I'm sorry but i can't see Liston as a great or even good boxer ?

[Rusty Tromboni]

The Floyd-Ingo triology took at least three years away from Liston’s champion reign.
He was most likely the #1 already in ’58.

Even then, who did he have to beat? Seriously, the guy was scary looking... against scrubs.

I think dismissing him as a great is terribly unfair. But he's a lot like gene tunney, for me.

[clemenza]

Machen and Folley are hardly 'excellent' wins who did Eddie Machen ever beat? He lost everytime he stepped up.
Folley wasn't close to elite either beating a pre-prime Foster and a few gatekeeper\contenders.

The only world class fighter Liston beat was an undersized, chinny Floyd Patterson.

His resume isn't much if any better than Wilders and I'm serious. Listons resume is ****!
He's not an ATG or top 10 HW.

I guess beating Jerry Quarry who might’ve been the best Fighter ever not to be Heavyweight champ didn’t count for anything.
Eddie went the distance in most of his defeats against the top heavyweights if his era.
So with that said he would beat most of today’s fighters on toughness and conditioning.
There are so many of these bulking out of shape HW today that are spent after 6-7 rounds.
Joey Maxim was very good Fighter.
Don’t discount Liston pal

[dan_cov]

Going the distance with top HWs so he was tough? so are thousands of others.

Its like me in 10 years singing AJ praises for beating a Kevin Johnson or something daft.
Eddie Machen wasn't anything more than a solid fighter that was a farcry from being world level. Only fighters in this era are bigged up like this in a frankly awful attempt of pushing an agenda.
You don't and won't hear anybody talking up guys of this calibre that Ali, Holyfield, Foreman etc beat because they have probably 15-20+ better wins worth praising
A guy like Machen likely isn't in any true top 10 HWs 10 best wins.

Listons record is terrible he has one stand out win against a guy who was 190 soaking wet with no chin, two fringe contender types and the rest were a bunch of absolute nobodies. Not another notable name what so ever.
He lost too multiple bums too, he was put on his ass by multiple.

He was sickeningly overrated at the time and unbelievably more so today.

His best wins , his only semi notable wins after Patterson are Machen and Folley like lets be real he doesn't even rank ahead of at least several current HWs today.
Noway is he ranked ahead of Fury, AJ, Povetkin and certainly not Wlad.

They don't even stack up against the CWs where they'd be fighting today.

Listons resume is shocking. I have no idea why people pretend he's a top 5-10 HW in any sense. Resume, H2H or whatever

[dan_cov]

Look at his resume

http://boxrec.com/en/boxer/9031

Like just how low are you willing to go really?

Are we going to start pretending Cleveland Williams would of been an ATG in another era?

98% of his resume are 180lb journeymen and that's no exaggeration.

98% of his resume would be at light heavyweight today and not one would be a factor.

[GhostofDempsey]

Machen and Folley are hardly 'excellent' wins who did Eddie Machen ever beat? He lost everytime he stepped up.
Folley wasn't close to elite either beating a pre-prime Foster and a few gatekeeper\contenders.

The only world class fighter Liston beat was an undersized, chinny Floyd Patterson.

His resume isn't much if any better than Wilders and I'm serious. Listons resume is ****!
He's not an ATG or top 10 HW.

Don’t let me break down Ali’s gifts and all the help he had from mob, Islam, and tv networks. He got gifts against Doug Jones, Norton 2x, Young, Shavers, Chuvalo II, and the fixes against Liston. He beat up on smaller guys like Foster, Bonavena, Quarry 2x, a broken down Patterson 2x, an ancient Archie Moore and several other much smaller opponents. Lost to a guy with 8 fights. See how this resume thing works?

[travestyny]

Exactly. I wouldn't bring Ali into this convo, but if it were all about resume, Harry Wills would be ranked higher than Jack Dempsey, right?

[Dempsey19]

Exactly. I wouldn't bring Ali into this convo, but if it were all about resume, Harry Wills would be ranked higher than Jack Dempsey, right?

I was reading an article the other day about how underrated Dempsey's resume was and it raised some good points.

[Dempsey19]

With Clay, heavyweight boxing entered a new era).

I always thought Louis, Marciano and Dempsey were all of his calibre. I've heard some oldtimers say Jack Johnson could have beaten him. Ali himself considered Walcott a worthy adversary he would not want to have met in the ring.

[Rusty Tromboni]

Look at his resume

http://boxrec.com/en/boxer/9031

Like just how low are you willing to go really?

Are we going to start pretending Cleveland Williams would of been an ATG in another era?

98% of his resume are 180lb journeymen and that's no exaggeration.

98% of his resume would be at light heavyweight today and not one would be a factor.

He is like a distilled version of Joe Louis. Not that he fought like Louis, per se. But he kinda fought like a caricature of Louis. He plodded forward, and could unleash crushing blows on fighters who were either undersized, or simply plodding giants.

Still, he looks damn fine on film. Ali was the first ambulatory fighter he fought. We have to wonder how that fight might have played out had they met in the late 50's. It's easy to imagine Liston having far greater success. After the Ali fiasco, he went back to successfully demolishing scrubs.

It's a real head-scratcher w/ Liston. His record isn't special, but he looks just fine on film.

[travestyny]

I was reading an article the other day about how underrated Dempsey's resume was and it raised some good points.

Fair enough. Not as good as Wills for sure, but that's a discussion for another time and another place.