Sonny Liston Introspection.

[The D3vil]

I think you mean "retrospective", not "introspection".

[max baer]

just out of interest liston had a very long reach more then people would have thought.
when he was preparing to fight clay angelo dundee said that liston wore lots of towels under his gown to give the impression of being huge and dundee told clay "remember you're taller then him when you get into the centre of the ring you look down on him and show him who is the biggest" and that is what ali did.
Did you know that many think poor old liston was whaked by the mob as he was found in a motel with a needle in his arm heroin od but his wife said sonny was terrified of needles and would never use them he would smoke his drugs. there were many clues that it was a murder made to look like suicide which is soooo common among drug dealers and addicts. poor sonny he tried to be the positive role model champ but the media wanted him to seem a monster for fun and to sell papers.

his grave just says "here lies sonny liston a man"
he really was a tragic figure, Once it was said an italian mafia guy said to him when he was champ "do what I tell you you N**** and remember to me you're just a N****.
He was such a tragic figure I always felt so sorry for him when I read about him.

[Willie Pep 229]

just out of interest liston had a very long reach more then people would have thought.
when he was preparing to fight clay angelo dundee said that liston wore lots of towels under his gown to give the impression of being huge and dundee told clay "remember you're taller then him when you get into the centre of the ring you look down on him and show him who is the biggest" and that is what ali did.
Did you know that many think poor old liston was whaked by the mob as he was found in a motel with a needle in his arm heroin od but his wife said sonny was terrified of needles and would never use them he would smoke his drugs. there were many clues that it was a murder made to look like suicide which is soooo common among drug dealers and addicts. poor sonny he tried to be the positive role model champ but the media wanted him to seem a monster for fun and to sell papers.

his grave just says "here lies sonny liston a man"
he really was a tragic figure, Once it was said an italian mafia guy said to him when he was champ "do what I tell you you N**** and remember to me you're just a N****.
He was such a tragic figure I always felt so sorry for him when I read about him.

Two things ring wrong.

If the Mob wack's you, they either see you as a threat or are they are making a point.

When you are a threat, you disappear (your corpse disappears) and all that is left is doubt.

When they want to make a point, they make sure the murdered body is found.

I can not speak for Latino drug cartels of today. But Liston died in December 1970 when the Italians were controling Las Vegas crime.

It could well be that he was taken out, but a staged suicide doesn't fit their usual MO.

They had no problem disposing of a body. And a disappearance garners far less attention than the evidence, (and the interesting news story,) that can be gained from a corpse.

Not their usual MO.

[max baer]

Two things ring wrong.

If the Mob wack's you, they either see you as a threat or are they are making a point.

When you are a threat, you disappear (your corpse disappears) and all that is left is doubt.

When they want to make a point, they make sure the murdered body is found.

I can not speak for Latino drug cartels of today. But Liston died in December 1970 when the Italians were controling Las Vegas crime.

It could well be that he was taken out, but a staged suicide doesn't fit their usual MO.

They had no problem disposing of a body. And a disappearance garners far less attention than the evidence, (and the interesting news story,) that can be gained from a corpse.

Not their usual MO.

yeah i know bit like norma jean we will never know the truth. but one thing is sure a truth and that is sonny was a very tragic man who deserved better out of life.

[billeau2]

just out of interest liston had a very long reach more then people would have thought.
when he was preparing to fight clay angelo dundee said that liston wore lots of towels under his gown to give the impression of being huge and dundee told clay "remember you're taller then him when you get into the centre of the ring you look down on him and show him who is the biggest" and that is what ali did.
Did you know that many think poor old liston was whaked by the mob as he was found in a motel with a needle in his arm heroin od but his wife said sonny was terrified of needles and would never use them he would smoke his drugs. there were many clues that it was a murder made to look like suicide which is soooo common among drug dealers and addicts. poor sonny he tried to be the positive role model champ but the media wanted him to seem a monster for fun and to sell papers.

his grave just says "here lies sonny liston a man"
he really was a tragic figure, Once it was said an italian mafia guy said to him when he was champ "do what I tell you you N**** and remember to me you're just a N****.
He was such a tragic figure I always felt so sorry for him when I read about him.

Very true... A tragic figure indeed.

