61) Ezzard Charles Lost Points 15: US Fight Commentary TV -
v Ezzard Charles 27th September 1950 New York: Thirty-three pounds difference in favour of Louis ... An excellent bout ... An era ends as the bell sounds. US fight commentary
69) Rocky Marciano Lost TKO8: US Fight Commentary TV -
v Joe Louis 26th October 1951 New York Non-Title [r1] … Can the ex-champion come back? He’s the slight favourite … Rocky manoeuvres Lewis to the ropes and lands a right to the jaw in the opening seconds … [r2] A sweeping overhand right … Again Marciano bullies Louis to the ropes … A good Marciano round … A solid winging right to the head … [r3] … Some of the Old Bomber coming back … Left hook from Louis … Another right … A roundhouse right … [r4] … The left, the only weapon proving effective for him [Louis] … [5] … He [Louis] seems completely confident here in the 5th … Louis pushes Marciano away … the second awarded unanimously to Joe Louis … [r6] Louis has won his last round … Here comes another right … Another sweeping right by Rocky misses … [7] … The end is near … [r8] … Marciano knocked out one of the greatest champion the ring has ever known … Marciano exerting more and more pressure as he moves in for the kill ... Now watch this: Marciano’s hard left hook sends Louis sprawling to the canvas. US fight commentary
[8.7] SONNY LISTON 54-50(39)-4: Angelo Dundee - Frank Warren - Hall of Fame: Do You Remember the First Time? TV - Muhammad Ali - Jack Newfield - Unsolved Mysteries TV - Nigel Collins - Reputations: Sonny Liston: The Champion Nobody Wanted TV - Sonny Liston: The Mysteries Life & Death of a Champion 2011 -
Liston was the killer. The destroyer. Angelo Dundee
Sonny Liston was the guy. Sonny Liston was I think of the most underrated, one of the best Heavyweights out there. Frank Warren, promoter
Liston was considered to be one of the most fearsome, brutal champions of all time. Hall of Fame: Do You Remember the First Time?
An adoptee of the mob when the mob completely dominated boxing. Sonny Liston was the nightmare in the imagination of the frightened white populus in the late fifties, early sixties. David Remnick, Muhammad Ali biographer
And then of course Liston tries to cheat. He told his corner to juice his gloves; to put some kind of a stringent substance on his gloves. So in a last ditch effort he could blind Clay and win. ibid.
Big old ugly bear. Muhammad Ali
Ain’t he ugly? He’s too ugly to be the world’s champ. The world’s champ should be pretty like me. Muhammad Ali
He was a bully getting whipped, and he found a way out. Jack Newfield, Boxing historian
There is a cloud over Liston’s reputation. Jack Newfield, author Only in America: The Life and Crimes of Don King
January 5 1971 ... Sonny Liston is dead, from what police say was an accidental drug overdose. But his friends and family believe that the official verdict is wrong. Unsolved Mysteries s14e27, 2008
There, laying on his back, slumped partially on the bed and dressing table at the foot of the bed was the body of Charles ‘Sonny’ Liston; husband, father, ex-con ... and the former heavyweight champion of the world. He was naked except for a T-shirt, a ribbon of thick, black blood coagulated around his nostrils.
During his lifetime, Liston had been an enigma, the prototype tough guy who hid his feelings behind a sullen state and a curt comment. He was haunted by his past and tormented by a reputation he was never able to shake. Nigel Collins, ‘The Champion Nobody Wanted’
To much of white America during the 1960s, Liston personified the ‘bad nigger’, a threatening stereotype rooted in paranoia and ignorance. To numerous law enforcement officials throughout the country, Liston was simply a hood, a common ruffian who had been lucky enough to win the heavyweight title. ibid.
From the cradle, poverty and hunger were a way of life for Sunny. A field hand by the time he was 12, Liston’s lone blessing in a childhood filled with hardship and deprivation was his size and prodigious physical strength. ibid.
Liston’s original manager, Frank Mitchell, was the first in a long line of mob connected characters to guide Sonny’s career. ibid.
Liston was then approaching his fistic prime. Standing six foot one inch and weighing around fifteen stones, he was a devastating fighter, perhaps one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. ibid.
Liston was the obvious choice to challenge Petterson. But d’Amato continually ducked Liston, shrewdly citing Sonny's nefarious past and continuing relationship with various members of organized crime as an excuse. ibid.
For Liston, winning the heavyweight title was no panacea. To begin with, the IRS seized the entire proceeds from the Patterson fight. ibid.
Beginning with the Patterson rematch, he only boxed with sparring partners who made him look good. ibid.
So, what had happened? The answer is deceptively simple: the poorly conditioned Liston was demoralized, close to exhaustion, and getting slapped silly by a younger, fresher and highly talented boxer. In the harsh parlance of the fight game, ‘he quit like a dog’. ibid.
The ensuing uproar threatened to bury boxing once and for all. Most people, whether they'd seen the bout or not, were sure Liston had thrown the fight and no punch had landed ... He had simply taken the first opportunity that came along to go into the tank. The larger question is why. ibid.
While back-to-back disgraces should have ended Liston’s career, they didn’t. Over the next four years, he won 14 straight bouts, re-establishing himself as a contender. ibid.
A misunderstood loner he could be moody and difficult to get along with at times, but there was also another side to Liston ... Liston was also a sensitive man, especially about his age. He was deeply hurt by the way he was treated after winning the championship, and resented the way police harassed him. ibid.
The most common view among boxing people is that Liston had fallen from grace with the Las Vegas underworld and had been given a ‘hot shot’, the street name for an intentional overdose, often administered at gun-point. ibid.
Liston’s sudden death was the brutal final chapter in a life shrouded in mystery and filled with unanswered questions, a poetically fitting ending for a classic anti-hero. For while Liston’s escapades, both in and outside of the boxing ring, had been the object of public scrutiny for years, he nevertheless carried countless secrets to his grave. ibid.
The challenger, Charles Sonny Liston, is no stranger to the boos of the crowd. Cast as the bad man of boxing, Liston is one of the most formidable fighters in the history of the sport. Reputations s8e6: Sonny Liston: The Champion Nobody Wanted, BBC 2001
Away from boxing he was shy and vulnerable. ibid.
Just A Cold And Brutal Execution! ibid. newspaper headline re second knockout of Patterson
A Fix! A Fix! A Fix! ibid. newspaper headline re second fight with Ali
He is a tragic figure clearly. Sonny Liston: The Mysterious Life and Death of a Champion, dude, 1995
This guy really brought an aura of destruction and an aura of menace into the gym and into the ring. ibid.
Sonny’s death remains a mystery. His wife went into the master bedroom and there was Sonny dead, blood leaking from his nose, he had obviously been dead for some time. ibid.
He eventually went to prison in Missouri for armed robbery. ibid.
He became a Mob fighter. ibid.
This absolutely fearsome unbeatable force of nature. ibid.
And Floyd Paterson came into the ring obviously terrified. ibid.
Liston began getting harassed by Cassius Clay. ibid.
Las Vegas: At that point he was just about broke. ibid.
35) Floyd Patterson KO1: UK Fight Commentary TV -
v Floyd Patterson 25th September 1962 Chicago [r1] ... Liston’s heavy jabs bother Patterson. Patterson’s bobbing and weaving makes Liston miss often ... A solid left to the cheek bone drops the champion. (Boxers: Liston & Boxers: Patterson) US fight commentary