Sonny Liston shot a gun at Muhammad Ali. And it was probably for the best ticket-buyers didnt exactly get their moneys worth. At about 30 seconds into the round he hit Liston with several combinations, causing a bruise under Liston's right eye and a cut under his left, which eventually required eight stitches to close. "[57] Those findings were confirmed in a formal investigation immediately after the fight by Florida State Attorney Richard Gerstein, who also noted that there was little doubt that Liston went into the fight with a sore or lame shoulder. Liston was the subject of a 1995 HBO documentary titled Sonny Liston: The Mysterious Life and Death of a Champion. Tocco called the police, and they broke into the house. The Devil and Sonny Liston. The Murder of Sonny Liston is an absorbing, albeit speculative, attempt at addressing the mystery that died with the man. Lennox is a conqueror? Stevens organized a sparring session with a professional heavyweight named Thurman Wilson to showcase Liston's potential. [91] Coroner Mark Herman said traces of heroin byproducts were found in Liston's system, but not in amounts large enough to have caused his death. Sonny Liston had a very sad upbringing & had to learn to survive at a young age. kos k.o.s ko.s knockouts fight of the year joe louis lewis primo carnera buddy max baer tony galento lamon brewster monte barrett barret amir khan oleg maskaev nicolai valuev nikolai joe calzaghe sergej sergey liakhovich liakovich shannon briggs evander holyfield zultan ibragimov sultan meldrick taylor pauli ayala paul spadafora prince prinze naseem hamed naz johnny tapia john ruiz wilfredo gomez wilfried benitez george foreman big ron lyle earnie shavers joe frazier ken norton angelo dundee eddie futch riddick bowe Henry Akinwande Muhammad Ali Max Baer Michael Bentt Riddick Bowe James J. Braddock Shannon Briggs Tommy Burns Primo Carnera Ruslan Chagaev Ezzard Charles Gerrie Coetzee James J. Corbett Francesco Damiani Jack Dempsey Michael Dokes Jimmy Ellis Bob Fitzsimmons Joe Frazier Marvin Hart Herbie Hide Evander Holyfield James J. Jeffries Ingemar Johansson Jack Johnson Vitali Klitschko Sonny Liston Joe Louis Rocky Marciano Ray Mercer Tommy Morrison Greg Page Floyd Patterson John Ruiz Max Schmeling Bruce Seldon Jack Sharkey James Smith John L. Sullivan John Tate Ernie Terrell Tony Tubbs Nikolay Valuev Jersey Joe Walcott Mike Weaver Jess Willard Tim Witherspoon Muhammad Ali Lou Ambers Sammy Angott Fred Apostoli Ray Arcel Alexis Argello Baby Arizmendi Henry Armstrong Abe Attell Max Baer Caleb Baldwin Carmen Basilio Wilfred Bentez Nino Benvenuti Jack Kid Berg Jimmy Bivins Umberto Branchini Joe Brown Panama Al Brown Ken Buchanan Charley Burley Orlando Canizales Miguel Canto Tony Canzoneri Michael Carbajal Jem Carney Jimmy Carter Marcel Cerdan Antonio Cervantes Bobby Chacon Arthur Chambers Ezzard Charles Kid Chocolate Joe Choynski Stanley Christodoulou Billy Conn Eugne Criqui Jos Cuevas Jack Dempsey Jack (Nonpareil) Dempsey Jack Dillon Professor Mike Donovan Paddy Duffy Don Dunphy Roberto Durn Lou Duva Billy Edwards Gabriel Elorde Jeff Fenech Bob Fitzsimmons George Foreman Bob Foster Joe Frazier Gene Fullmer Khaosai Galaxy Vctor Galndez Joe Gans Kid Gaviln Joey Giardello Mike Gibbons Wilfredo Gmez Humberto Mike Tyson He used the platform to expound on the political theory that was so reviled in white America, defending Malcolm X and condemning racial oppression this was still months before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The official time of the stoppage was announced as 1:00 into the first round, which was wrong. His defense was described as "the gate-crossing of arms la Archie Moore. We had a return bout clause with Clay, but if you say your guy just quit, who is gonna get a return bout? Pan, 2017. Dude was only 6'2 and his hands dwarfed Lesnar's. Soon, he was known as Cassius X, eschewing the last name given to his enslaved family by their owners. Liston was depicted as a bad guy by the media, a handbreaker for the mafia. Genuinely kind mobster who had been convicted of armed robbery and assault. Knopfler, who now records as a soloist and performs with a backup band, has a wide-ranging curiosity that has produced an eclectic collection of songs. He said it was taught to him by comedian and film actor Stepin Fetchit, who learned it from Jack Johnson. Sit down!' Liston decked Martin with a left hook in the fourth round and dominated most of the fight, but Martin came back and knocked Liston out cold in the ninth round. At the IBHOF, the casts of Listons hands were bigger than Lennox Lewis' which were also gigantic. 589 Share 23K views 1 year ago Rare interview of Sonny Liston colorized. The previous month, Schreibauer had won a bronze medal in the European Championships. The bout would need to be delayed by six months. [42], Liston's run-ins with the police had continued in Philadelphia. Night Train is like $11 on Amazon, peep that if you want to get more of the story, i don't like how max was squeezing sonny's bicep. