Liston, Sonny c. 1928–

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Sonny Liston c. 1928–

Boxer

At a Glance …

Learned to Box While in Prison

Legal Problems Hindered Boxing Career

Pennsylvania License Suspended

Lost Championship Title

Sources

Sonny Liston was one of professional boxing’s more mysterious figures. His is a biography clouded with speculation, from the uncertainly of his birthdate and suggestions that he maintained connections to the mafia, to questions about his death. Adding further color to his life story is the fact that Liston acquired the skills he used to become heavyweight champion while serving a prison sentence.

The exact date and place of Charles L. “Sonny” Liston’s birth is as opaque and mysterious as the man himself. Even the controversial former heavyweight champion seems not to have known the place or year of his birth. He has said he was born somewhere between 1932 and 1935, but most often claimed the date to be May 8, 1932. His mother, however, remembered that he was born on January 8, 1932—or January 18. Liston was one of eleven children, according to his mother, but he could never recall exactly how many siblings he had and some reports list up to 25 brothers and sisters. Whatever the year and whatever the date, Liston was born on a cotton plantation in Sand Slough Arkansas to Tobe and Helen Liston, who were tenant farmers on the plantation.

Despite all the family around, Liston grew up in isolation trying to avoid his father. His favorite activities were swimming at a nearby lake and riding the family mule. Liston got into trouble from a young age and received some savage whippings from his father. The beatings were so bad that the marks on his back were noted after his autopsy in 1970. Liston was quoted in Sports Illustrated as saying in regard to his upbringing: “I had nothing when I was a kid but a lot of brothers and sisters, a helpless mother and a father who didn’t care about any of us. We grew up with few clothes, no shoes, little to eat. My father worked me hard and whupped me hard.”

As a result of the constant conflict, Charles was sent to live with his brother, Ward, when he was about 16. Shortly thereafter, Liston’s father died and his mother came to live with Ward for one season’s farming. She moved on to St. Louis and her son followed her in 1946. He supposed that St. Louis was like the other small towns he had lived in and just showed up one night wandering around the city. He had no idea where his mother lived, but by chance he ran into some people who knew her.

Liston tried working and perhaps tried school, but the young man found both equally unpleasant. After three

At a Glance …

Born Charles L. Liston C, 1928, in Sand Slough, AR; died on December 30, 1970; son of Tobe and Helen Liston (tenant farmers); married Geraldine Clark; children: Danielle.

Career; Professional boxer. Learned boxing at Missouri State Penitentiary, 1950-52; won Golden Gloves World Title, 1953; professional boxer, 1953-70; won heavyweight championship, defeating Floyd Patterson, 1962; lost title to Cassius Clay, 1964.

years, Liston began to rob small stores and service stations. On January 16, 1950, one month into the crime spree, he was apprehended. He pled guilty to robbery and larceny and was sentenced to the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City.

Learned to Box While in Prison

Though some prison officials remembered Liston as a man who was always fighting, his official record was clear. He gravitated toward the Catholic priest who was also the director of athletics in the prison. The priest introduced the aimless young man to boxing. Liston took on all comers at Jefferson City. After he beat a heavyweight from St. Louis, some local newspaper men spread the word about Liston and soon began a campaign to release him. The campaign succeeded and he was released on October 30, 1952 to become a professional boxer. Besides boxing, Liston learned to write his name in prison, though, he was still unable to read.

Liston was entered into a Golden Gloves boxing tournament in St. Louis. He won this local tournament and went on to win the Midwestern regional title by defeating the 1952 Olympic Heavyweight champion. After winning the National Championship he became Golden Gloves champion of the World, defeating the West German champion in one round on June 22, 1953. In four months Liston had become the best amateur heavyweight fighter in the world and signed a professional contract.

Through his first year as a professional, Liston breezed through the competition until his first loss to Marty Marshall, a man ten pounds lighter. On September 7th, Marshall broke Liston’s jaw and defeated him in a close eight-round decision. Liston later said that the reason he did not knock the smaller man out was that he was told to carry Marshall for a few rounds to give the fans a show. He said he was surprised by the punch that broke his jaw and ended up losing. The broken jaw set Liston back six months, but strengthened his appeal with gamblers because his odds were now better.

