Liston, Sonny (1932?-1970)

Charles "Sonny" Liston is best remembered as the man who lost the heavyweight title to Muhammad Ali (then Cassius Clay), in 1964. A fearsome slugger, Liston captured and terrified the American consciousness in the early 1960s. His criminal past and his stint in prison were well publicized, as were his ties to organized crime. However, the single most well-known item about Liston was his baleful stare, which often petrified opponents even before the bell for the first round sounded.

In the early 1960s, the heavyweight champion of the world was clean-cut Floyd Patterson. Patterson's manager and trainer Cus D'Amato had spent the better part of his life fighting the influence of organized crime in boxing and was intent on protecting the heavyweight title from the mob. Realizing that his charge would have little chance against the fearsome Liston, D'Amato refused to allow Patterson to defend his title against the man many in boxing were already referring to as the uncrowned champ. Liston, meanwhile, was busy flattening the heavyweight division, waiting for what he hoped would be his inevitable title shot. Eventually Patterson, a proud champion, relented and took Liston on against the advice of D'Amato. On September 25, 1962, in a fight that was widely seen as good versus evil, Liston knocked Patterson out in one round to win the heavyweight title. Liston then repeated his performance with another one round demolition of Patterson the following year. At that point there were many among the hard-to-impress boxing media who considered Sonny Liston the best heavyweight ever to lace on a pair of gloves.

Enter Cassius Clay, soon to be known to the world as Muhammad Ali. Clay was the light heavyweight gold medalist in the 1960 Olympic games in Rome. The outspoken young fighter was fast becoming the sport's number one star, despite the fact that most boxing experts did not envision a world title in his future, especially not with the unbeatable Liston sitting on the heavyweight throne. Nevertheless as the outstanding contender to the title in 1964, Clay earned a try against Liston. Sonny Liston, the overwhelming favorite at 7-1 odds, was totally bewildered by the young challenger's hand and foot speed, and after six rounds of fighting, Liston refused to answer the bell for the seventh, insisting that he had damaged his shoulder during the bout and was unable to continue fighting as a result. The following year, Clay again defeated Liston, this time with a one-round knockout courtesy of a "phantom punch" which many attributed to Clay's faster-than-the-human-eye handspeed but many others saw as a fraudulent punch in a fixed fight. The controversy surrounding this fight has never been resolved, and the "phantom punch" remains a favorite topic of argument for boxing fans to this day.

Liston's last fight was in 1970 against Chuck Wepner, the fighter who nearly lasted the distance against Muhammad Ali and in doing so inspired a young actor in attendance named Sylvester Stallone to write the screenplay for the movie Rocky. Liston won the Wepner fight with a tenth round technical knockout. Later that year, Liston was found dead in his home, reportedly from a heroin overdose. Those who knew him personally insist that Sonny did not use heroin and that his death was actually a mob execution. Charles "Sonny" Liston, a man who did not know where he was born or how old he was, died as he lived—under a shroud of mystery and controversy.

—Max Kellerman

Further Reading:

Young, Andrew Sturgeon. Sonny Liston: The Champ Nobody Wanted. Chicago, Johnson Publishing, 1963.