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Liston didn't seem to mind though. In "Sailing to Philadelphia," a duet with James Taylor, Knopfler told of Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon traveling from England to North America to draw the Mason-Dixon line. "He would do everything to avoid taking shots." For those too young to remember, Sonny "The Big Bear" Liston was a legendary heavyweight boxer. In "Song for Sonny Liston," Knopfler's voice is backed by electric guitar, a bass and drums as he tells the story of a sharecropper's son who went from prison to the championship to an early death under mysterious circumstances. I'm Sonny Liston, I'm Jack Dempsey, there's no one like I'm from their . Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. [51], Liston failed to answer the bell for the seventh round, and Clay was declared the winner by technical knockout. A dominant contender of his era, he became the world heavyweight champion in 1962 after knocking out Floyd Patterson in the first round, repeating the knockout the following year in defense of the title; in the latter fight he also became the inaugural WBC heavyweight . It was the third-fastest knockout in a world heavyweight title fight, and the first time the defending champion had been knocked out in round one. He said they found Liston lying on his bed with a needle sticking out of his arm. Sonny Liston had a very sad upbringing & had to learn to survive at a young age. Either way, nat fleisher as the KD timekeeper had NO right telling Walcott the fight was over. #1 December 1963 extended Interview with Champion Sonny Liston - discusses Ali defense, his contenders, even the JFK Assassination 12-02-2022, 12:32 PM Pretty cool interview. The most iconic photo in boxing history documents the knockout that almost nobody saw happen. "[35] However, in 1963 in the aftermath of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, Liston broke off a European boxing exhibition tour to return home and was quoted as saying he was "ashamed to be in America. [55], There is ample evidence that Liston did carry an injury to his left shoulder into the fight. The Murder of Sonny Liston: A Story of Fame, Heroin, Boxing & Las Vegas Pan publisher; 2017. At that point, the fight was scored as even on the official scorecards. The fight quickly descended into chaos. Thom Jones titled his 2000 collection of short stories Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine. Don't confuse shyness with dullness, Sonny was. Banker said he was told by police that Liston had been seen at a house that would be the target of a drug raid. Rocky Marciano, the former heavyweight champion, said that he appreciated the punchs strength upon re-examination. Never seen this one before, thanks alot. "He had a left like Henry's hammer," Knopfler sings, "a right like Betty Bamalam. Gary Beckwith said, "It wasn't uncommon for family members in these cases to go through and tidy up to save family embarrassment. After Ali's win against Sonny Liston, he wouldn't . Sheed says that the punch and the knockdown "may have been genuine, but when referee Joe Walcott blew the count and gave him all evening to get up, Liston's rendition of a coma wouldn't have fooled a possum. Time magazine said Liston had worked himself into the best shape of his career. Liston kept running into trouble with the law and Ali had a target on his back after the assassination of Malcolm X, whom he had disavowed after Elijah Muhammad forced him out of the Nation of Islam. Walcott never began a count in the ring because of Ali's non-compliance and his physical struggle with getting Ali to go to that neutral corner. The governor of nearby Maine, John Reed, stepped up and volunteered to host it in the small town of Lewiston, where a resort and ice rink could provide some infrastructure. I wasn't hit. He won eight fights that year, six by knockout. Although the opening round saw Clay largely on the defensive, it was soon established that Clay could reverse roles quickly and take to the offensive with a remarkably fast series of combinations delivered to Liston's head. "It was common knowledge that Sonny was a heroin addict," said Sgt. There's never been anybody as ruthless. After repeated overnight detention by the St. Louis police and a thinly veiled threat to his life, Liston left for Philadelphia. 1 contender in 1960, but the handlers of world heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson refused to give him a shot at the title because of Liston's links to organized crime. The FBI was on the hunt for evidence for match-fixing, given Listons mob ties mobsters still owned much of his fight promotion contract and the sports shady business model. There are echoes of slavery in his upbringing." ", Knopfler compared writing a song about Liston to the work a sculptor performs on a statue. He was scared of the black-power movement. NPR's Robert Siegel talks to Gary Robinov, director of Raising Ali, a film about the 50th anniversary of the heavyweight boxing match between Muhammed Ali and Sonny Liston in Lewiston, Maine.. [67] Some felt the knockdown was real but the knockout was fake. In the 2015 British crime film Legend, Liston is played by Mark Theodore in a scene where gangster Reggie Kray poses for a picture with the boxer. [citation needed], Rogin wrote that Patterson backers expected him to "go inside on Liston, fire away and then run like a thief in the night. But a Senate subcommittee hearing turned up no evidence of any match-fixing, and doctors confirmed his explanation that hed taken such damage to his shoulder that he couldnt feel his arm. C'mon now, this is for the title, this is the big apple. Wepner needed 72 stitches and suffered a broken cheekbone and nose. The match had more storylines than a soap opera. Joe Louis commenting on TV at ringside said "It's looking good for Sonny Liston". "I remember him telling me one day that he found himself watching boxing but he didn't like the way it made him feel," Knopfler said. