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It simply will never be known how old Sonny Liston really was when he fought Ali.What is absolutely certain is that he was much older than his listed age.CREDIT PICTURE Boxing.comIt is possible Sonny was over 40 - according to his sister he was 45 when he fought Ali the first timeit is certainly possible that Sonny was over 40 - his sister said he was 45 when he fought Ali the first time. Look at his pictures, he certainly appeared in his 40’s.His official age on his boxing license was 32, but that was certainly wrong. His age according to his arrest records and the Missouri Department of Corrections was at least 36. According to his sister and recent research by Paul Gallender in Sonny Liston - The Real Story Behind the Ali-Liston Fights Sonny was born in 1919, and was 45 when he fought Ali.Arrest and prison records make it a certainty that Sonny was at least 36 for the first fight, and 37 for the second. His sister, who he was extremely close to, and who remembered his birth - he was much younger than she was - said he was born the year after the Great War, (World War I) which would have made him 45 when he fought Ali the first time.CREDIT PICTURE CHILD OF THE SIXTIES FOREVERWhy is there such confusion about Sonny Liston’s age?Sonny did not know when he was born, literally, and as to why that was so, and why for so long no one seemed to care about when and where Sonny was born, you have to understand the history of Sonny, his family, Black men in America, and how the boxing establishment hated Sonny.Now Boxing historians have managed to ascertain that he probably was born far earlier than he had thought or listed on his commission licenses, with one historian figuring from family tales that Sonny might have been born as early as 1919, or 1920.Arrest and prison records make it a certainty that Sonny was at least 36 for the first fight, and 37 for the second. His sister, who he was extremely close to, and who remembered his birth - he was much younger than she was - said he was born the year after the Great War, (World War I) which would have made him 45 when he fought Ali the first time.Sonny was the product of a harsh, unforgiving, poverty struck life, where he was born at home, and there were no records of his birthCharles "Sonny" Liston was born at home, or the shack that passed for their home, into a sharecropping family, the second youngest child in a combined family of 25 children, 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.His father literally used him as a beast of burden, hooking him to a plow as a child, and life was cruel to Sonny till the day he died, and that cruelty persists to this day."The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating," Liston said.The relentlessly sadistic father’s whippings left lifelong scars on the boxer. “If he missed a day,” Liston said, “I’d feel like saying: ‘How come you didn’t whip me today?'”"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."Sonny reflected on his childhood later when speaking of prison, "at least they fed us 3 squares a day." Sonny told Boxing Illustrated in 1964 about his life before prison: "On the good days I ate. On the bad ones I told my stomach to forget it."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 never went to school, so there are no school recordsSonny 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 perhaps 9 year old son to the plow and made him the mule. When Sonny was 13, (or thought he might be 13) his mother and siblings ran away from his father, and left Sonny to the merciless cruelty of his father. But Sonny had had enough, and, managed to run away to try to rejoin them.With no school, and no work, Sonny ran the streets as a young manIn St. Louis, Sonny, who had never been to school, and who was ashamed to start because he could neither read, nor write, was left to run the streets, and ended up in trouble.According to Nick Tosches book, "Night Train," Sonny led a gang of thugs who committed various crimes, including muggings and armed robberies. Because he wore a distinctive yellow shirt during his crime spree, the St. Louis police called Liston the "Yellow Shirt Bandit." When caught in January 1950, Liston gave his age as 20, while the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that he was 22.Sonny at least got fed in prison - and he learned to boxSonny was convicted of robbery and sentenced to five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary, where he began his prison sentence on June 1, 1950. His age in DOC records was listed as 23.According to Tosches, Liston never complained about prison, saying he "had three meals every day for the first time in his life." The athletic director at Missouri State Penitentiary was a priest, Father. Alois Stevens, who took a likely to Liston and suggested to him he try boxing.Father Stevens supported Liston in making parole, and brought him to the attention of boxing trainers on the outside. Bob Mee's book "Liston and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King" recounts that to help Liston show his potential to trainers, Father Stevens organized a sparring session with a rising local St. Louis heavyweight named Thurman Wilson, who was 5-2-1 as a pro, to showcase Liston's potential. The story is that after two rounds, Wilson quit saying "Better get me out of this ring," exclaimed Wilson, "he is going to kill me."Wilson never fought again.And this was to a man who was at least 24 when he started boxing, and had never had a sanctioned match when he confronted a heavyweight with a 5–2–1 pro record.The illiterate Sonny, who could neither read nor write, finally found something he was good at. Unfortunately for Sonny, the 50's was a time that the Mob controlled the fight game, and he was used by the Mob as badly as his father abused him. Rocky