In April of 1955 Liston again faced Marshall and beat him badly, knocking Marshall down four times to score a sixth-round technical knockout. But for all his prowess in the ring, outside the ring Liston’s life was as complicated as ever. From 1953 until 1958 Liston was arrested 14 times in St. Louis. The most serious incident involved Liston assaulting a police officer for which he received 30 days in jail. Liston was jailed for offenses connected to his heavy drinking and was even questioned about his connection to the mob. It was rumored that Liston was a leg-breaker for the local mob-controlled unions.

Legal Problems Hindered Boxing Career

On September 3, 1957 his life seemed to stabilize when Liston married Geraldine Clark, but after a particularly nasty altercation with a policeman, Liston had no peace in St. Louis. Between the time of his arrest and sentencing he was arrested five more times. He was arrested four days after his wedding and held on two consecutive days for two separate robbery charges. With all the problems Liston had with the law, he fought only once in two years.

In 1958 Liston came to Chicago to fight. By this time his original managers, men who discovered him and sprung him from prison, had been pushed aside or bought out. But when he traveled to Chicago, he impressed a whole new set of “managers” who wanted a piece of Liston. Before a fight in March of 1958 Liston signed a five-year contract with Joseph “Pep” Barone. Liston fought once more in St. Louis and then moved to Philadelphia where his career would be directed in secret by Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo, two ruthless mobsters who controlled much of the boxing world throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

Liston’s star immediately began to rise. He continued to win and his bouts were appearing on radio and then television. Though Carbo during this time was on the run from the law and then in prison, Liston fought in Miami Beach and Las Vegas. His record stood at 34-1, with 24 knockouts by the end of 1961, and he was being guaranteed up to $10, 000 per fight. But his success was always under suspicion because of the people with whom he associated. Liston was even questioned about his managers, or undercover managers, in front of a senate subcommittee in Washington D.C. regarding corruption in the boxing world.

Despite his questioning and the police harassment, he fought and beat all the top contenders in the heavyweight division. By the end of 1961, people were accusing reigning heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson of dodging Liston. Cus D’Amato, who managed Patterson, said that Patterson would never fight Liston because Liston was a criminal and didn’t deserve a chance to be heavyweight champion. As if to prove D’Amato’s point, the state of California barred him from fighting there, claiming he had to change managers before getting a license to fight there. To get a chance to fight for the heavyweight title, Liston decided in 1961 to buy back his contract for $75,000 over two years. Despite his gesture, D’Amato and Patterson still considered Liston morally unacceptable.

Pennsylvania License Suspended

To bolster his reputation, Liston signed with a local Philadelphia manager who had recommended by Alfred Klein, a member of the Pennsylvania State Athletic commission and former member of the Congressional subcommittee which had grilled Liston about organized crime in boxing. He signed a two and a half year contract with George Katz, which he hoped would carry him to a heavyweight title fight. But after Gibson was arrested twice in May and June of 1961, his license to fight in Pennsylvania was suspended indefinitely.

Gibson and his wife moved to Denver to live next to the rectory of a Catholic church and Father Edward Murphy, who tried to reorient Liston to society. Whether the move was a ploy or a sincere attempt to reform his life, he was reinstated after a three- month suspension and scheduled to fight on December 4, 1961. Liston received $75,000 for a pay-per-view event in which he served as the under-card for a Floyd Patterson championship fight. He beat fourth-ranked West German Albert Westphal, knocking him out in 1:58 of the first round. Westphal lay unconscious on the canvas for two minutes—longer than the fight itself lasted. The only fighter left was Patterson and, for Patterson, the only challenger left was Liston. Finally on March 16, 1962 a contract was signed which would bring the two men face to face.

No one except Patterson himself wanted the champion to face Liston. Both white and black people held Liston in disdain and did not want him to become boxing’s most glamorous champion. The state of New York pulled the plug on the fight, which was moved to Chicago in September of 1962. Liston reveled in his role of Black Knight. He told the press he would kill Patterson and he would like to run Patterson down with his car. At the same time, the only person in the world who had a good word to say about Liston was Patterson himself.