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Because of the shirt he wore during robberies, the St. Louis police called Liston the "Yellow Shirt Bandit." [99] (3) The mob promised Liston some money to throw the second Ali fight, but they never paid him. Liston angrily responded by questioning whether Dempsey's failure to serve in World War I qualified him to moralize. [8][9], There is no official record of Liston's birth. One memo, dated 24 May 1966, outlined an interview with Houston gambler Barnett Magids, who believed Liston would win. In these feckless clinches he only managed to tie up one of Liston's arms. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Sad how they portrayed sonny in such a negative light he seems like a genuinely kind person. He particularly resented a 1961 arrest by a black patrolman for loitering, claiming to have merely been signing autographs and chatting with fans outside a drugstore. Sonny Liston in Denver, Colorado. [101], Liston played a fist fighter in the 1965 film Harlow, made a cameo appearance in the 1968 film Head, which starred The Monkees, and played the part of The Farmer in the 1970 film Moonfire, which starred Richard Egan and Charles Napier. "Nat Fleischer [editor of The Ring] was sitting beside McDonough and he was waving his hands, too, saying it was over." [35] Liston's victory was loudly booed. During the interim, officials in Boston also got cold feet. After demolishing these top-ranked fighters in the heavyweight division, Liston was regarded as the top-contender champion-in-waiting. Because of that, Cage may have thought Sonny was an informant and shot him with a hot dose as retribution. This is a clip out of the \"The Other Side\" Documentary. Support this Channel:https://www.patreon.com/LegendsofBoxing Merchandise:LegendsofBoxing.redbubble.com I restore \u0026 colorize your projects, PayPal Donations: LegendsofBoxingYT@gmail.comThank you!________________________________________________________________________________ Credit Original B\u0026W Footage:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CLMlEpRb9wSonny Liston Interview uploaded by haNZAgodAll My YouTube ChannelsMy Main Channel \"Legends of Boxing\": https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC73ffQAknNEWJlRoFSWH_awMy Second Boxing Channel \"Legends of Boxing\": https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-QLrFyDnskqz5_z95mcOAMy History Channel \"Time Travel: Colorized Archive\": https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC29VFkNvVVi6_OzwFV2oTqQMy Documentary Channel \"Tales From The Past\":https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZpFIIYrCc1lOHbG-fUo5vwMein Dokumentation Channel \"Geschichten aus der Vergangenheit\" (Tales From The Past in Deutsch) https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXBfWoE1KVXEzh9d2NrwBhASocial https://www.instagram.com/legends_of_boxing1/ "Better get me out of this ring," exclaimed Wilson, "he is going to kill me! Very rare interview of Sonny Liston talking about how he got started in boxing, his fights with Williams and Patterson and his training routine. He was hardly leading a life of health and fitness. "And I suppose Sonny Liston always stuck with me. "He was afraid of needles," echoed Father Edward Murphy. In The Greatest, the 1977 film about the life of boxer Muhammad Ali in which Ali played himself, Liston was portrayed by Roger E. Mosley. Dennis Caputo of the Clark County Sheriff's Department was one of the first officers on the scene. Many did not see the punch land, and some who did questioned that it was powerful enough to knock Liston out. Ali biographer Wilfrid Sheed wrote, in his Muhammad Ali: A Portrait in Words and Photographs, that Liston planned to throw the fight for reasons unknown and used the legitimate first-round knockdown for that end. He sunk to the canvas, and as he was down, Ali stood over him, taunting and demanding his stunned opponent get back up. "[35] Although largely illiterate through lack of schooling, Liston was a more complex and interesting individual than has often been acknowledged. The fight lasted four seconds longer than the first one. Dave Anderson of the New York Times said Liston "looked awful" in his last workout before the fight. A wax model of Liston appears in the front row of the iconic sleeve cover of the Beatles' Sgt. (4) Liston was supposed to take a dive when he fought Chuck Wepner six months earlier, and killing him was payback for his failure to do so. He said that Liston was not quick with his hand or footwork, that he relied too much on his