Sonny Liston: A Biography of The Arkansa Brown Bear!
Though Sonny Liston has no birth certificate he was credited as being born in 1932. Sony briefly reigned as Heavyweight Champion after a first-round knockout against Floyd Patterson. However, his career was marred by criminal activity and, later, accusations of mob connections and throwing fights. Unfortunately though Liston began to live the life of a comfortable man.
The first fight, in Miami in 1964, saw Liston refuse to continue after the sixth round due to a shoulder injury. The second fight, a rematch in 1965 in Lewiston, Maine, resulted in a controversial first-round knockout of Liston by Ali.
| Name: | Sonny Liston |
| Date of Birth: | No official Record. May 8th 1932 |
| Nationality: | United States |
| Gym(s): | The amateur, boxing travelling training camps of the USSR. |
| Location: | Multiple locations around Arkansas |
| Manager: | Eddie Yawitz |
| Boxing Career: | Amateur, Professional |
| Nicknames: | ‘The Big Bear’ |
| Height: | 6 Foot 1 inches |
| Reach:Professional Record: | 84 inches |
| Stance: | Orthodox |
| Weight Class: | Heavyweight |
| Total Fights: | 54 |
| Wins: | 50 |
| Wins by KO: | 39 |
| Losses: | 4 |
| Draws: | 0 |
| No contests: | 0 |
| Notable Fights: | Sonny Liston vs Floyd Paterson, Sonny Liston vs Muhammed. Ali |
Sonny Liston Style
Sonny Liston was known for the following:
The landing jab and keeping his arm extended in his opponent’s face, this meant that his glove inevitably blinded his opponent. This was useful when his opponent’s had already started their own punch, as they wer often forced to miss the punch. This was especially the case if Liston was moving whilst throwing the blinding jab.
Setting up ‘rights’
Liston would use his extended lead hand to occupy his opponent until he was in position to land his right hand. Liston would push his jab out, and then step in so that he didn’t have to reach with the right hand. Being closer to his opponent, he could then simply turn his right side into the punch. This allowed him to generate more power in his legs more efficiently.
Movement
Liston would also intelligently take advantage of movement to catch his opponent’s with right hands. In order to force the opening for the right hand, Liston would use the jab to manipulate his opponent’s movement. With his opponent’s trying to evade his jab, they would either move left (away from it), through head movement or foot movement. Either way, this would cause them to move directly into the right hand.
Double Jab
Liston would also use the double jab, to set up his right hand. Primarily, Liston would step into a new position whilst throwing the double jab, so that it comes from a new angle. By stepping into his right side, he ends up on the outside of his opponent’s lead left shoulder. This forced his opponent to make more of an effort to turn, if he plans to land his punch. This bought time for Liston to throw punches whilst his opponent readjusted.
Sonny Liston certainly doesn’t get as much as credit as he is possibly due, no doubt because he was a dangerous puncher. Liston liked to keep his opponents at range, and from the middle range, he was truly devastating, just ask the 39 opponents he knocked out. But next time you happen to watch Liston’s fight footage, don’t just keep an eye for his knockouts. Watch out for the subtleties that set up the knockouts. To do any less would be a great disservice to the great man Charles L. ‘Sonny’ Liston.
Sonny Liston: Early Life
Sonny Liston early life was marked by poverty and hardship Born in St. Francis County, Arkansas, he was the 24th of 25 children to sharecropper parents. He experienced abuse, limited education, and a life of hard work in the fields. He later moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where he struggled with crime and ended up in prison. While incarcerated, he was introduced to boxing and began to hone his skills
Sonny Listom Title Defences
Sonny Liston had one succesful title defence. He knocked out Floyd Patterson in their rematch in July 1963, after previously defeating him in September 1962. His reign as champion ended when he was defeated by Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) in February 1964
Sonny Liston First Professional Loss.
Sonny Liston’s first professional loss was to Marty Marshall on September 7, 1954. This loss occurred in Liston’s eighth professional fight. He broke his jaw in the fight and lost a split decision.
International Boxing Hall of Fame:
Liston was inducted into the IBHOF in 1991, recognizing his achievements as a world heavyweight champion.
World Title:
He became the world heavyweight champion on September 25, 1962, by defeating Floyd Patterson in one round.
Key Victories:
Liston also defeated other prominent heavyweights, including Roy Harris, Zora Folley, Eddie Machen, Cleveland Williams, Mike DeJohn, Henry Clark, and Chuck Wepner.
Loss to Casisus Clay:
His reign as champion ended in 1964 when he quit on his stool against Cassius Clay before the seventh round.
Legacy:
Liston’s career and boxing prowess are remembered and celebrated through his Hall of Fame induction.
