Sonny Liston | Boxing's Most Intimidating and Unwanted Champion

[Music] in a time where boxing was rife with corruption and was ruled by organized crime no fighter more perfectly represented the sweet science's dark age better than the fearsome sunny liston his soulless glare that lacked emotion and his scowl that could crush a man's will to win the one they called the night train brought an air of menace everywhere he went and although his name is synonymous with fear no fighter was more misunderstood and mistreated rainy day boxer brings you sonny liston a boxing legend [Music] sonny liston i think was possibly the greatest intimidator of all time i've seen him stare guys down where they were so scared climbing up the ring steps they could barely get in the ring looking at people as though he hated everyone looking at writers as though he hated all writers sonny listen i watched him here in the gym a few months ago and he can hit a guy in the elbows and just about break his arm listen but served time for armed robbery and later for beating up a cop he'd been arrested more than a hundred times his manager was tied to organized crime and one thing more listen could fight like hell born charles l eston in arkansas usa on an unknown date sonny's beginnings were as humble as can be he was the 24th of 25 children growing up on a cotton plantation his father used him as a substitute for a mule and when he wasn't being worked by his father he was being whipped by his father and he had the scars to prove it sonny came up under probably the poorest kind of financial conditions that you could imagine developed his tremendous physique working in the cotton fields is barely a teenager liston said we grew up with few clothes no shoes little to eat my father worked me hard and whooped me hard i realized what this guy's life was like beaten every day by his father and welts on his back the rest of his life and the mule dies and the father used to beat the crap at him anyway constantly says you're the mule and he's the mule trotting the furrows and the fear you know he said that's i'm not taking his crap anymore at the young age of 13 sonny mustered up the courage to leave his abusive father all alone he hitched height to saint louis to reunite with his mother but sunny not having the ability to read or write had almost nothing going for him at his new schools so he took to the mean streets of st louis where his tremendously stocky physique an appearance of a man gave him fear and respect and eventually led him to a life of crime he said he was in school there was smaller kids and they would make fun of him because he was so big he eventually started playing hooky and dropping out and not going to class and his formal education didn't get very far he was at the dark side of saint louis at the kind of real poor section and he saw how the poor people got money he winds up getting into trouble he's a big guy and his size is intimidating and i think what he discovers when he's a teenager is that his size can be intimidating and he can maybe use that to his advantage as a teenager listed had racked up charges of larceny and armed robbery it was known to the police as a nixie fighter a man not afraid to fight the cops eventually every police car in st louis had a picture of lists and taped to their sun visors the man had a target on his back a serious prison record armed robbery assaults on police officers sonny liston was the most threatening guy around in 1956 in a brawl with the police officer the cop wound up with a broken knee and sonny managed to run off with the cop's gun and a cap then after his release he wound up in another fight with the policeman wound up putting him upside down in the trash barrel after he busted the cop's leg in saint louis he was a branded man the word had gone out harass this guy put the screws to him wherever you get the chance sonny liston after some minor infractions went to the big time he went to rob a gas station he went to rob a restaurant after sonny was tried he got five years in jail that was the sentence for armed robbery at the time and he went to the penitentiary in jefferson which was a really tough place time magazine called it the bloodiest 47 acres in america gangs ruled it there were fights all the time guards were afraid to patrol some of the d-blocks but his sentence soon turned into a blessing in disguise as he was able to thrive in the prison boxing program even in the united states most infamous prison at the time liston was the most feared man on the block they couldn't get anybody to fight him by himself they had to put two or three in the ring with him to get him any kind of exercise so i knew he had to be a very strong powerful man this guy was a head breaker that's how he went to prison and in prison he was a head breaker he was feared after defeating every man who dared to challenge him his reputation found its way to some of the mafia's head honchos who served as the underworld commissioners of boxing his potential in the boxing world and mob connections helped get him an early parole and also on the outside landed sunny a job as a mafia leg breaker frankie carbo a former professional killer for murder incorporated now ruled the boxing game from the shadows and was now the undercover manager of sunny liston as of december 1960 sunny liston was controlled by powerful racketeer groups under the leadership of frank carbo mr gray the superintendent one of the most feared gunmen of the prohibition era and we undisputed czar of the professional sport have you ever threatened any manager or boxer or promoter for not carrying out any wishes i respectfully decline to answer questions i cannot be confused to be a witness against myself when he wasn't boxing liston's new boss made sure he was available for other work laborers got out of line sonny was the guy that roughed him up he would collect money for loan sharks and numbers riders and they involved him to enforce their strikes their collection of debts and any other little job that needed to be done and they knew this guy could knock out anybody if he hit them and it was just a question of finding the right front managers