Comments Thread For: George Foreman Discusses Friendship With Sonny Liston

[BIGPOPPAPUMP]

So few really knew heavyweight boxing legend Charles "Sonny" Liston inside out of the ring, and the pattern of his life, which ressembled a knocked down book of horoscopes. One person who did spend time with him was George Foreman, who was a teenage sparring partner prior to his own Olympic Triumph in Mexico, and afterwards. George who's attending the WBC's Convention in Las Vegas has been sharing his memories with BoxingScene's James Blears, who started by asking him, how it had all come about?
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[Brockton Lip]

Great interivew. A lot of Liston is a bit of a mystery so its nice to get some more insight from Foreman.

[twosweethooks]

My thrill as a small boy was to lean over the frontseat of the car and listen to the LISTON Patterson fights !!

Big eyed and ears open to the announcer " Left to the body and right to the nose " !!!!!!

Glory days.

I would love to see a prime Liston against a Prime Klitscho sp. That super LONG left JAB was like a missle with great Power, and that left hook was a killer.

[prinzemanspopa]

The man Foreman thinks he knew was,in fact,an imposter.The real Sonny Liston was kidnapped by the CIA(he was too dangerous for mainstream America at that particular time,ya know) shortly after his rematch with Floyd Patterson and replaced with a 40 plus year old drug addict.

[xAUGUSTUSx]

The man Foreman thinks he knew was,in fact,an imposter.The real Sonny Liston was kidnapped by the CIA(he was too dangerous for mainstream America at that particular time,ya know) shortly after his rematch with Floyd Patterson and replaced with a 40 plus year old drug addict.

WTF! lol you crazy

[hweightblogger]

Terrible era when drunkards like Liston could be heavyweight world champs.

No wonder Ali won.

[edgarg]

Great interivew. A lot of Liston is a bit of a mystery so its nice to get some more insight from Foreman.

There wasn't much insight there. We all knew he couldn't read, and was sensitive about it, we all knew he'd been taken in tow by a priest, by an agreement with the Authorities who wanted to clean him up because he was the Champion and a supposed role model.

The really interesting things we wanted to know were, how old he was, and how much he trained for both Ali fights, and what his mental state was.

I have read much about Liston, including an exhaustive account by a well known investigative boxing writer(who's name I just can't remember right now) that having questioned extensively all available sources including Liston's surviving siblings, he came to the conclusion that the three siblings closest in age to Liston, were correct, that he must have been born around 1925. This would have made him about 39-40 when he fought Ali 1. Which, as well as his reputed training for a 2 rd fight, matched his performance. Altough I understand that the fight was about even when he retired in his corner.

You never get much out of Foreman, selling those grills and being a shill man for HBO has destroyed his ability to iterate any original concepts he might have had.

[whatismyname]

Terrible era when drunkards like Liston could be heavyweight world champs.

No wonder Ali won.

Go find a cliff, and jump off...make the world a better place. :****you:

[Tiozzo]

Liston is a tragic character... watch this if you want to know more about the man and his career...

[The Surgeon]

That was enjoyable, Liston is one of my all time favourites - what i wouldnt give to see some of those sparring sessions with Foreman