[Willie Pep 229]

yeah i know bit like norma jean we will never know the truth. but one thing is sure a truth and that is sonny was a very tragic man who deserved better out of life.

A staged suicide sounds more CIA than mob, e.g. Marilyn.

The CIA can't just disappear you and smirk about it, the way the mob does.

[Slugfester]

I am not sure how much of a better life a strong arm for gangsters deserves. The only thing he had coming I can see was more respect as a boxer.

[billeau2]

I am not sure how much of a better life a strong arm for gangsters deserves. The only thing he had coming I can see was more respect as a boxer.

Liston was "complicated." A lot of people feel the way you do, and it is legit but might you consider a few things about Liston? As far as "enforcers" and fighters go, Liston was one of many... Most recently Hasim Rahman had been a drug enforcer. Liston could be a legit decent guy... He was always great with kids, despite being one of 16 kids, beat by his scmbag of a father. Liston also responded to correction. It is an irony of sorts that the man Liston looked up to, and that put Sonny on the path as a boxer was one of a few tough irish Catholic Priests. Sonny was respectful and thankful to people who were not intimidated and were willing to get to know him. By all accounts I am familiar with Liston was also decent to his wife, who seemed to genuinely love him.

I am not going to say Liston was a teddy bear... but there is a sort of creed among those who have spent time among the dregs of society. The understanding is, nobody is innocent and once your part of the group, you are fair game to how that part of society does business. Certainly having grown up partially in that world as a kid, and later as a bouncer, you definitely see people who have shiat coming lol. They might be otherwise decent... But when you go to a kind of ****tail lounge (being sarcastic) that needs a bouncer, where there are women and men on the prowl for the women, loud music, and alcohol, you are being very foolish if not on your best behavior and if not able to take care of yourself.

[Willow The Wisp]

Sonny died in his lovely home in Paradise Palms, an affluent suburb of Las Vegas.
Much of what Liston faced during the span of his life was racisim, pure and simple. While growing up he faced the poverty that was common for black folk during the 1930s and 40's. As a young adult he took the work avaliable to a hulking, intimidating and nearly illiterate black man in the 1950s, legal or otherwise, and in the 1960's, as the US Civil rights movement was witnessing its modern birth, whites in North America and Europe had to cope with the fact that there wasn't a single white policeman, soldier, football player, wrestler, biker, bouncer, cowboy, lumberjack, street fighter, coal miner or pro fighter on earth who could beat Sonny Liston in a real fight. ...and many of them just hated that fact.
"He's arrogant, surly, mean, rude and altogether frightening," the famed New York Times columnist Arthur Daley once wrote. "He's the last man anyone would want to meet in a dark alley".

Liston himself was in fact an intelligent, self confident, well controlled, highly disciplined athlete was was afraid of nothing and no man, and navigated the world that he lived in the best way any black man living in his time could. If this meant breaking legs for a lot more money than could be earned loading luggage at the airport, working a race reduced pay trade or by migrant farming, then so be it. If that meant dumping racist cops into trash cans head first and taking their sidearm away from them, when disrespected on occasion, then he did that too.
To the knowledge of anyone not trying to sell their book, Liston was never spoken down to by Frankie Carbo or Phil Lombardo or Blinky Palermo or Angelo Bruno or Bernie Glickman or Tommy Eboli or big Mike Miranda, or Russell Bufalino, or even boss Tommy Lucchese and Vito Genovese himself prior to his imprisonment. They loved Liston and loved being around him, because they knew that if all the heaters and shanks were checked at the door, Sonny Liston could beat the **** out of anyone they knew, and they respected that a whole lot.

Moreover the book by Nick Tosches was largely fiction, and yet its unsubstantiated "findings" have gained steam in recent years, even repeated in the Showtime documentary “Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston”. The story surrounds a low level drug dealer named Earl Cage as the culprit, who hires a cop to get Liston blind drunk before administering the "hot shot" that supposedly killed him. More recently, another book, this one by investigative journalist Shaun Assael, makes similar suppositions.
But those who knew Liston brush those and the other dozen or so hypothetical notions off.