Marciano, speaking of the Mob and the fight game in "Unbeaten : Rocky Marciano's Fight for Perfection in a Crooked World" by Mike Stanton, made clear that if you wanted to fight, you had to cooperate, to some extent, with the Mob.Even Rocky, known as an honest fighter, was forced to kiss the Mob ring as in visiting Vito Genovese, who on the point of death in prison in Leavenworth, had asked to see the Rock. Rocky would say later that Mafia figures would invite him to lunch, advised him on which tailors to use, bought him clothes and shirts. Rocky did not like accepting gifts - but he was grateful that was all that was asked of him, and that unlike other fighters, he did not have to do more.Liston, once out of prison, began rapidly rising as a fighter. Except for a fight he allegedly threw for the Mob, (he later claimed he was injured laughing at the other fighter), Sonny was undefeated his first three years as a pro.NO one cared how old Sonny really was - he was battering professional fighters the way a bowler does ten pins.But Sonny could not stay out of trouble. A proud man, he chafed at the way the police treated him - and was not afraid to show 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. The 1956 incident occurred because a cop confronted him and a friend about a cab parked near Liston's home, and enraged, 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.Sonny became number one contender in late 1959, and should have gotten his title shot. But it would be three more years before he did. Cus D’Amato, who knew Floyd Patterson had no chance against “the old man” used every excuse in the book to keep from fighting Liston. He claimed Sonny was a criminal. He claimed Sonny was managed by criminals. He claimed Sonny was a thug. Finally, Floyd Patterson, who was ashamed to be thought afraid, overruled Cus and gave Sonny his title shot.Age didn’t matter until Liston ran into AliAge did not matter, and Sonny destroyed Patterson in two minutes, and in the rematch, did it again in two minutes and a few seconds.But age, and injury, did matter against the rising Gold Medal Olympian we know today as Muhammad Ali, and the rest is history.The boxing establishment deliberately tried to obscure Sonny’s accomplishmentsSadly, since his death, a deliberate effort by the boxing establishment has caused Sonny name to fade into obscurity. People have forgotten how really good, and truly feared Liston was. By 1964 he was considered unbeatable. He had lost once in 36 bouts – and that defeat in 1954, during which he suffered a broken jaw but fought on, merely added to his reputation. One contemporary profile said he was "surprisingly fast, remarkably quick" and noted his punishing jab while the former heavyweight champion Joe Louis admitted, "I'm glad he wasn't around when I was fighting."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.

There are four, or more, situations that I can think of. There's my situation - I was being abused and decided to leave my husband straight from the hospital he put me in, when I went the legal route to try to get my baby from him he won. He and his family had money and a home and a good job and I had no proof of what happened on their property. They were manipulative and had connections, and I had nothing but a DV shelter whose staff saw a scared, depressed, emotional wreck and were honest with DFS about it. I fought, and struggled, and sacrificed, for three years. They made my life miserable and twisted the truth to make my child's unhappiness and what she was deprived of MY fault. So I walked away and went on with life. But I remember my baby often, I miss her and hope she'll come and find me when she's of age. I keep track of her grandpa and uncle - the only family that has photos and stuff that are public on Facebook so I can see without friending them. They moved from Missouri to Tennessee or Kentucky shortly after I “abandoned her”. I have two children from another relationship now, but neither my daughter whom I went into labor with on her birthday, nor my son who reminds me so much of her, can ever replace her in heart.There's situations like my mom and several other parents I know, who did their best and tried to keep their kids on track, but either the child's psychological issues couldn't be or weren't dealt with properly or outside influences tied the parent's hands - drugs and gangs, criminal behaviors causing separation, government restrictions and such that interferes, nasty custody battles like mine, trauma and tragedy, a family whose child was kidnapped and never found, etc. The parent(s) lose influence or control of their child.The parents are responsible for the whole family unit and in order to protect the children or the family they have no choice but to send one or more children away - such as in England during WW1 and WW2 when children who lived in cities were shipped fast away to live in a safer area, or when the behavior of one child puts the entire family danger and nothing the parents do makes it better, or when a battered parent shuffles the children off to a relative and makes a stand against the abuser intent on kill or die trying, or when a parent who has a disease, illness or injury that will leave them dependant on the care of others and/or slowly and painfully kill them gives up the children instead of subjecting them to that.The parent is selfish or has a psychological illness or drug abuse problem or is running from the law or the child is the result of adultery or teen pregnancy and either the parent doesn't know or doesn't care that their children need them.There's also situations where the parent doesn't KNOW they're walking away from a child - a man whose wife or girlfriend or one-night-stand ran off instead of letting him know she was pregnant, a person who's told their child died when that wasn't true, etc.