YouTube videos of Sonny Liston
Could any fighter have beaten Sonny Liston in his prime
According to the people who knew best, fighters, the only fighter in history who could have beaten Hall of Fame and undisputed heavyweight champion Sonny Liston was a young Muhammad Ali – and that was no certain thing.
Ali said Liston could have easily defeated every heavyweight who ever lived except himself, and that would be tough.
For the people who say his record was ordinary, Manny Steward said it was something he had never seen before or after, in its dominance.
First, as my friend a boxing comment points out, Sonny never had a prime. Born in a tarpaper shack on a sharecropper’s plot in Arkansas, Sonny and his family had no idea how old he was. One sister said he was born after the Great War, WW1. Prison doctors in 1950 guessed his age from his teeth and appearance at 22.
In any event, he did not start boxing until his mid 20’s, and yet, is one of the most fundamentally sound boxing masters who ever lived.
Sonny Liston was more akin to Larry Holmes and Lennox Lewis than he was his pupil George Foreman. He was a very cautious master boxer, a scientific boxer-puncher, a heavyweight fighter of great skill, a deadly finisher with the most powerful, and possibility the best, jab ever. The basis to his boxing style though was always boxing technical skills, jab to control distance, 84 inch reach and punching power.
The two closest heavyweights to him in style and ability are the Great Larry Holmes and Lennox Lewis. Other than Ali, those two would have been best able to fight Sonny, because like him, they were master pugilists, with reach and power.
At least 3 experts believe a peak Sonny could have beaten every fighter who ever lived, including Ali
Springs 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.”
Sonny Liston did things no boxer has done before, or since.
Liston’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.”
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.
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.”
Monte 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.”
Sonny’s power has never been equalled in the boxing ring
Sonny Liston had the hardest one shot punch, based on what he did to other fighters, and what fighters who knew them both well said…
Boxing Historian Monte Cox wrote that:
“Liston was made to be a fighter. His physical attributes bordered on the freakish. At barely six-foot, one-inch, he had an eighty-four inch reach—longer than that of all other champions with the exception of Primo Carnera. His neck was a massive eighteen inches. But the number that leaps off the page—the statistic that looks initially like a typo—is that which corresponds to his hands. When closed into a fist, they measured fifteen inches around, virtually twice the size of an average man’s. To contemplate the impact of a fist that large, delivered over a distance that great, from a man so determined to do damage, would give even the bravest opponent pause..”
George Foreman himself said Sonny Liston was the hardest puncher he ever faced, when he sparred with him after the Olympics in the 60’s. Sonny was at least 40 then, and probably closer to 50, but George said he had never felt power like Sonny’s, and that Liston was the only man ever able to force him backwards by sheer brute strength in the ring.
You-tube and other videos do not convey the extent of Sonny Liston’s pure raw power, nor do they convey his extraordinary ability to deliver power shots.
A combination of Sonny’s extraordinary boxing ability, his reach, and his pinpoint accuracy allowed him to deliver kill shots outside the range of almost every opponent he faced.
Zora Foley said:
“You can’t believe how strong Sonny is until you feel it.”
A good example of Sonny’s sheer strength was an exercise he devised in training camp of loading an industrial sized wheelbarrow full of rocks, and wheeling it up and down a hill. George Foreman, 19, went from winning Gold in the Olympics to working with Sonny Liston, who by then, was in his 40’s.
In Foreman’s training with “the old man,” George could only carry one wheelbarrow for every 3 for Sonny. “His strength,” said Foreman:
“You just can’t believe how strong he was!” (Foreman later took Sonny’s idea, and pulled a car up and down a hill to train!)
George was asked who the strongest fighter he ever saw was, and he answered:
“Sonny Liston, and he was the strongest MAN I ever saw!”
Cleveland Williams said:
“No human being hits as hard as Sonny Liston. You can’t describe his strength – no man should be that strong!”
Ingemar Johansson promoted Sonny’s fights in Sweden in the 1960’s, and was asked if he would face the much older Sonny, and replied:
“I will promote him, i will not fight him!”
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.
And Sonny was at least 40 when that fight took place…
Sonny Liston knocked out tough fringe contender Wayne Bethea – who had never been stopped and only off his feet once (he claimed it was a slip) in his life prior to fighting Liston – and Sonny stopped him in 1958 in 69 seconds of the first round. Liston dropped Bethea for the first time in his career, knocking out 7 teeth, with 9 more broken! 16 teeth knocked out or broken with one punch!
And that punch was a jab…
Bethea, never the same again, said of Liston :
“He must have hit me with a horseshoe in his glove!”
Nor was that the only time Sonny hit men with unbelievable power that eclipse’s anything Mike or anyone else has done – in the mid 60’s, Sonny sparred with Ray Shoeninger in Denver, and he hit him with a jab so hard, the stitching in Ray’s protective headgear literally tore and the headgear came apart with the blow, which getting through, knocked out three teeth!
