Charles Liston was an American professional boxer.
Background
Charles Liston was born on May 8, 1932 in St. Francis County, Arkansas, United States, the son of tenant farmer Tobey Liston and his second wife, Helen. Liston was the twenty-fourth of his father's twenty-five children. Along with his many siblings, Liston grew up working in the local cotton fields. His father was an abusive alcoholic, and Liston left at age thirteen to live with an aunt in St. Louis, Missouri, after an argument with him. "We grew up with few clothes, no shoes, little to eat. My father worked me hard and whupped me hard, " Liston said of his childhood. Liston had trouble with the police as a teenager and was arrested multiple times.
Career
Liston learned to box while serving time in a penitentiary. Paroled in 1952, Liston quickly captured the local Golden Gloves championship. He became a professional fighter on September 2, 1953, when he knocked out Don Smith in a single round in St. Louis. Auspiciously, the massive man known as "The Bear" then won his first nine fights before dropping an eight-round decision to Marty Marshall, who broke Liston's jaw. Sonny was not a man to forget defeat; Marshall lost two rematches with him. Liston's career was interrupted for nine months beginning in December 1956, when he was sent to the St. Louis workhouse for assaulting a policeman and stealing the officer's gun.
After completing his term, Liston relocated to Philadelphia, where his career quickly flourished again. The Marshall beatings were merely two of twenty-six straight fights Liston won as he moved inexorably toward the heavyweight championship. Known for his scowling at opponents, whom he quickly knocked out, he combined an intimidating ring presence with awesome power. His mystique was augmented by the rumors of underworld connections that dogged him, prompting him once to observe wryly, "I got to get me a manager that's not hot--like Estes Kefauver. " Liston had testified before the Tennessee senator's 1960 hearings into mob control of boxing.
Liston's heavyweight-title-winning victory on September 25, 1962, was indicative of the new champion's powerful style. When reigning titlist Floyd Patterson was knocked out after two minutes, six seconds, it was the first time in history that a heavyweight champion was counted out in the first round. As the top fighter in the world, Liston became an easy target for sports columnists who remarked frequently on not only his menacing demeanor and vicious punching power but also his criminal background. Liston, who posted a career record of fifty wins to four losses with thirty-nine knockouts, reveled in this role of the fighter America loved to hate: "A prizefight is like a cowboy movie. There has to be a good guy and a bad guy. People pays their money to see me lose. Only in my cowboy movie, the bad guy always wins. "
Liston scored another knockout in a rematch with Patterson, but his seventeen-month reign as heavyweight champion ended at the hands of a brash fighter named Cassius Clay. Liston, who was viewed as nearly invincible before the fight, was unable to answer the bell for the seventh round, and Clay--soon to take the name of Muhammad Ali--became champion on February 25, 1964. The rematch with Clay on May 25, 1965, included the infamous "Phantom Punch. " Although it appeared that Liston had barely been grazed by a Clay right hand, Sonny went down after one minute, forty-five seconds of the first round and never got up.
After the Clay defeat, Liston began a comeback in 1966. He won eleven straight fights by knockout through 1968 and added three more wins in 1969 before losing a brutal bout to Leotis Martin, who sent the ex-champion to the canvas. He climbed back in the ring against the "Bayonne Bleeder, " Chuck Wepner, and registered a tenth-round technical knockout on June 29, 1970. Six months later, Liston died.
Liston, in his final months, wound up jobless and nearly broke in Las Vegas. According to a friend, he became involved in drugs: "I knew he was hanging around with the wrong people. And I knew he was in desperate need of cash. " Liston's wife found his lifeless body in their bedroom. The official cause of death was lung congestion and heart failure, although Liston had fresh needle marks on his arm and police discovered heroin and a syringe in the house. Liston was buried in Paradise Memorial Gardens in Las Vegas, beneath a simple gravestone with the epitaph, "A Man. "
Achievements
Views
Quotations:
"Ever since I was born, I've been fighting for my life. "
Personality
His demeanor outside the ring was as unforgiving as his attitude inside. A reporter once challenged Liston on his age, suggesting the fighter was older than believed. "My mammy says I'm thirty-four. Are you calling my mammy a [expletive] liar?" Liston raged, ending the questions.
Quotes from others about the person
"The world of sport now realizes it has gotten Charles (Sonny) Liston to keep. It is like finding a live bat on a string under your Christmas tree. " - Jim Murray
Connections
Liston married Geraldine Chambers in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 10, 1950. Geraldine had a daughter from a previous relationship, and the Listons subsequently adopted a boy from Sweden.