NO one knows for sure how old Sonny was, because:Arkansas pre-World War 1 did not even record births, and though they recorded those which were reported after 1914, reporting them was not mandatory, and Sonny’s family did not report any of their births;Sonny was born in a shack on a sharecropper’s plot with no medical help, and no official notation of his birth by a doctor or anyone else;Sonny’s family recorded births by carving them onto a tree, which, by the time Sonny went back in the 1950’s to find out how old he was, had been cut down;Sonny’s father did not trust the government, and was not known to cooperate with the census or any official;Sonny’s father didn’t let him go to school, ever, he worked him on the land from the time he could toddle, so there are no school records;During the 1930 Census, he was working on the farm, didn’t go to school, had never seen a doctor or dentist, and so there was no record of him anywhere;His 1950 arrest records had him at 22; his 1950 prison records had him at 23, the prison doctor estimated his age at mid-20’s;He had to report a birth date for the boxing commission so he made one up out of thin air.CREDIT PICTURE ST. LOUIS POLICE DEPARTMENTNo one had a clue how old Sonny wasSonny’s official age on his boxing license was 32, but that was certainly wrong. His age in 1964, according to his arrest records and the Missouri Department of Corrections was at least 36, but more likely 37 or older. According to his sister and recent research by Paul Gallender in Sonny Liston - The Real Story Behind the Ali-Liston Fights Sonny was born in 1919, and was 45 when he fought Ali.Sonny’s sister, who he was extremely close to, and who remembered his birth - he was much younger than she was - said he was born the year after the Great War, (World War I) which would have made him 45 when he fought Ali the first time.Why is there such confusion about Sonny Liston’s age?Sonny did not know when he was born, literally, and as to why that was so, and why for so long no one seemed to care about when and where Sonny was born, you have to understand the history of Sonny, his family, Black men in America, and how the boxing establishment hated Sonny.Now Boxing historians have managed to ascertain that he probably was born far earlier than he had thought or listed on his commission licenses, with one historian figuring from family tales that Sonny might have been born as early as 1919, or 1920.Arrest and prison records make it a certainty that Sonny was at least 36 for the first fight, and 37 for the second. His sister, who he was extremely close to, and who remembered his birth - he was much younger than she was - said he was born the year after the Great War, (World War I) which would have made him 45 when he fought Ali the first time.The 1930 census used to be cited as authority that he was born afterwards, but research by Paul Gallender and others revealed that Sonny’s father did not cooperate with any government official, and was certainly reluctant to reveal Sonny’s existence because he was supposed to be going to school, and his father had refused to let him at all.Sonny was the product of a harsh, unforgiving, poverty struck life, where he was born at home, and there were no records of his birthCharles "Sonny" Liston was born at home, or the shack that passed for their home, into a sharecropping family, the second youngest child in a combined family of 25 children, 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.His father literally used him as a beast of burden, hooking him to a plow as a child, and life was cruel to Sonny till the day he died, and that cruelty persists to this day."The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating," Liston said.The relentlessly sadistic father’s whippings left lifelong scars on the boxer. “If he missed a day,” Liston said, “I’d feel like saying: ‘How come you didn’t whip me today?'”"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."Sonny reflected on his childhood later when speaking of prison, "at least they fed us 3 squares a day." Sonny told Boxing Illustrated in 1964 about his life before prison: "On the good days I ate. On the bad ones I told my stomach to forget it."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 never went to school, so there are no school recordsSonny 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 perhaps 9 year old son to the plow and made him the mule. When Sonny was 13, (or thought he might be 13) his mother and siblings ran away from his father, and left Sonny to the merciless cruelty of his father. But Sonny had had enough, and, managed to run away to try to rejoin them.With no school, and no work, Sonny ran the streets as a young manIn St. Louis, Sonny, who had never been to school, and who was ashamed to start because he could neither read, nor write, was left to run the streets, and ended up in trouble.According to Nick Tosches book, "Night Train," Sonny led a gang of thugs who committed various crimes, including muggings and armed robberies. Because he wore a distinctive yellow shirt during his crime spree, the St. Louis police called Liston the "Yellow Shirt Bandit." When caught in January 1950, Liston gave his age as 20, while the St. Louis Globe-Democrat reported that he was 22.Sonny at least got fed in prison - and he learned to boxSonny was convicted of robbery and sentenced to five years in the Missouri State Penitentiary, where he began his prison sentence