[11][12][10][13][14] One writer concluded that Liston's most plausible date of birth was July 22, 1930, citing census records and statements from his mother during her lifetime. [19], On June 23, 1953, a team consisting of ten recent St. Louis Golden Gloves champions of all weight classes, with Liston on top as the heavyweight, was gathered to represent the United States in an International Golden Gloves (USA vs. West Europe) competition at Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. But audiences attending Knopfler's concerts around North America this summer are hearing and responding favorably to a song of a different genre, a bluesy narrative ballad called "Song for Sonny Liston," about the troubled fighter who preceded Muhammad Ali as heavyweight champion in the early 1960's. Rocky Marciano, the former heavyweight champion, said that he appreciated the punchs strength upon re-examination. Never before seen Sonny Liston interview. Support this Channel: https://www.patreon.com/join/LegendsofBoxing Merchandise: https://www.redbubble.com/peo. 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. [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. Stevens organized a sparring session with a professional heavyweight named Thurman Wilson to showcase Liston's potential. He claimed the officer used racial slurs. Ali did neither. 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. "Some songs just seem to reverberate with people.". Paul R Gallender, 2012. Patterson, a 4-1 betting underdog, was knocked down three times and counted out at 2:10 of the first round. A stoic Liston finished the fight, but lost in an eight-round split decision. On May 5, 1956, a policeman confronted Liston and a friend about a cab parked near Liston's home. We cooked up that shoulder thing on the spot. "There's no doubt that he was mean," Knopfler said of Liston. (2) Professional gambler Lem Banker insists that Liston was murdered by drug dealers with whom he'd become involved. [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. 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. Tocco left the house before the police did. [84], Liston married Geraldine Chambers in St. Louis, Missouri, on September 3, 1957. Any objective observer would have had to concede that Ali's counterpunch had landed, and landed with enough force to turn Liston's head, Rob Sneddon wrote in The Phantom Punch: The Story Behind Boxing's Most Controversial Bout. One mile up on a mountain 13 miles west of Denver is the Shrine of Mother Cabrini. On July 28, 1963, Liston joined a group of 500 African Americans in Denver who marched to a post office to mail letters urging the Colorado congressional delegation to pass the Kennedy administration's civil rights package. 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 bout would need to be delayed by six months. Liston did eventually rise from the mat, but soon after, the referee broke up the two boxers once again the former champion had been down for more than 10 seconds, ending the fight. Liston has been referenced in many songs by artists such as Curtis Eller, Sun Kil Moon, the Animals, Tom Petty, Mark Knopfler, Phil Ochs, Morrissey, Freddy Blohm, Chuck E. Weiss, This Bike is a Pipe Bomb, the Roots, Wu-Tang Clan, Gone Jackals, Billy Joel, the Mountain Goats, Lil Wayne, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, and the Killers. Patterson's fatal mistake was that he "did not punch enough and frequently tried to clinch with Liston. The following year, Sonnydetermined to reunite with his mother and siblingsthrashed the pecans from his brother-in-law's tree and sold them in Forrest City, Arkansas. Unlike Dylan or Carter, however, Knopfler does not present Liston as innocent of a crime for which he was imprisoned. The grave's marker-plate bears the dedication: "A Man. [74], Writer Gilbert Rogin assessed Liston's style and physique after his win over Zora Folley. Sonny Liston Interview 82,818 views Apr 2, 2014 1.3K Dislike Share Save haNZAgod 93.2K subscribers Subscribe A rare interview with former Heavyweight champion of the world, Sonny Liston.. Top contender Zora Folley was stopped in three rounds. [citation needed], The fight turned out to be a mismatch. In an unearthed, unaired TV interview, Sonny Liston's wife once said that the fighter needed to get out of the ring as fast as possible because he had diarrhea. Liston went down at 1:44, got up at 1:56, and Walcott stopped the fight at 2:12. 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. Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it was "no phantom punch." As the years passed and Liston's financial situation worsened, he got angry and told the mob he would go public with the story unless they gave him the money. Liston appears as a character in James Ellroy's novel The Cold Six Thousand. What are you doing? Machen's mobility enabled him to go the distance but he was clearly outpointed despite Liston being penalised for a low blow in the 11th round. The Murder of Sonny Liston: A Story of Fame, Heroin, Boxing & Las Vegas Pan publisher; 2017. Known for his powerful punch, the majority of his victories were knockouts. He said he could not hear McDonough, who did not have a microphone. Sonny Liston had a controversial boxing career, winning 54 of 58 bouts from 1953 to 1970. He rolled over, got to his right knee and then fell on his back again. Liston went down on his back. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. There's never been anybody as ruthless. Mike DeJohn was the highest paid boxer at $15,000 while James Dickey received $20,000. Philadelphia wanted nothing to do with him. ", It was later theorized that a substance used on Liston's cuts by Joe Pollino, his cut man, may have caused the irritation. "[75], Future world heavyweight champion George Foreman, who sparred with Liston after Foreman's amateur career, assessed Liston's jab as the most formidable he faced and Liston as the strongest man he encountered in the ring, describing Liston as having the most natural talent and skill. Gallender claimed, "A lot of officers knew Sonny was dead before Geraldine returned home on January 5, but they chose to let him rot. According to Liston's trainer, Willie Reddish, Liston cancelled a planned tour to Africa in 1963 because he refused to get the required inoculations. "The public is not with me. The organization was seen as an extremist anti-white people hate group and opponents of desegregation and Martin Luther King Jr. Clays propensity for self-promotion and controversy seemed to fit in with the groups inflammatory rhetoric. ", Ali clearly did not think he knocked Liston out. The opening round was fought an extra eight seconds, since both fighters and referee Barney Felix apparently did not hear the bell. Joe Louis commenting on TV at ringside said "It's looking good for Sonny Liston". In the months ahead of the fight, Muhammad Ali went all sorts of routes to get into Sonny Liston's head. With the proceeds, he traveled to St. Louis to live with his mother. In that same book Liston was quoted two years after the fight: "Ali knocked me down with a sharp punch. "I didn't know what the heck was going on", Angelo Dundee, Clay's trainer, recalled on an NBC special 25 years later. Maybe he was. Sonny Liston was a bad, bad guy who was also a victim, and I dont know that anyone can point to when a victim becomes a perpetrator and how much sympathy he deserves, but I also think any holistic take is fair this far in history. Biography and associated logos are trademarks of A+E Networksprotected in the US and other countries around the globe. "He was afraid of needles," echoed Father Edward Murphy. Tobe and Helen had 12 children together; Sonny was the second youngest child. [10] His family, but not one Charles (or Sonny) Liston, can be found in the 1930 census, and in the 1940 census he was listed as 10 years old. "You're putting things on and you're taking this out and molding it," Knopfler said. Cleveland Williams was the last person to defeat Liston and made $100,000 for his efforts. I know!" knockout kimbo slice evander holyfield nogueira wladimir vitali klitschko haye mma brutal bareknuckle headbutt lowblow foul dirty boxer funny bob sapp david cesar chavez joe frazier rocky marciano larry holmes felix trinidad jackson new tribute video highlight dirtiest best brock lesnar julio cesar ricky hatton randy couture israel vasquez juan manuel marquez antonio margarito felix tito trinidad antonio rodrigo minotauro marco antonio barrera john ruiz freddie roach hector camacho pernell whitaker willie pep sugar ray robinson shane mosley antonio tarver roy jones joe cortez lennox lewis david haye haymaker wladimir vitali vladimir klitschko klitchko prediction prefight postfight press conferencetex cobb gerry cooney jerry pierre coetzer floyd roger mayweather arturo gatti rocky graziano graciano tony zale dariusz michalczewski rocky rocchigiani henry maske james toney vassily jirov vasily unbelievable knockout ko k.o. People around the world tuned in via satellite to watch the match, which was fought in front of 2,434 paying ticket-holders, the smallest crowd in heavyweight championship fight history; people there suggested the crowd was more like 4,000, but nonetheless, it was a very small in-person audience. [71] Credence to the latter theory is provided by the fact that Liston, immediately after his fight with Chuck Wepner, seemed more concerned about supporting the proposed Ali-Frazier bout and Ali's claims to be champion than promoting his own career. Sports Illustrated writer Mort Sharnik said his hands "looked like cannonballs when he made them into fists." The photo captures the champions exhortations, with all the fire and passion and dynamic physicality that made him such a phenomenon. Im free to be who I want.. So I get him down, I get the sponge and I pour the water into his