the richest prize in sports is the heavyweight championship and the mob wanted to get back control of the heavyweight title liston was matched up against the most avoided promising heavyweight prospects and obliterated each one of them feared cleveland williams held the title as the hardest puncher in the division until this time battered him on two separate occasions it took sonny only 69 seconds to finish veteran wayne bethea and knock out seven of his teeth liston brought in the beginning of the big heavyweights previously the heavyweight crown was held by men who fought under 200 pounds at 215 liston was a behemoth compared to his 190 pound counterparts he had an 84 inch reach and required custom-made gloves to fit his 15-inch sized hands thought to have the hardest jab in boxing history sunny fought with an innate aggression and lack of pity towards his opponents the mafia known to rig a contest results to their liking needed not worry with any of liston's fights they now controlled the most destructive heavyweight since jack dempsey and the top contenders felt the sting of his punches a prize fight that's like a cowboy movie listed once loaded there has to be a good guy and a bad guy people pay their money to see me lose only in my cowboy movie the bad guy always wins westfall has never been knocked off his feet until now sunny was one of these classic punchers with either hand like lewis the later like tyson he had enormous punching power and he knocked almost everybody out quickly switches his attack from the body to the head in a smashing left hook puts williams down tremendous left jab and a great hook sonny really became a force in boxing this guy could really hit he knocked the stuffing out of the headgear when he hit you it came apart counterparts of the canvas nobody ever hit me like that guy every time he hit he broke something they broke my nose my left cheekbone and gave me 72 stitches a dynamite combination of punches by sunny listen and mcmurray goes down sonny liston belongs among the five greatest heavyweights of all time he had a left jab in front of him which was probably the best in all heavyweight history had the kind of a jab that went through you now [Applause] he had a reputation as a fearsome puncher a potential rival for heavyweight champion floyd patterson who do you want to fight on the ring in your next engagement the man got the title mr floyd patterson currently the heavyweight champion despite his underworld allies sunny earned a title shot the hard and honest way he cleared the division in such a violent manner that it was obvious to everyone that liston was the best in the weight class and heavyweight champion floyd patterson knew it too patterson was the darling of wholesome america civil rights organizations desired black athletes to be model citizens to positively represent african americans floyd patterson was the perfect representation for this cause charles cindy liston was not there was a an awful lot of controversy at the time whether this morally reckless person quote unquote actually was worthy of fighting for the heavyweight championship of the world we don't really associate sunny listening with the civil rights movement because the civil rights movement didn't associate itself with sunny liston there was a lot of concern about liston fighting for the title to represent us he's not the kind of image that we want you know this guy's been in prison he's illiterate he's got all this connection with these white gangsters and we don't want that everybody knows that the best heavyweight in the world at this time was charles sunny-wise there was no number two everybody knew it the question was was he going to be permitted to fight for the title well i've fought all the top contenders and i fought my way up to the number one spot so what do a man have to do to get an honest shot at the title the champion floyd patterson was a popular figure his manager refused to let him fight liston because of his connections to the mob floyd patterson was sold as kind of the meek safe polite negro in contrast to sunny listen as a menace to civilization a threat to the cleanliness of sports floyd patterson was invited to the white house by jack kennedy jack kennedy urged patterson to fight liston and to beat him then in 1962 over the strong objections of his mentor customato pattison signed to defend his title against charles of sonny liston about a month from now sunny liston is going to be trying to get the championship from floyd patterson how do you see this fight trying to get sonny listen we'll get it when liston goes into the ring he's booed [Music] and floyd patterson came into the ring obviously terrified and you knew looking at floyd patterson that it wasn't going to last very long [Music] [Applause] sonny liston moves out to face the big chance of his 28 years of a turbulent life the list and hook to the head is the first good punch of the fight [Music] listen gets to him against the ropes with lefts and right ties him up won't let him get away listen with the left short right to the body and patterson is down sun industry destroyed fourth patterson at two minutes and six seconds of the first round it was a slaughter and sunny listen when's the heavyweight championship of the world the stadium was eerily quiet almost funeral and in the oversimplified world of boxing evil has just defeated good the public would let bygones be bygones that i would be a good champion maybe a better champ than he was either just as good a champion against all odds sunny achieved what he set out to do and all he wanted now was a second chance to live a respectable life and not be seen as a criminal but nothing changed the morning after the fight sunny flies back to philadelphia he believes he has wiped the slate clean preparing a speech where he's promising to be a good champion and he just assumes that the mayor is going to be there there's going to be a big parade he at least thought he would come home to a hero's welcome and the plane landed in philadelphia and he was hoping to see hundreds or maybe even thousands of people on the tarmac you know welcome home champ the usual thing that