Sonny listons peak was 1958 wayne bethea fight

[SuzieQ49]

- never before did liston display this much speed. his handspeed was faster than in any fights ive seen. his combos fired like lightning into betheas face with explosive power. his movment was great, and unlike in other fights he showed a ultra aggresive side to him chasing bethea down on foot and punishing him with rapid blows. liston usually sits back consering his energy, but in this fight he chased bethea down and went after him like a volcano. he knocked bethea down with a long powerful left hook FOR THE FIRST TIME IN BETHEAS CAREER HE WAS EVER DOWN, and then went after bethea punishing him blows and then bethea turned his back walking away out on his feet and the ref stopped fight.

note: BETHEA WAS NEVER STOPPED BEFORE OR AFTER THE LISTON FIGHTS. LISTON BLEW THIS VERY DURABLE GUY AWAY WITH SPEED, POWER, AGGRESIVENESS THAT HES NEVER SHOWN BEFORE.

- this was defintley liston at his peak


GUESS WUT: liston weighed JUST 204lb


- goes to show you that size is overated and you dont need extra weight to make you powerful. liston had just as much power and strength at 204lb , he was a lot faster and more explosive because he was lean and in top shape. that extra speed he got for being 10lb lighter made him get more snap to his punches. that extra 10lb liston put on slowed him down especially in his movement IMO.



liston at his peak was 6'1 204lb and though butterfly likes to make it seem like liston was this 220lb giant, liston at 204lb in the bethea fight was the best version of sonny IMO.

[butterfly1964]

- never before did liston display this much speed. his handspeed was faster than in any fights ive seen. his combos fired like lightning into betheas face with explosive power. his movment was great, and unlike in other fights he showed a ultra aggresive side to him chasing bethea down on foot and punishing him with rapid blows. liston usually sits back consering his energy, but in this fight he chased bethea down and went after him like a volcano. he knocked bethea down with a long powerful left hook FOR THE FIRST TIME IN BETHEAS CAREER HE WAS EVER DOWN, and then went after bethea punishing him blows and then bethea turned his back walking away out on his feet and the ref stopped fight.

note: BETHEA WAS NEVER STOPPED BEFORE OR AFTER THE LISTON FIGHTS. LISTON BLEW THIS VERY DURABLE GUY AWAY WITH SPEED, POWER, AGGRESIVENESS THAT HES NEVER SHOWN BEFORE.

- this was defintley liston at his peak


GUESS WUT: liston weighed JUST 204lb


- goes to show you that size is overated and you dont need extra weight to make you powerful. liston had just as much power and strength at 204lb , he was a lot faster and more explosive because he was lean and in top shape. that extra speed he got for being 10lb lighter made him get more snap to his punches. that extra 10lb liston put on slowed him down especially in his movement IMO.



liston at his peak was 6'1 204lb and though butterfly likes to make it seem like liston was this 220lb giant, liston at 204lb in the bethea fight was the best version of sonny IMO.

liston was 214 in his prime when he fought patterson. and patterson is waaaaay better than bethea. patterson is extremely fast and that didn't stop liston. that was the best version of liston.

[SuzieQ49]

no, liston was overweight slower and he beat up on a very scared fighter who fought a horrible game plan.

listons peak was 1958 vs bethea , he looked better on film

[butterfly1964]

no, liston was overweight slower and he beat up on a very scared fighter who fought a horrible game plan.

listons peak was 1958 vs bethea , he looked better on film

well, you can see that patterson at least tried. it's not like he let liston hit him.

[Kid Achilles]

Liston was past his best years when he took out Patterson in '62 and '63. You do realize that the second Patterson fight was the fight before he took on Ali right?

[butterfly1964]

Liston was past his best years when he took out Patterson in '62 and '63. You do realize that the second Patterson fight was the fight before he took on Ali right?

liston barely trained for the clay fight.

[SuzieQ49]

liston should have come in more of his fights around 205lb, he would have found he is much faster.

[butterfly1964]

liston should have come in more of his fights around 205lb, he would have found he is much faster.

210-215 was good enough.

[mokele]

Liston was always in shape

210-215 was good enough.

By the standards of modern heavyweights, Liston was always in fighting trim. At 204 lbs. he would be considered a small heavyweight today! That's 1 pound less than Joe Frazier's weight in the 1st Frazier-Ali fight. Chris Byrd usually weighs within a few lbs. of 215 lbs. for his fights and nobody complains that he's too heavy. Liston hit maybe twice as hard as Byrd and was basically a much bigger man, so 215 lbs. was a good weight for Liston.

I think Liston was psychologically beaten by Clay (Ali) even before he stepped into the ring. He didn't really have a good game plan. I don't think that he was that washed-up, just poorly prepared. After he lost to Ali in their 2nd fight he won his next 14 fights in a row and beat some good fighters (Gerhard Zech, Amos Lincoln, Henry Clark), so he was far from washed-up. Maybe he was a little better in the late 1950s or early 1960s, but not by much.

A lot of today's world class heavyweights are overweight, certainly more than in the past. This is more or less what I've been saying for awhile, but some of the heavyweights around today are truly big men, bigger even than Liston or George Foreman. I think that if all of them were in fighting trim they would typically weigh in the 210 to 230 lb. range.

[Brassangel]

Patterson said in his own biography that he never felt as though he had a chance against Liston. In fact, he said that he basically froze, threw a punch, and when it was basically ineffective, he caved in. Patterson was a good fighter, but he gave up to Liston before the fight began. Sonny was a monster in the late 1950's. He was faster, and relied more heavily on using his jab to set up other punches. In the sixties, when he was in his mid-to-late thirties (at least some sources say), he used his jab far less often.

And yes, weight doesn't always matter. Many people forget that Foreman weighed less than 220 early in his career when he was demolishing people. Maybe it's not about conditioning in the new millenium, but shock absorbing instead.