eyes trying to cleanse whatever's there, but before I did that I put my pinkie in his eye and I put it into my eye. Watch the interview you be the judge.. said Liston's Philadelphia dentist, Dr. Nick Ragni. To the rest of the world, it would be known as "The Phantom Punch." That shot, which Ali dropped Sonny Liston with on May 25, 1965, was far from a phantom. (. After Ali's win against Sonny Liston, he wouldn't . "Sonnyboyliston | Race Record & Form | Racing Post", "Moonfire (1972), a film by Michael Parkhurst -Theiapolis", NYSAC World Heavyweight Champion - BoxRec, Lyrics to a song about Liston by Mark Knopfler, FBI Records: The Vault - Charles Sonny Liston, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sonny_Liston&oldid=1137950795, International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees, 20th-century African-American sportspeople, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2016, Articles with unsourced statements from August 2022, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2016, Pages with login required references or sources, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Hackman, Timothy. He also went with a new manager in 1958: Joseph "Pep" Barone, who was a front man for mobsters Frankie Carbo and Frank "Blinky" Palermo. Like Dylan's subject, Rubin Carter, Knopfler's version of Liston is sympathetic. In the 2020 film One Night in Miami, Liston is played by Aaron D. Alexander. At one point, Clay was wiping his eyes with his right hand while extending his left arm"like a drunk leaning on a lamppost" Bert Sugar wroteto keep Liston at bay. His wife said he was a kind & gentle hearted person who cared deeply for children & that no one ever saw that side of him except those closest to him I believe there's a documentary somewhere on YouTube I'd recommend watching it MatterUpbeat8803 19 days ago And I said, 'Whoa, whoa, back up, baby. Lennox is a conqueror? Sit down!' And the face, it was an unforgettable face. In an interview with The Associated Press shortly before his death in May 2009, Liston said he regretted . He also cited medical evidence: "A team of eight doctors inspected Liston's arm at St. Francis Hospital in Miami Beach and agreed that it was too badly damaged for Liston to continue fighting. [51], Liston failed to answer the bell for the seventh round, and Clay was declared the winner by technical knockout. "He would do everything to avoid taking shots." Liston's wife also recalled that her husband would refuse basic medical care for common colds because of his dislike of needles. "Nat Fleischer [editor of The Ring] was sitting beside McDonough and he was waving his hands, too, saying it was over." For his part, Liston said that the referees inability to keep track of time doomed him, as he didnt know when to get up from the mat. The suspension was honored in all states. [14], Tobe Liston inflicted whippings so severe on Sonny that the scars were still visible decades later. Suddenly, the world had to come to grips with a new kind of heavyweight champion. When Machen clinched in . I was down but not hurt, but I looked up and saw Ali standing over me. Both fights were in Summerlin's hometown of Detroit.[23]. [8][9], There is no official record of Liston's birth. [107] The story speculates that Liston threw the Ali match for the good of society. Biographer Wilfrid Sheed wrote in his book, Muhammad Ali: A Portrait in Words and Photographs, that Clay's protests were heard by ringside members of the Nation of Islam who initially suspected Dundee had blinded his fighter, and that the trainer deliberately wiped his own eyes with the corner sponge to demonstrate to Clay's approaching bodyguards that he had not intentionally blinded him. Muhammad Ali called it his "anchor punch," a quick right hand that the young heavyweight champion claimed he had learned from his friend, actor Stepin Fetchit. [108] The book suggests that Sonny Liston may have been murdered and a possibility that the crime was never investigated. But others contend he just was not the same Liston. [24], In 1958, Liston returned to boxing. But then again, he took a pretty good beating in the fight. Liston was allegedly present at dealer Earl Cage's residence during a raid by narcotics detectives. Mark Knopfler enjoyed widespread popularity in the 1980's as the leader of Dire Straits, lending his husky voice to hit songs like "Sultans of Swing" and "Money for Nothing." The Murder of Sonny Liston is an absorbing, albeit speculative, attempt at addressing the mystery that died with the man. ", Liston appeared on the December 1963 cover of Esquire magazine (cover photograph by Carl Fischer) "the last man on earth America wanted to see coming down its chimney".[106]. [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. And, while Patterson was growing as a fighter, Sonny was taking on mostly journeyman and starting to age.
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