When the moment came, Liston took only two minutes and six seconds to knock Patterson out. Liston thought that with the heavyweight belt in his possession, his public persona would change also. But it did not. Liston expected a hero’s welcome when he returned to Philadelphia as the heavyweight champion, but when he arrived at the airport, he was met by no one. Sports-writer Jack McKinney described Liston’s reaction to his chilly reception as the newly-crowned heavyweight champion in Sports Illustrated: “His eyes swept the whole scene. He was extremely intelligent, and he understood immediately what it meant. His Adam’s apple moved slightly. You could feel the deflation, see the look of hurt in his eyes. It was almost like a silent shudder went through him.”

It was less than a month before Liston was arrested again for driving his Cadillac at 15 mph. The police said Liston had been drinking and at first he would not cooperate. Liston moved to Chicago and on December 4th and moved into a 21-room mansion on the city’s south side. Liston was set to fight Patterson again in the spring or 1963, but he injured his knee and the fight was moved to the summer from Miami Beach to Las Vegas.

On July 22nd, Liston defeated Patterson again in 2 minutes and 23 seconds. After the fight, chaos erupted when 21-year-old Cassius Clay (a young Muhammad Ali) jumped into the ring to begin his “I am the Greatest” speech. The crowd booed Liston in his victory. Instead of returning to Philadelphia or Chicago, Liston went back to Father Murphy in Denver and received a hero’s welcome at the airport. He made a tour through the British Isles, but everywhere he went he was hounded by Clay calling him a big ugly bear and claiming he was too chicken to fight. Once, in a Las Vegas casino, Clay and his entourage found Liston playing dice. Clay began to badger the champion when Liston pulled out a handgun and fired twice at his head. Everyone hit the floor and Clay ran for the exit. Ali’s manager Angelo Dundee told Randy Harvey of the Los Angeles Times about the incident: “We found out later that Liston heard we were coming and loaded his gun with blanks to scare Muhammad. It worked. Muhammad told me, ‘I act crazy. He is crazy.’”

Lost Championship Title

Liston would defend his title against Clay in February of 1964 in Miami. The fight was a strange one. Clay and Liston were even after six rounds, but then Liston, a 7-1 pre-fight favorite, refused to come out of his corner for the seventh, claiming his left arm was numb. Liston’s camp claimed that he had injured his shoulder during training camp, but no one said anything before the fight. Then it came to light that Liston’s management team purchased rights to Clay’s next fight for $50,000. Liston’s purse was withheld, but a doctor announced that Liston’s shoulder was indeed hurt. A member of Liston’s camp, Jack Nilon, told Simon Barnes of The Times of London that “he heard something snap. After that it got progressively worse.”

When Liston got back to Denver, he was arrested for driving 75 mph in a 35 mph zone, while drunk and carrying a loaded revolver. Liston was also being sued by a former publicist and the IRS had filed liens against him and his wife and his management company. He was arrested twice more in 1964, including a Christmas day lock-up for drunk driving and then resisting arrest.

On May 25, 1965. Liston fought Clay again. Even after losing to Clay the first time, Liston was an 8-to-5 favorite. The bout became famous as the “Phantom Punch” fight in which Clay tossed a lazy jab Liston’s way and Liston fell over as if hit by a sledge hammer. With the loss and the allegations that Liston had thrown the fight, Liston’s career as a big-time heavyweight fighter was over. He continued to fight, often in Europe until his final victory in 1970 over Chuck Wepner, who would later fight Clay for the heavyweight championship.

Liston claimed to be 38 at the time of his last fight, but his real age was more like 50. At the end of 1970 Liston’s wife, Geraldine, traveled to St. Louis to spend Christmas with her mother. She returned to Las Vegas on January 5, 1971 and found her husband lying dead on the floor of her bedroom. The coroner’s report implied but never implicitly said that a heart attack was the cause of death. However, traces of heroin were found in his blood. Some believed he had a heart attack. Some believed he killed himself because he was running out of money. Some believed that he accidentally overdosed on heroin. Because he was afraid of needles, some believed that he was murdered. Whatever the cause, Liston’s death is as shrouded in mystery as was his life.