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Pretty cool interview. I never saw this before. The interview with Liston goes on for nearly a half hour. Liston keeps his answers fairly short. But he's in a great mood and is pretty talkative for Sonny. It seems to have taken place in December 1963 when Liston was the dominant champ, because they discuss the Kennedy assassination (which took place at the end of November 1963) and he talks about how he'll begin training for the Cassius Clay defense two days after Christmas (Dec. 27, 1963). So this took place early in December 1963.
Good stuff. It starts out with the awkward "look how big your hands are" comments and then gets into questions about boxing. The interviewer does a pretty good job keeping Sonny relaxed. Sonny mentions after fighting Clay he may defend against Terrell. He also brings up Machen, although, he says Machen seems to be falling in the ratings. He brings up Cleveland WIlliams and says he considers his best performance to be against Zora Folley. Too bad we can't see that one. (Maybe someday).
He also mentions Joe Louis' wife was his new lawyer. If I heard that before, I didn't recall it. He also speaks of his fight with Johnny Summerlin and he says everyone thought Summerlin would beat him. That's why they rematched so soon afterward. He also said he had no cornerman for his first loss against Marty Marshall. He took the train to the fight and his manager and cornermen never showed up. So he had to ask some cornerman working with other fighters to help "take out his mouthpiece" in the corner during the fight.
Check it out. I'm not sure what the program "On The Spot" was. Seems like it may have been a local Denver television program. At the end the of the clip the interviewer is asked about all the people he's interviewed over the years. Seems like a lot of celebrities came through Denver. Apparently, he interviewed both Max Baer and Sonny Liston, so he'd been conducting interviews for a while. At the end of the video the interviewer also discusses a long road trip he once took with Jack Dempsey (who drove the whole way).
Good stuff. It starts out with the awkward "look how big your hands are" comments and then gets into questions about boxing. The interviewer does a pretty good job keeping Sonny relaxed. Sonny mentions after fighting Clay he may defend against Terrell. He also brings up Machen, although, he says Machen seems to be falling in the ratings. He brings up Cleveland WIlliams and says he considers his best performance to be against Zora Folley. Too bad we can't see that one. (Maybe someday).
He also mentions Joe Louis' wife was his new lawyer. If I heard that before, I didn't recall it. He also speaks of his fight with Johnny Summerlin and he says everyone thought Summerlin would beat him. That's why they rematched so soon afterward. He also said he had no cornerman for his first loss against Marty Marshall. He took the train to the fight and his manager and cornermen never showed up. So he had to ask some cornerman working with other fighters to help "take out his mouthpiece" in the corner during the fight.
Check it out. I'm not sure what the program "On The Spot" was. Seems like it may have been a local Denver television program. At the end the of the clip the interviewer is asked about all the people he's interviewed over the years. Seems like a lot of celebrities came through Denver. Apparently, he interviewed both Max Baer and Sonny Liston, so he'd been conducting interviews for a while. At the end of the video the interviewer also discusses a long road trip he once took with Jack Dempsey (who drove the whole way).
BattlingNelson
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