6/30/2023 0 Comments Muhammad ali sonny liston![]() ![]() ![]() In 1952, after serving two years in prison, he was paroled to a team of boxing handlers with ties to John Vitale, a St. He pleaded guilty and served separate stretches for armed robbery and assaulting a police officer. Along with a 50-4 ring record that included 39 knockouts, he had 19 arrests. The 6-foot-1½, 215-pounder used his 14-inch fists to make his mark, sometimes at inappropriate times. "In the ring, Sonny was a killing machine," said Johnny Tocco, one of Liston's trainers. What can be said with certainty is Liston was one of the most imposing figures to lace on boxing gloves. Many openly wondered whether the fights were fixed. The second, held in a small town in Maine, was even more questionable, as Liston was knocked out in the first. The first, held in Miami Beach, provoked cries that Liston went into the tank when he didn't come out for the seventh round. Sonny Liston had 39 knockouts, including eight in the first round.Įach fight had its own set of ambiguities. More pressing to boxing fans is the questionable ways in which he lost two heavyweight title fights to Muhammad Ali, who was known in the first as Cassius Clay. No one is sure when - or even how - he died. He said, 'No, you win and you lose.' I said, 'In the first round?' " says Liston's widow Geraldine on ESPN Classic's SportsCentury series.Ī brute inside the ring, Sonny Liston also was a brute outside it, condemned to a life of trouble. "I think Sonny gave that second fight away. ![]()
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