Sonny+Liston Entries

Entries tagged with "Sonny+Liston":

Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston – November 30th, 2018
It was February 25, 1964. The fight was for the heavyweight championship of the world. In one corner you had the champ, boxing’s Darth Vader, the formidable Sonny Liston. In the opposite corner you had the young challenger, a poetry-spouting loudmouth from Louisville, Kentucky, named Cassius Clay (soon…
Sonny Liston vs. Floyd Patterson – September 24th, 2018
On September 25, 1962 at Comiskey Park in Chicago, Illinois, heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson (38-2-0) defended his title against the let's-get-down-to-business challenger Sonny Liston. Patterson, at 38-2, was an admirable champion in so many ways and an ideal boxing ambassador. Liston, the hard…
Cigars, Whiskey, and Joe Frazier – September 5th, 2018
My Buddhist nature wanted to tell him that all misery, all sorrow, lies in the past, that there is only becoming. To live today one must release the past…
When badass Leo Gordon upstaged Sugar Ray – August 12th, 2018
In 1943, he held up a tavern in Los Angeles, took a policeman’s slug in the gut, and did a four-year stretch in San Quentin prison…
Turn up the mic – June 30th, 2018
“The old beat writers were classically trained journalists. A fan must first learn to put words on paper before venturing near the ring…”
“Every union has a Mr. Hughes” – June 18th, 2018
If it got out that he and Presser were FBI informants, Hughes told his Bureau contact, “you might as well just kill us yourself…”
The Charlos May Be The Solution to Golovnelo – June 4th, 2018
The surly powder keg image of the Charlos is somewhere between prime Mike Tyson and a jacked up World Star version of a grim Sonny Liston…
Mr. Freeze – May 1st, 2018
For 50 Krona ($5.78 American) you can buy the above-pictured autograph of ex-heavyweight boxer Richie Norden…
Braverman New World – March 9th, 2018
Braverman said he was “thrown in...the nuthouse,” where he described the other inmates “making sounds like roosters and reading bibles upside down…”
The trials of Curley Lee – January 30th, 2018
“The battle of David vs. Goliath came out the way you’d logically expect last night when Curley Lee was bombed into submission by gigantic Cleveland Williams”
Kellerman and “DiveGate” – January 27th, 2018
Saturday night at the Forum in the Los Angeles suburb of Inglewood, Lucas Matthysse dealt Tewa Kiram the first loss of his professional career…
Magno’s Pound-for-Pound Top 10 – January 2nd, 2018
Some dig deep into magic fairyland and somehow manage to rank fighters based on the idea of who would beat who—if they all were the same weight…
10 Greatest Upsets in Heavyweight History – November 30th, 2017
There's nothing like an upset to make one believe. All the questionable decisions that cast doubt on the sport are rendered meaningless when an upset occurs. And when the upset is during a contest between world-class heavyweights, the satisfaction is that much greater. This sampling covers some of the…
Rocky Marciano: A Crown of Gold – November 3rd, 2017
Rocky Marciano last fought on September 21, 1955, his sixth title defense, knocking out Archie Moore, "The most unappreciated fighter in the world…”
When The Cub Meets The Lion – October 17th, 2017
Experience is to one’s vocation what seasoning is to a dish. Like wine, there’s just a bolder taste that only time can conjure…
Reuben Vargas: Knockout Power in Either Hand – October 12th, 2017
"There is philosophy in everything—including prizefighting. Life itself is a battle. It's dog eat dog; the survival of the fittest; kill or be killed..."
Our Mr. Brooks – July 23rd, 2017
The hands of the timid 15-year-old “Wisconsin Correspondent for Ring Magazine” were shaking much more than usual…
The Ali-Trump Connection – July 7th, 2017
Both men insulted their opponents but paid themselves compliments. They were all ego, all the time…
Bufano’s Gym—A Small Factory Where Men’s Muscles Were Made – June 23rd, 2017
From the 1950s through the 1990s, Bufano’s was a boxing hotbed, a big name in boxing circles. Now, it’s so small it fits only inside my head…
Chuck Wepner: Going the Distance – May 13th, 2017
Anyone meeting former heavyweight contender Chuck Wepner comes away feeling as if they have been friends with him for a very long time…
GGG-Jacobs: Boxing’s Long Con – March 21st, 2017
It’s more accurate to say that Golovkin faced a great fighter, he tried his best, and he came up short. There is no shame in that…
Introduction: “Sonny Liston — In A New Light” – March 4th, 2017
Liston was dogged by a miasma of sadness, unmitigated and beyond resolution, of tragedies past, and of tragedies to come…
Sonny Liston’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – December 31st, 2016
“Mae West replied, ‘No, I won't be in it. What would I be doing in a lonely hearts club?’ So the Beatles wrote her a personal letter and she changed her mind…”
Ali and The RING: Better Late Than Never? – December 8th, 2016
For some, “better late than never” are the catchwords of the day. For others, the question “what’s the point?” seems more relevant…
Boxing Is Alive & Well – December 1st, 2016
Boxing is here to stay. Much like any other sport, it has its stumbles, but the sport itself is too strong to wither away and die…
Wallace Cross: Sparring Partner and Pallbearer – October 14th, 2016
Galento died of a heart attack on July 22, 1979, just three months before Wallace Cross was made a fellow inductee of the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame…
How does a fan tell Henry Cooper he’s rubbish? – August 22nd, 2016
There was never any chance of Henry climbing into the ring with Sonny Liston. “We don’t even want to meet him walking down the street...”