you see happening with championship fighters coming home and there was nobody you know this guy who was waiting for his great moment in life saw that nothing had happened no one had come to greece and his shoulders just slumped the feeling of hope of acceptance into the greater world vanished in an instant a lot of people feel that that really crushed him emotionally and that he never really recovered from that disappointment or really the realization that it didn't make any difference what sonny liston did the rest of his life he was always going to be branded as a bad guy sonny's desires to be a good person was crushed along with his dream to be accepted by the public to the world he was just an uneducated southern negro and that intimidated them the press labeled him as a juggle beast and latter-day cave man it was then that liston embraced the role of a villain sonny was uncomfortable dealing with the press so he'd usually answer a question with one word or angry stare the sunny listens there became known as who asked the question yoga if he didn't like the question he would just sit there and look at you or he would tell you it's a stupid question and not answer it he was also very intimidating he was suspicious of everyone he didn't like reporters who do you expect your next real fight to be with haven't i been having real one after watching you spa today it seems that you plan a vastly increased use of your right hand is this true i'm planning on using both of them both of them right newspapers painted him as a bad fella but for people that around him and people he knew and liked he was a good fellow they'd do anything for you the problem was his name began to appear on the front pages of the newspaper more than in the sports sections of the newspaper the denver police harassed sonny liston and i thought treated him very bad if he would step one foot onto the golf course where he ran i was with him they were there to give him a ticket on it went in one of these drive-thru hamburger joints and came out the entrance instead of the exit suddenly there's two police cars there even after he became champion the police they went right on harassing them petty things picking them up to standing on a street corner talking to someone for sunny the last straw is when they picked them up in the park for driving too slowly liston who was now the champion if anything was more disliked now and i think patterson who was deeply beloved if anything was now held as a last beacon of hope a year after winning the title patterson mistakenly asked listen for a rematch sonny obliged him liston was at the height of his powers and his aura of invincibility was more imposing than ever is he going to be your next opponent and if he is what are you going to do to him he'll be my next opponent what i'm going to do to him and the next fight what happened in the first one he's getting through underneath he's got him going again less than a minute gone and there's the first count those are those heavy lefts going through on the right following up and this is what's doing the damage he's trying to fight back patterson but the other man who's got fights are the heavier punches [Applause] the fight lasted two minutes and ten seconds reconfirming liston as the heavyweight champion of the world despite the win listen was again denied the public acceptance he so badly wanted the public is not with me now but they have to swing along until somebody else come along to beat me but there to interrupt the celebrations was the future of boxing the loud and promising youngster cassius clay stormed into the ring and proclaimed that he was the man to beat liston and over the coming months clay would take pestering to an entirely new level the bomb is too big he's too flat-footed and he's too slow he had gone to his home and bang on his door in the middle of the night in order to aggravate them he thought of all these high school stunts they pulled on sonny which were demeaning insulting [Music] and he starts screaming chomp chomp i'm gonna get you and he's screaming for everybody to hear liston finally looks up in that baleful stare of his pulls out a gun and bang bang bang bang and clay runs out as fast as he ever could it was blanks and listen roared for an hour don't you have any respect for him at all as a fighter as a fighter i think he should be locked up for impersonating a fighter liston said why not he said i'm going to kill him it's going to take me a round and a half sonny listen to the fight because he thought he could destroy cassius clay well do you think it'll end in two well you can bet your life it ain't going poor from the outset it's obvious that listen is underestimated clay's ability then he started to take sonny apart here was a finely tuned magnificent young athlete in front of him sonny suddenly realized wow this is something i've never been up against in the ring sunny flat footed stands most of the time easy target easy another jarring right hand that time folks another one [Applause] [Music] when liston lopped his butt down on the stool at the end of the sixth round he said that's it they might be stopping it that might be all ladies and gentlemen something has happened [Music] sunny a man who took great pride in being the baddest man in the world no longer was and there at his lowest moment was the press as merciless as ever descended upon listen while he was down reporters came at him hard like a group of vultures the press was saying sonny was a dog sonny was a quitter it only added to his bad reputation not as an individual but as a fighter just quit at the end of the sixth round claiming a shoulder injury which nobody believed when i went back to my corner the whole glove felt like it was full of water and he was deeply ashamed this was the thing that gave sonny's identity he was the toughest guy in the world and suddenly he woke up one morning and he wasn't the toughest guy in the world so he decided to do something about it the night of the infamous phantom punch and perhaps the most controversial moment in boxing history this that was floored by what seemed to be a harmless punch [Music] throughout his career