“I read a book about 15 yrs ago, The Devil and Sonny Liston, my father was a boxer like you. He followed the fights, weighed about 150 5' 9'" loved the sport, when he died in 1996 one of his friends told me a story about a couple of his fights he, kicked the hell out of a few heavyweights. I read the book to find out a little about my father’s passion for the ring. I read the blog about the heavy weight out of England reminded me of my father and his stories of speed vs brawn. My question is this, do you think Liston took a dive, or was Clay just to fast?”

Ishmael.

I read The Devil and Sonny Liston, which would have been a better book if the author wasn’t so interested in Sonny’s sex life.

Liston was a devastating opponent if you had the wrong style: Dempsey, Marciano, Patterson, Frazier, Tyson, peek-a-boo pressure fighters at the top of their game, would have never been able to deal with him. He would have crushed them all—and did crush Patterson. Against other big standup power punchers like Louis, Lewis, Forman, it’s a pick-um fight. But, against that rarest of heavyweights, the big mover like Ali and Jackson, Liston is doomed due to his plodding movement.

Since we’re talking heavy weights, let’s talk tanks:

The Peek-a-boo fighters are all Shermans, albeit Frazier, Tyson and Marciano have been up-gunned with the 75mm long.

Louis, Liston, Lewis and Foreman are tiger tanks

Ali and Johnson are modern tanks of the 70s like the M-60-A1, Chieftain, Leopard, etc.

Think of the Ukrainian KO kings as the 1980s Abrams prototype—still some glitches, but a real nasty idea if it ever gets going.

Ali had a huge, and hugely underrated, straight right. Against Liston it is real short because the big ugly bear walked right into it. I believe you see the punch from behind Liston in the one video. Notice how Ali’s chest muscles separate from the shock on the right side. That punch was similar in upper body mechanics to the sneaky right Foreman used to KO Moorer.

Note: In Sonny’s 1971 fight with Chuck Wepner [who the Rocky character was based on] he knocked Chuck’s eyebrow into the third row, I think. Keep in mind that Sonny was old when he fought Ali, that Ali was bigger and quicker, and that he remained a force in the division until his death because he was so dangerous to fighters who did not move, and the heavyweight division never has a shortage of those. When a big guy runs into a bigger guy who has better movement it is a very demoralizing thing mentally, which is what really did Sonny in for the second fight. Liston might have weighed more, but Ali was bigger in boxing terms.