Desperately Seeking Oscar – August 21st, 2016
Boxers have an aura of nobility and menace that titillated my soul. I’ve seen presidents, media moguls, and Hollywood stars, kowtow to champion fighters…
The Man Who Fought Liston and Cassius Clay—Four Times! – July 28th, 2016
Billy Joiner, a journeyman heavyweight in the 1960s, has a few fascinating tales to tell. Let him tell you in his own words…
Julio Mederos: On the Fringes – July 21st, 2016
Archie Moore once described Marciano as "a bull with gloves." Perhaps the same could be said of Julio Mederos…
Fury-Klitschko II: Better Burgers to Flip? – July 18th, 2016
There cannot be another Wild West without the bullets. There cannot be an ineffectual and inept repeat performance...
Belated 10-count for Wayne Heath – June 28th, 2016
After successive defeats by Boone Kirkman, Buster Mathis and Kirkman again, Irish Wayne’s dalliance with the big time was over…
The United States vs. Muhammad Ali – June 16th, 2016
Ali’s moral and religious position cost him a three and a half year absence from the boxing ring during his prime years...
The Lomachenko Model – June 15th, 2016
To deem him great at this point is equivalent to Muhammad Ali claiming himself the greatest without first defeating Sonny Liston…
Muhammad Ali’s Fight for the Right to Fight – June 5th, 2016
On April 28, 1967, Muhammad Ali reported for but declined to submit to induction into the Armed Forces of the United States…
Ten-Count for Muhammad Ali – June 4th, 2016
Other heavyweight champions before Ali embodied the zeitgeist, John L. Sullivan and Jack Dempsey come to mind, but few led the charge…
May 27, 1960: When Vegas Became King – May 27th, 2016
Around the time the Tropicana and the Dunes were headlining "Jayne Mansfield and a few sequins"— boxing in Nevada has been all Las Vegas…
Big Elmer Rush: A man of the ring – May 17th, 2016
“We want the public to know there will probably be more deaths. But we don’t want them to take our sport. We’re willing to take our own chances...”
Glove and marriage – May 6th, 2016
Chojnacki was not the only boxer, nor even the only one from Milwaukee, to put up his dukes on his wedding day…
The Secretariat of trial horses – April 20th, 2016
“When they saw ‘Scrap Fighting Tonight’ in the paper, they didn’t care if I win, lose or draw. They just knew I’d put on a good show…”
Philadelphia’s Own Jimmy Binns – March 8th, 2016
“I met Stallone when I was boxing commissioner. I met him at Bookbinder’s. He was making a new movie and asked me to be in it…”
Joe Frazier: Truly Alive at 205 – February 24th, 2016
Frazier is the guy who plays havoc with the minds of traditionalists and revisionists alike whenever they shuffle their all-time rankings…
Temple of Mystery: The Mind of Freudian Floyd – February 8th, 2016
Why was Patterson so quiet? Why was he so private? Where was the dynamism of Jack Dempsey, the color of Rocky Marciano?
Happy Trails: Boxing’s Swinging End to the Sixties – January 2nd, 2016
Thank goodness for boxing, eh? Through it all, the ancient game did what it has always done for better or for worse…
Red Applegate: Going the Distance – December 29th, 2015
Applegate should be remembered for going the distance with Rocky Marciano, one of the heaviest hitters in the history of the heavyweight division…
Floyd Patterson vs. Pete Rademacher – December 21st, 2015
“The thousands rose with a mighty roar and got their money's worth then and there. The rest was almost an anticlimax…”
Candy Slim: The Curious Mystique of Jeff Merritt – November 29th, 2015
Merritt was one of those scary monsters of the game, one of that select group of fearsome and near mythical men who never stop intriguing us…
Klitschko / Fury: Skill and Power vs. Zig-Zags and The Almighty – November 23rd, 2015
Klitschko is a fine architect, calmly deconstructing faces, subtly carving through the resolve of the man opposite…
Doug Jones: The Man Who Nearly Beat Cassius Clay – November 20th, 2015
The determined and business-like Jones was very much his own man. He was never in awe of Cassius Clay, Muhammad Ali or anyone else…
Remembering Tony Alongi – November 16th, 2015
When he passed away at the relatively young age of 64, his professional boxing career was not mentioned in his Miami Herald obituary...