sunny had been able to walk through some of the hardest puncher's best shots but now have been sent to the canvas from a shot where the connection could only be seen in slow motion from his obvious unwillingness to rise to his feet and his mob connections rumors of a fix or die spread like wildfire this would be liston's last fight with a championship on the line any chance that sonny had it for another shot of the title was lost in 1969 after he was knocked out by the former sparring partner leotis martinez [Applause] [Music] [Applause] the cold fact is it will be harder than ever sunny to go all the way up the trail after this defeat yes it would but i have to tank it over here sunny had one last bout against chuck webner where he made only thirteen thousand dollars ten thousand to repay a loan and the remaining amount paid to his corner men by this time sonny had relocated to vegas a mob run town that wouldn't look down upon him almost none of his career earnings left liston found his way back to his old life as mafia debt collector he was also seen associated with more and more criminal figures who sunny would eventually fall out of favor with there were all kinds of allegations as to what sonny was doing there were those that say he was pushing heroin doing the same kind of things associating with the same kind of people he always had a lot of people didn't want to have anything to do with sonny at that point he was scared about how far off the edge he was going friends of his we're told sunny's hanging out with the wrong folks there's a drug deal going down and sonny's involved in it he was an accident waiting to happen sonny liston was found dead today in his home in las vegas nevada on january 5th 1971 after leaving her husband alone in the house over the christmas holidays geraldine listen returned to find sonny slumped over heavily bloated and in an advanced state of decomposition with heroin in his system it was ruled that sonny died of natural causes but liston's fear of needles questioned that ruling and left theories of foul play so many people wanted sonny dead the only question is who got to him first he had gotten involved muscling in on somebody's loan sharking business and that he was murdered over this dispute most people in las vegas think he was given what they call a hot shot by some element of the mob but was it self-inflicted or was it administered by someone else some people say that he was getting too big for his britches he was trying to muscle in on some of the underground characters he was working for and they decided that this was the way to dispose of sunny forceful presence as liston was inside the ring he remained a mystery outside of it even in death the exact date of his birth is unknown and fittingly we're unsure the day he died the mysteries and conspiracies that surround his death will never be solved now but a natural death just seems an unlikely ending to the listen story he was a tragic figure who lived a tragic life but his story wasn't without triumph his beginnings were as low and muddy as can be yet he rode through the peak of society and soared like a shooting star all he desired to do was live a normal peaceful life but he was unfortunately never able to do so sadly being misunderstood by the world is what pushed liston into a life he didn't want to live for such a powerful man he had very little power over his own life throughout his career he was given identities that he desperately tried to shake off he was an illiterate an ex-con a leg breaker and without a doubt the most intimidating heavyweight champion of all time i don't think the general public ever knew the real sunny list they knew the persona the thug like guy he wasn't really that that was a front that was like what he needed to protect himself deep inside he was misunderstood and sensitive and wounded and that rejection that denial of the second chance to prove himself hurt him the rest of his life sonny was one of the most charming people i've ever known in sports but he didn't share it with people because he had been burnt so often he was very cuddly and affectionate i never saw that side of sonny that's been described as so menacing he just wasn't like that he was a fun-loving person sunny was spectacular with little children and old people because they were non-threatening and he was like a father figure to me little things he wanted to impart with me about behaving for me he really wanted to make certain i stayed out of trouble he's a good man and he's a kind man and worthy of a chance to contribute to society if you should win the championship do you have any plans in what you're going to do after that i would like to work with the kids in the [Music] youth center [Music] if you enjoyed this video don't forget to hit the like button share it with your friends and subscribe [Music] oh [Music]

Channel: Rainy Day Boxing

Views: 5,995,182

Keywords: sonny liston, muhammad ali, documentary, boxing, boxeo, tribute, training, бокс, black athlete, pbc, showtime, dazn

Id: skPKlBRNMOo

Length: 26min 23sec (1583 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 25 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Stumeister_69]

Amazing mini-documentary on YouTube! Glad this was made to shed light on him.

He seemed like such a really good guy, that was never given a chance. I'm shocked there hasn't been a good biopic made about him. Could focus more on his life and the man he really was.

[u/[deleted]]

Rare footage captured Luis Ortiz and pals waiting for the gym to open @ 3.00min

[u/antihostile]

Longer doc: "The Champ Nobody Wanted":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZDM1iUFmxk

[u/[deleted]]

The heartbreaking part is when he wanted to give a speech about being a good champion, but no one would listen. Being denied a second chance, he turned back to that rough life. There's a lesson here.

[u/Rubber_Fist_of_love]

" Sunny liston was the devil"

[u/Verscari]

Far better Liston documentary than I’ve ever seen from the likes of ESPN or Showtime tbh. Does anyone know the name of the song around the 22:35 mark when it’s talking about his passing?

[u/venom1stas]

Great watch