Sonny Liston

Charles "Sonny" Liston (May 8, 1932? – December 30, 1970), was a boxer who became world Heavyweight champion, and whose life and personality were always obscure. Sonny is thought of by many to be one of the most powerful punchers in the history of the heavyweight division.

Early life

There is considerable uncertainty about when Liston was actually born. Liston gave his year of birth as 1932, However, many believe that he was born in 1927, though there is no son named Charles listed with the family in the 1930 census.

Liston was born the son of a sharecropper in Johnson Township, St. Francis County, Arkansas. He was one of seventeen children born to Tobe Liston and Helen Baskin. Liston endured frequent beatings as a child. He started to work early as his father's opinion was: "if he can sit at the table, he can work".

At the age of 13 he escaped from his father to St. Louis to reunite with his mother. His childhood experience sent him on a path that led to prison. He had a bad reputation, but at home he was gentle and loving. His mean appearance in interviews was simply a result of bashfulness.

When he was sentenced for the armed robbery of a gas station, his boxing talent was discovered by a Roman Catholic priest. Boxing helped him leave jail early.

On Halloween night, 1952, he was paroled, and during a brief amateur career that spanned less than a year, he won several awards, including Golden Gloves.

Professional boxing career

Liston made his professional debut on September 2, 1953, knocking out Don Smith in the first round in St. Louis, where he campaigned for the first five fights of his career. In his sixth bout, in Detroit, Michigan, he faced John Summerlin, who was 22-0, on national television. Liston won an eight round decision.

Liston beat Summerlin in a rematch, and then suffered his first defeat, at the hands of Marty Marshall also in Detroit. In the third round, Marshall, a defensive-minded journeyman, managed to break Liston's jaw with a right hand when the bigger, more powerful fighter had his mouth open while laughing at the smaller man's crazy and comical ring tactics (which included telling jokes and even jitterbugging). Liston proved his mettle by lasting the scheduled eight rounds despite the intense pain.

In 1955, he won six fights, five by knockout, including a rematch with Marshall, whom he knocked out in six rounds.

A rubber match with Marshall in 1956 saw him the winner by a ten round decision, but in May of that year, he ran afoul of the law once again, when he beat up a police officer in an incident that was unclear, many rumors and allegations of how it happened coming into the public light. He was forced to stay away from boxing during 1957 while serving a nine month sentence. He was paroled after six months in jail.

In 1958, he returned to boxing, winning eight fights that year.

1959 was a banner year for Liston. He knocked out Mike DeJohn in six, number one rated challenger Cleveland Williams in three and Nino Valdez in three. In total, he fought four times, winning all by knockout.

In 1960, Liston won five more fights, including a rematch with Williams, who only lasted two this time, with knockout wins over Roy Harris in one round and top contender Zora Folley in three rounds. Eddie Machen was the only contender not knocked out by Liston, with Liston beating him on a lopsided twelve round decision.

But Liston had difficulty getting a deserved shot at Floyd Patterson whose handlers tried to use Liston's links with the mafia (Carbo and Palermo) as an excuse against the fight.

In 1962, Liston finally signed to meet world heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson for his title. The fight was going to be held in New York, but the New York commission denied him a license.

As a result the fight moved to Comiskey Park, Chicago, Illinois. Liston and Patterson met on September 25 of that year, and Liston became world champion by knocking out Patterson in the first round.

He was not a popular champion, and Liston was very disappointed that on his comeback to hometown Philadelphia, the fans did not come to cheer him.

Patterson and Liston signed for a rematch, held on the evening of July 22, 1963, in Las Vegas, Nevada. This fight lasted exactly two seconds longer than their first fight, with Liston once again knocking Patterson out in the first round.

Liston did not box again that year, and in 1964, he met a young contender named Cassius Clay on the evening of February 25 in Miami, Florida. Ali controlled the fight, even though he was blinded for much of the fifth round by a foreign substance that got into his eyes. Liston lost his title when he quit in his corner before the start of the seventh round, claiming he had hurt his shoulder. Some believed the fight was fixed, and doubt whether Liston's shoulder injury was real, even though the injury had been noted by sportswriters in his training camp before the fight.

Subsequent fights

Special Issue Sports Illustrated cover, end of the fight

On May 25, 1965, Liston would encounter Clay again, now known as Muhammad Ali. The bout was originally scheduled for Boston, Massachusetts, but Ali, a week before the fight, was hospitalized with a hernia. The rescheduled match was in the small town of Lewiston, Maine.