Sonny Liston was a genuinely great boxing master
People have forgotten how dominant Liston was in his prime. Boxrec ranks him 5th 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.
Ray Arcel said:
“Sonny Liston was a great boxer. Lot of people never recognized that, because of his power, but Sonny really could box.”
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’s technical skills, and mastery of boxing, is at least the equal of any other heavyweight who ever lived.Liston only lost 4 fights, two to Ali when he was probably far older than his listed age, and badly injured prior to the fight, one to Leotis 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 when he was laughing at his opponent – yet he fought on, only losing a split decision, to Marty Marshall.
Sonny’s fighting skill was evidenced out of the ring as well.
Sonny never minded throwing down in the street either, if he felt disrespected.
Sonny Liston was a proud man, and he chafed at the way the police treated him – and was not afraid to show it. In one early incident, he made his disdain for the police clear while demonstrating his remarkable strength. Again Jonathan Eig relates in Ali: A Life about an incident where the police were harassing Sonny:
“He started a fight with a cop, beat the cop senseless, snatched his gun, picked him up and dumped him in an alley,” [Sonny] then walked away smiling, wearing the cop’s hat.”
Sonny also once took a gun away from a police officer who was harassing him for allegedly driving too slow, 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 and hurled him into a trash dumpster.
For that one, Sonny was sent to the City Work Farm and was locked up and out of boxing for nearly two years. Only the fact the police did not want their harassment of Liston publicized saved him from decades in Pennsylvania prisons.
Sonny was the most feared and avoided heavyweight in history
14 top fighters, ranked in the top 150 of all time by Boxrec, 10 of them in the top 100, refused to fight Sonny Liston.
When Sonny challenged Joe Frazier, Joe accepted, but his team vetoed the fight. Sonny was saddened saying:
“It’d be like shooting fish a barrel!
Fight City, which has Liston as the most intimidating fighter of all time, (with Mike Tyson happily ensconced as #2 and Foreman as #5.
Eddie Futch once summed up the difference between Mike and George, and Sonny Liston when it came to intimidation. Mike and George, explained Eddie, adopted the baleful looks and grim demeanor. They saw it worked to intimidate, and they used that. But Sonny, the old trainer said:
Commentary
“With Sonny it was real, that was the real Sonny, he wasn’t doing it to intimidate, that was just him.”
Ray Arcel dryly noted:
Sonny Liston didn’t just look mean, he was mean, real mean, and he was happy to show folks.”
Sir Henry Cooper, the European and British heavyweight Champion who twice fought Ali, and had a who’s who of opponents in the 50’s and 60’s, had one name glaringly missing from his resume: Sonny Liston. When asked why, Sir Henry said:
“I don’t even want to see him walking down the street, let alone in a gym!”
Zora Foley, perennial heavyweight contender from Marciano’s time to Ali’s, who fought and was knocked out by Liston said:
“I was lucky, Sonny didn’t dislike me, so he just beat me up a little.”
George Foreman said the 40’s Sonny Liston he sparred with in the late 60’s, early in his professional career was the only man who could ever force him backwards by sheer brute strength in the ring:
“I was afraid of Joe Frazier,” said Big George, “every man is afraid of a man like that, if he has sense. But with Sonny Liston I was always real careful to not make him mad. Sonny was something special.”
Rocky Marciano said of Liston:
“He he isn’t faking his toughness, and his strength is just something you got to see, and that jab, he can knock a man out with the jab! I would not care to have been in the ring with him.”
interestingly, Sonny actually respected Marciano, and liked him as much as he did anyone – and Sonny did not respect or like a lot of people. Sonny said of Marciano:
“He was a great champion, he was never defeated, and he refused to be defeated.” To Sonny, being tough made you a man.
Patterson was asked once, who the hardest puncher he ever faced was.
When he said “Johansson,” the surprised reporter said:
“What about Sonny Liston?” Patterson smiled sadly and said, “oh, I thought you meant fighters I thought I had any chance of beating.”
Mike Tyson studied Liston (and Jack Dempsey) for their ability to intimidate an opponent. Mike is a lot smarter than people credit him for, and said once:
“if you can make your opponent afraid, he is beat before he ever gets in the ring. Sonny Liston was the best at that – look what he did to Patterson.”
Liston said he knew Patterson was beat when Floyd refused to meet Sonny’s eyes during the weigh in. Then Patterson brought a fake beard and a disguise so he could sneak out of the Chicago arena after he lost his title.
Bottom Line:
Talent wise, Sonny Liston was perhaps the best of all time other than Ali. Record wise, we do not really know. He got started late, had constant legal troubles, and was the most feared and avoided fighter in history.
Monte 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.”
Manny Steward is right, of all the heavyweights who ever lived, only a Young, Peak Ali would have favored to beat Sonny Liston at his peak…and if Ali made a mistake…goodnight Muhammad
