statistics to BoxrecA Case for Sonny Liston by Monte Cox.Ali: A Life by Jonathan EigBad Intentions : The Mike Tyson Story by Peter HellerCox’s Corner and Monte CoxGods of War by Springs ToledoListon and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King by Bob MeesMuhammad Ali: A Life by Jonathan EigSonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch by Rob SteenSonny Liston in a New Light: With 4 Excerpts from Sonny Liston by Paul GallenderThe Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick Tosches