jjjjjj wrote:That nonsense about Sonny Liston, who was well past his prime at that point, and Frazier, among the toughest of all time
you are clueless about late-'60s boxing
clay was stripped & frazier was working his way upto number 1
i must admit, i had thought sonny was an after-thought after '63 but he was beating the crap out of everyone put in front of him upto number 3 behind frazier & ellis
in retrospect, it was a travesty that a former champ & the most fearsome one of all time in his reign, smashing everyone put in front of him had to wait 6y to get to number 3 !!!
nowdays, a beaten champ can get back up to number 1 within 18 months of losing the belt !!!
see the interminable john ruiz who seemed perpetually number 1 contender with wba whenever he wasn't champ !!!
sonny was blasting out everyone for 6y after '63 & coud only get to number 3 !!!
an utter travesty
he was partying hard towards the end & but still his camp offered big $$$ to frazier & ellis camp for a fight, meaning winner woud be a top-2 contender & have mandatory fight for vacant title
eddie futch flatly refused, intimating he was far too scared for his boy, frazier, to go anywhere near this beast, an ancient sonny, who was still too big & mean for his boy to step into the ring with
futch probably remembered frazier getting knocked down twice in a round by non-puncher but big oscar bonavena, with a 3rd knockdown meaning immediate stoppage
if bonavena coud knock down joe twice in a round, sonny's L hook wouda flattened him
sonny's partying just got so hard after that refusal knowing that politics/media/etc just didn't want him to fight again for the title
big george, then somewhat "a friend" & still sparring partner, said he woud get so drunk that "sonny didn't even know his own name !!!"
it caught up with him & had a shocking ko loss when doing basically doing no training for his last loss
this was obviously a huge relief to "everyone" as they coud throw him away
The heavyweight ranks were never better than with Ali, Frazier, Foreman and others in the 1970s
you really don't have a clue
out of those 3 :
- clay acted like a crazy man when challenging sonny as he was terrified of him & most believe the fights were fixed, certainly 2nd one
- george is arguably along with tyson, most feared champ ever bar sonny himself
as stated george was his sparring partner & knew full well how good even an ancient/partying-hard sonny was
if he has a twitter account, go ask him how "bad" sonny was
- frazier ???
eddie futch woudn't even let joe walk on the same side of the street with an ancient/partying-hard sonny let alone get into a ring with him...