Liston was very likely the victim only of himself, and all of the "he hated needles" crap aside, it was pretty well-known that Liston was an infrequent, part-time user late in life. The autopsy would reveal that traces of morphine and codeine, of a type commonly produced by the breakdown of heroin had been in Liston's system; but there was not enough of it to indicate that he had died of an overdose, and so much for the "hotshot" conspiracies.
The Clark County Coroner ruled that the Sonny died of natural causes, specifically lung congestion and heart failure. He was 50, he drank, smoked weed, shot a little "Harwon" and lived a difficult life which had included getting punched at by other professionals, and being struck by a vehicle not long before his death. **** happens.
It may be more simple than sexy, but I ain't sellin' no book about it.

End of story.

[billeau2]

Sonny died in his lovely home in Paradise Palms, an affluent suburb of Las Vegas.
Much of what Liston faced during the span of his life was racisim, pure and simple. While growing up he faced the poverty that was common for black folk during the 1930s and 40's. As a young adult he took the work avaliable to a hulking, intimidating and nearly illiterate black man in the 1950s, legal or otherwise, and in the 1960's, as the US Civil rights movement was witnessing its modern birth, whites in North America and Europe had to cope with the fact that there wasn't a single white policeman, soldier, football player, wrestler, biker, bouncer, cowboy, lumberjack, street fighter, coal miner or pro fighter on earth who could beat Sonny Liston in a real fight. ...and many of them just hated that fact.
"He's arrogant, surly, mean, rude and altogether frightening," the famed New York Times columnist Arthur Daley once wrote. "He's the last man anyone would want to meet in a dark alley".

Liston himself was in fact an intelligent, self confident, well controlled, highly disciplined athlete was was afraid of nothing and no man, and navigated the world that he lived in the best way any black man living in his time could. If this meant breaking legs for a lot more money than could be earned loading luggage at the airport, working a race reduced pay trade or by migrant farming, then so be it. If that meant dumping racist cops into trash cans head first and taking their sidearm away from them, when disrespected on occasion, then he did that too.
To the knowledge of anyone not trying to sell their book, Liston was never spoken down to by Frankie Carbo or Phil Lombardo or Blinky Palermo or Angelo Bruno or Bernie Glickman or Tommy Eboli or big Mike Miranda, or Russell Bufalino, or even boss Tommy Lucchese and Vito Genovese himself prior to his imprisonment. They loved Liston and loved being around him, because they knew that if all the heaters and shanks were checked at the door, Sonny Liston could beat the **** out of anyone they knew, and they respected that a whole lot.

Moreover the book by Nick Tosches was largely fiction, and yet its unsubstantiated "findings" have gained steam in recent years, even repeated in the Showtime documentary “Pariah: The Lives and Deaths of Sonny Liston”. The story surrounds a low level drug dealer named Earl Cage as the culprit, who hires a cop to get Liston blind drunk before administering the "hot shot" that supposedly killed him. More recently, another book, this one by investigative journalist Shaun Assael, makes similar suppositions.
But those who knew Liston brush those and the other dozen or so hypothetical notions off.

Liston was very likely the victim only of himself, and all of the "he hated needles" crap aside, it was pretty well-known that Liston was an infrequent, part-time user late in life. The autopsy would reveal that traces of morphine and codeine, of a type commonly produced by the breakdown of heroin had been in Liston's system; but there was not enough of it to indicate that he had died of an overdose, and so much for the "hotshot" conspiracies.
The Clark County Coroner ruled that the Sonny died of natural causes, specifically lung congestion and heart failure. He was 50, he drank, smoked weed, shot a little "Harwon" and lived a difficult life which had included getting punched at by other professionals, and being struck by a vehicle not long before his death. **** happens.
It may be more simple than sexy, but I ain't sellin' no book about it.

End of story.

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed reading your post. I grew up with guys like Liston... They were our protectors in addition to being our bullies. But Liston went beyond that because he had love and respect for those that looked out for him. The saddest thing to me was how Liston was made to feel ashamed at being illiterate. That is a crime, considering how intelligent the man was.

For a man that lived in the rougher districts of existential grace Liston was actually quite generous and reasonable. He never had to be kind and it went against his fight persona. But he was humane and wanted to be accepted, loved. My heart is always on my sleeve when I think of Night Train.