ability to take a punch, and that he could be vulnerable to an opponent with more hand speed. QUESTION 1 His "Speedway at Nazareth" was about auto racing. [30] Before his bout with Liston, Muhammad Ali consulted Machen and was advised that the key to survival was to make Liston lose his temper. The fight ranks as one of the shortest heavyweight title bouts in history. Ira Gay Sealy/The Denver Post via Getty Images According to the post, he returned back home later that morning and called his sparring partner Gary Bates to tell him he was leaving for Los Angeles but that they should get together when he returned in a couple of days. Two more arrestsfor disorderly conduct and resisting arrest and another for impersonating a copled to Liston being suspended by the Pennsylvania Athletic Commission on July 14, 1961. Boston: Little, Brown. [citation needed], The fight turned out to be a mismatch. Liston was a heavy favorite. (, Shaun Assael. Sonny Liston in his prime . "At about noon on the day of the fight, (Magids) reached Resnick again by phone," the memo read. "[68], While Liston publicly denied taking a dive, Sports Illustrated writer Mark Kram said that years later Liston told him, "That guy [Ali] was crazy. In the months ahead of the fight, Muhammad Ali went all sorts of routes to get into Sonny Liston's head. [35] There are several theories as to why: (1) publicist Harold Conrad and others believed Liston had been deeply involved as a bill collector of a loansharking ring in Las Vegas. Sonny Liston is considered by many as the most intimidating boxer of all time with a devastating jab which is widely regarded as one of the best in heavyweight history. [43] A month later, Liston was accused of impersonating a police officer by using a flashlight to wave down a female motorist in Fairmount Park, although all charges were later dropped. The World Boxing Association one of several boxing organizations was not too pleased, moving to strip Ali of his title and advising states not to agree to host the rematch. Sonny Liston vs Eddie Machen (1960) As usual, Liston wasted no time throwing his jab and keeping Machen at bay, who was trying to get his hands off with minimal success. Liston believed his date of birth to be May 8, 1932, and used this for official purposes[11] but by the time he won the world title an aged appearance added credence to rumors that he was actually several years older. The torn tendon had bled down into the mass of the biceps, swelling and numbing the arm. [36], Jack Dempsey spoke for many when he was quoted as saying that Sonny Liston should not be allowed to fight for the title. A stoic Liston finished the fight, but lost in an eight-round split decision. [97], "The month before he died, some guy ran into Sonny while he was making a left turn. "I didn't know what the heck was going on", Angelo Dundee, Clay's trainer, recalled on an NBC special 25 years later. [7] Liston was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1991. Rogin discounted speculation that Patterson had thrown the fight, writing: "The genesis of all this wide-eyed theorizing and downright baloney was the fact that many spectators failed to see the knockout blows. The victim sought out the executioner." He talked of a fight with Joe Frazier, claiming, "It'd be like shooting fish in a barrel." "[94], A bronze copy of a marble statue of Liston sculpted by Alfred Hrdlicka in 1964 was erected in 2008 between Old Castle and Karlsplatz in Stuttgart, Germany. ", confirmed most people's belief that Liston had taken a dive. "He told me in the strictest confidence, but it was like he wanted to get it off his chest." After he won the title, Liston relocated to Denver permanently, saying, "I'd rather be a lamppost in Denver than the mayor of Philadelphia. Even before the first punch was thrown, the May 25, 1965 bout between .css-47aoac{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-decoration-thickness:0.0625rem;text-decoration-color:inherit;text-underline-offset:0.25rem;color:#A00000;-webkit-transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;transition:all 0.3s ease-in-out;}.css-47aoac:hover{color:#595959;text-decoration-color:border-link-body-hover;}Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston, during which the photo was snapped, was already shaping up to be the stuff of legends. Arthur Daley of the New York Times wrote that Liston's handlers knew he "didn't have it anymore,"[65] and allegedly they had secretly paid sparring partner Amos Lincoln an extra $100 to take it easy on him -[citation needed] - the same man, incidentally, that Liston dismissed in less than two rounds a full three years later. [76][77] Foreman stated: "There wasn't anything missing from Sonny Liston. Rode with the muggers in the dark and dread and all them sluggers went down like lead. Referee Jersey Joe Walcott, a former world heavyweight champion, had a hard time getting Ali to go to a neutral corner. "[18] The only backers willing to put up the necessary money for him to turn professional were close to underworld figures, and Liston supplemented his income by working for racketeers as an intimidator-enforcer.
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