The Sad Legacy of Sonny Liston
by William Dettloff - www.hbo.com/boxing
December 31, 2002

It is no secret that there are few happy endings in the fight game. Or happy beginnings, for that matter. What drives men to do what they do in the ring typically has little to do with happiness so in that way it all makes sense. Generally, when happier boys look for recreation they don't turn to and fall in love with prize fighting. The angriest ones do, and those who are most desperate. It's a desperate game, after all. So bad endings are everywhere you look.

On December 30, 1970, former world heavyweight champion Charles "Sonny" Liston died in his home in Las Vegas. He was 38 years old. His wife Geraldine found him on January 5, already bloated and stiff. They did an autopsy and the official word from the coroner was that Liston died of natural causes, specifically, "lung congestion brought on by poor oxygen and nutrient blood supply to the heart muscles."

Many believe still, 32 years later, that there was more to it than that. The Sheriff's office found a quarter ounce of heroin in a balloon in Liston's bedroom and to many, there is reason to think he accidentally overdosed on the drug. Others believe Liston, who associated with all manner of hoodlums and thugs throughout his life, including when he was champion of the world, was given a "hot shot," meaning someone stuck a gun in his face and forced him to overdose.

In his excellent book, "Boxing Babylon -- Behind the Shadowy World of the Prize Ring," Ring Magazine editor-in-chief Nigel Collins wrote in-depth about Liston's troubled life and mysterious death. He believes questions remain about the nature and cause of Liston's death that will likely never be answered in full.

"I spoke a lot with the late Jack McKinney, the Philadelphia Daily News columnist, who was very close to Liston, and he was positive that Liston was murdered by the mob," Collins said. "I wasn't able to unearth any of that for the book, however. There's a possibility that he died of a simple overdose, but most evidence points to some kind of hot shot."

What killed Sonny Liston may remain forever a mystery, but what he could do in the ring was obvious. Today's gigantic heavyweights would dwarf him, but in the 1950s and '60s, the 6'1," 215-pound Liston was a behemoth -- a glowering, malevolent presence who took apart the heavyweight division man-by-man until he finally got to Floyd Patterson, who he twice obliterated. Along the way he also whipped the murderous-punching Cleveland Williams (twice), Nino Valdez, Eddie Machen, Zora Folley and Howard King.

All the while, Liston was in and out of court for a myriad of reasons, some valid, some dreamed up or exaggerated by law enforcement officials exasperated by his stubborn ties to known members of organized crime. But the court system was no stranger to Liston, who first put on gloves while a prisoner at Missouri State Penitentiary. Even that was no great hardship; growing up poverty-stricken and hungry just outside Little Rock, Arkansas, Liston was 14 years old the first night he slept behind bars.

Younger fight fans today know Liston merely as the guy Muhammad Ali whipped to win the heavyweight title. However, he was more than that as a fighter. By the reasoning of most, he was already past his prime in '64 when Ali stopped him the first time, but it may be that his largely empty legacy is of his own doing.

"Sonny really should shoulder the blame for the two losses to Ali," Collins said. "For the first fight he was vastly over confident and was only training for a three-round fight. His sparring partners were guys who were there just to make him look good. And when Ali started making him miss and started slapping him around Liston didn't want to get stopped, so he quit."

Collins is among those who believe Liston threw the second Ali fight, which took place, infamously, in Lewiston, Maine amid heavy security. "Liston was visited by some guys right before the fight," said Collins. "I think they threatened him, or he owed some mob boss a favor or something. To most people a threat like that wouldn't really mean anything but Liston was a criminal. The idea of someone bumping him off for not going with the program wasn't that far-fetched to him. When you do business with those people it puts everything in a different light."

For all that it mattered, Liston's professional life ended that day in Lewiston. He won about a dozen fights afterward, none important, then was stopped by Leotis Martin. In his last fight he stopped Chuck Wepner in 10 rounds in Jersey City. Six months later he was dead and today, 32 years after his death, his ending remains sadder than most, even by fight game standards. And that's saying something.

This Article is © William Dettloff/www.hbo.com all rights reserved.
Featured at Aussiebox with the kind permission of the author, William Dettloff.
Bill Dettloff can be contacted at: dettloff@ptd.net

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