Less than two minutes into the fight, it was over. Ali hit Liston with a straight left that caught him on the chin, knocking him cold. Ali taunted the former champ, dancing over him as Liston attempted to get up. The photograph of the conclusion of this fight is one of the most famous pictures in boxing history, and was chosen as the cover of the Sports Illustrated special issue, "The Century's Greatest Sports Photos".

Many believed that the fight was fake. George Chuvalo, who sat in the fourth row at ringside and later fought Ali twice, commented, "It was a phoney." Floyd Patterson also said he did not believe the fight was on the level, as did former heavyweight champions Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, and Joe Louis.

Another factor that may have contributed to the result of the fight was Liston's age. Although Liston's exact age at the time is not known, he may have been as much as 38 years old when fighting Ali, an age at which many boxers are already well past their fighting prime.

Liston took one year off from boxing, returning in 1966 and 1967, winning four bouts in a row in Sweden, including one over Amos Johnson. In 1968, he won seven fights, all by knockout, including one in Mexico.

In 1969, he had three wins and one loss. Among his wins was a 10 round decision over Billy Joiner at St. Louis, but in his last bout of that year, he lost by a knockout in nine rounds to Leotis Martin at Las Vegas. Martin's career ended after the fight because of a detached retina. Liston won his last fight by knockout in 1970, against Chuck Wepner.

His death

Liston was at the end of his fighting career when, on the evening of December 30, 1970, his wife found him dead in their Las Vegas home. He was believed to have been 38 years old. Police claimed they found no signs of foul play. Some believed the police investigation was a sham.

The precise cause of Liston's death is mysterious; the police declared it a drug overdose.

There were rumours he died with a syringe in his arm (not confirmed by his wife who found him). His friends also said he had a phobia of needles. All this prompted rumors that he could have been murdered by some of his underworld contacts. To this day, the case of his death remains unsolved.

This death was documented on the show Unsolved Mysteries.

Liston is interred in Paradise Memorial Gardens in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Trivia

*Liston's image appears on The Beatles's album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
*Liston made a cameo appearance as a boxer in the 1968 film Head.
*Several books about his life have been published, and his life has also been documented on TV documentaries and a TV movie.
*Mark Knopfler penned the biographical and somewhat sympathetic "Song For Sonny Liston" for his 2004 album Shangri-La.
*Liston's name appears in The Mountain Goats song 'Love Love Love' on the album The Sunset Tree, and in The Dictators' song 'Borneo Jimmy' on the album Bloodbrothers. He is also mentioned in the first line of "Glenn Tipton," the first track on Sun Kil Moon's album Ghosts of the Great Highway.
*Sonny has an adopted son, Paul Liston
*The 1995 song Sunny ([1]) by Morrissey is reportedly about Liston.
*This Bike is a Pipe Bomb has a song about Sonny's life, entitled The Ballad of Sonny Liston.
*Phil Ochs wrote a song, entitled [2] The Ballad of Sonny Liston
*Liston's favorite song was "Night Train." He was known to repeat both versions (Jimmy Forrest's original 1952 version and James Brown's 1965 smash hit) during long rope jumping sessions.
*Tom Petty's 1999 song, "Swingin" (from Echo (Tom Petty album)) mentions Liston.
*Poet Gary Short's 1996 book Flying Over Sonny Liston (University of Nevada Press) includes the title ([3]) poem, a short meditation on Sonny's life and death.
*Brian DeVido's 2004 novel Every Time I Talk to Liston (Bloomsbury USA) uses the late Liston as the soul of his novel, which details a heavyweight sparring partner's fledgling career and his attempts to draw inspiration from visits to Liston's Las Vegas grave.
*The Wu-Tang Clan song Triumph (from the 1997 album Wu-Tang Forever) makes a reference to Sonny Liston in the Ghostface Killah verse([4]).

References

*Nick Tosches, The Devil And Sonny Liston, 2000, Little, Brown, USA, ISBN 0316897752
*Brian DeVido, Every Time I Talk to Liston, 2004, Bloomsbury, USA, ISBN 1582344582

External links

*International Boxing Hall of Fame - Sonny Liston
*The Cyber Boxing Zone - Sonny Liston
*Muhammad Ali vs Sonny Liston - Great Audio track

Sonny Liston: Encyclopedia BETA

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