on June 1, 1950. His age in DOC records was listed as 23.According to Tosches, Liston never complained about prison, saying he "had three meals every day for the first time in his life." The athletic director at Missouri State Penitentiary was a priest, Father. Alois Stevens, who took a likely to Liston and suggested to him he try boxing.Father Stevens supported Liston in making parole, and brought him to the attention of boxing trainers on the outside. Bob Mee's book "Liston and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King" recounts that to help Liston show his potential to trainers, Father Stevens organized a sparring session with a rising local St. Louis heavyweight named Thurman Wilson, who was 5-2-1 as a pro, to showcase Liston's potential. The story is that after two rounds, Wilson quit saying "Better get me out of this ring," exclaimed Wilson, "he is going to kill me."Wilson never fought again.And this was to a man who was at least 24 when he started boxing, and had never had a sanctioned match when he confronted a heavyweight with a 5–2–1 pro record.Stop and think about that: Sonny only boxed 2 years before he went proSonny not only did not start boxing until at least 24, in 1951, he then turned professional in 1953!The illiterate Sonny, who could neither read nor write, finally found something he was good at. Unfortunately for Sonny, the 50's was a time that the Mob controlled the fight game, and he was used by the Mob as badly as his father abused him. Rocky Marciano, speaking of the Mob and the fight game in "Unbeaten : Rocky Marciano's Fight for Perfection in a Crooked World" by Mike Stanton, made clear that if you wanted to fight, you had to cooperate, to some extent, with the Mob.Even Rocky, known as an honest fighter, was forced to kiss the Mob ring as in visiting Vito Genovese, who on the point of death in prison in Leavenworth, had asked to see the Rock. Rocky would say later that Mafia figures would invite him to lunch, advised him on which tailors to use, bought him clothes and shirts. Rocky did not like accepting gifts - but he was grateful that was all that was asked of him, and that unlike other fighters, he did not have to do more.Liston, once out of prison, began rapidly rising as a fighter. Except for a fight he allegedly threw for the Mob, (he later claimed he was injured laughing at the other fighter), Sonny was undefeated his first three years as a pro.NO one cared how old Sonny really was - he was battering professional fighters the way a bowler does ten pins.But Sonny could not stay out of trouble. A proud man, he chafed at the way the police treated him - and was not afraid to show 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. The 1956 incident occurred because a cop confronted him and a friend about a cab parked near Liston's home, and enraged, 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.Sonny became number one contender in late 1959, and should have gotten his title shot. But it would be three more years before he did. Cus D’Amato, who knew Floyd Patterson had no chance against “the old man” used every excuse in the book to keep from fighting Liston. He claimed Sonny was a criminal. He claimed Sonny was managed by criminals. He claimed Sonny was a thug. Finally, Floyd Patterson, who was ashamed to be thought afraid, overruled Cus and gave Sonny his title shot.Age didn’t matter until Liston ran into AliAge did not matter, and Sonny destroyed Patterson in two minutes, and in the rematch, did it again in two minutes and a few seconds.But age, and injury, did matter against the rising Gold Medal Olympian we know today as Muhammad Ali, and the rest is history.Contrary to popular belief though, Sonny put up a tremendous fight against the lightning fast Ali, even though he was 14 years younger!Sonny was suffering a severe shoulder injury in his left shoulder. 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.It is certain that Sonny had suffered a torn biceps muscle in his left shoulder. 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 a medical verification of the injury.Doctors determined that because of the injury, Liston was unable to answer the bell for the seventh round in the fight at Convention Hall.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)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, 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 boxing establishment deliberately tried to obscure Sonny’s accomplishmentsSadly, since his death, a deliberate effort by the boxing establishment has caused Sonny name to fade into obscurity. People have forgotten how really good, and truly feared Liston was. By 1964 he was considered unbeatable. He had lost once in 36 bouts – and that defeat in 1954, during which he suffered a broken jaw but fought on, merely added to his reputation. One contemporary profile said he was "surprisingly fast, remarkably quick" and noted his punishing jab while the former heavyweight champion Joe Louis admitted, "I'm glad he wasn't around when I was fighting."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 TO:All rankings and statistics to BoxrecCREDIT FOR QUOTES AND DETAILS TO THE FOLLOWING:Ali: A Life by Jonathan EigBoxing IllustratedCox’s Corner by Monte CoxEncyclopedia of World Boxing Champions by John D. McCallumGods 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 - The Real Story Behind the Ali-Liston Fights 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