|
|
 The
Troubled Life and
Sad Legacy of Sonny Liston
By Mike Dunn
For those interested in knowing more about the life and times of one
of the most enigmatic and troubled heavyweight champs, the book "The
Devil and Sonny Liston," by Nick Tosches (Copyright 2000, published
by Little, Brown and Company), is a wealth of knowledge. Tosches,
who hails from Newark, writes in an engaging style that is as
beautifully stylish as a Liston left jab and as savagely
straight-forward. The author begins appro-priately at the beginning
with his subject, providing more comprehensive information about
Sonny's childhood than probably even Sonny himself knew. Liston's formative years were
spent growing up as a physically and mentally abused child living in
a forsaken patch of land known as Sand Slough, Ark. This is how Tosches describes Liston's birth place: "It was
in the sector of Morledge Plantation that lay in Johnson Township,
St. Francis County, that Tobe Liston and his family came to live and
farm, on a low patch where a rill of muddy water, a mile and a half
or so long, dribbled dead to its end in a slough of sandy dirt where
nothing could grow.
The place had a name, but it was not to be found
on any map. They called it Sand Slough. It was there in Sand Slough
... that Charles L. Liston was born, on the 50 acres that Tobe
rented from the Man."
Liston was the 12th of 13 children born to Tobe
and Helen Liston (and one of 25 children sired by Tobe). Sonny was
probably born in 1929, but no one knows for sure. Even Sonny's
mother, who was called Big Hela, didn't know, though she believed
him to be born during the month of January. Liston would later claim
his birth date to be May 8, 1932, but that is off by at least two
years.
By all accounts, Liston had a woeful childhood. Tobe was mean to his
children, and especially to Sonny. From the time he was old enough
to be useful in the fields, Sonny was a laborer for his tenant
farmer father. Sonny, who was known by his proper name Charles while
growing up, rarely attended school and never learned to read or
write, a fact that haunted him as an adult and fed a lifelong
problem with insecurity. As Toches brings out, Liston's brooding
temperament can be explained in part by his insecurity. It was a
defense mechanism designed to keep people from getting too close.
Much of what Tosches gleans about Liston's youth stem from
interviews with people who lived on the Morledge Plantation in the
1930s and from Sonny's older half-brother E.B. Ward, who resides
today in Forrest City, Ark. Perhaps no keener insight can be gained
from those early years, though, than from what Sonny himself was
quoted as saying: "The only thing my old man ever gave me was a
whipping."
There's no question that the hard-scrabble existence of youth
prepared Liston for the success he would later enjoy as a
prizefighter. Hungry fighters eager to break free from the shackles
of their own environment bring an element of savage desperation into
their ring encounters. That inbred struggle for survival often
produces champions. Jack Dempsey and Roberto Duran are two cases in
point. Liston is another. Unfortunately, the same dark forces that
forged Liston's destructiveness in the ring also fueled a distrust
for the police and a bent toward criminal activity that would lead
to two stints in the Missouri state prison system. Those dark forces
were also at work when Liston willingly placed himself in the hands
of the mob that ran the fight game during the time of Liston's
ascendancy to the crown.
As a young man in 1949, Liston left Arkansas for good and followed
his mother's footsteps to St. Louis. Big Hela had moved there in
1946. She was working in a shoe factory when her son Charles
unexpectedly came to the city and looked her up. Liston didn't find
gainful employment in St. Louis. Instead, he and some friends took
to robbing people on the street and robbing gas stations with a
loaded pistol. In a short amount of time, those felonious deeds cost
Sonny Liston his freedom.
As most boxing fans know, it was in the Missouri State Penitentiary
in Jefferson City that Sonny learned to box. Two Catholic priests
who served as chaplains, Father Edward Schlattmann and Father Alois
Stevens, helped to direct Liston toward the controlled violence of
the ring. From the start, Liston was a devastating puncher. From the
start, it was apparent that he had a future in the ring. During his
two-plus years in the state penitentiary, Liston attained a new
nickname, "Sonny," and a new vocation, boxing.
With the help of a farsighted, black St. Louis businessman and some
other backers who were aware of Sonny's potential, Liston pursued a
ring career after leaving the joint and rejoining society at large.
Liston had a short and successful amateur career, following which he
turned pro. In September of 1953, he knocked out Don "Toro" Smith in
two rounds in St. Louis, setting in motion a career which would span
17 years and bring Sonny to the pinnacle of success in his sport.
Liston won 13 of his first 14 bouts before trouble with the law cost
him his freedom a second time. In 1957, he was sentenced to nine
months in the St. Louis workhouse for assaulting a police officer.
Tosches does a nice piece of reporting on the incident that led to
Liston's arrest, objectively revealing all available viewpoints. The
reader can form his own conclusion based on the reports of those
involved.
Because of his arrest and prison term, Liston didn't have a fight
between March of 1956, when he decisioned Marty Marshall in
Pittsburgh, to January of 1958, when he knocked out Bill Hunter in
two rounds in Chicago. Following his release from the
workhouse, Liston quickly returned to the ring against Hunter and
got his career back on track. In a short amount of time, he rose to
prominence as a contender in the heavyweight division. It was around
this time that Sonny decided to make Philadelphia his home.
Sonny kept fighting and kept winning against a progressively better
grade of opponents. Foes like the murderous-punching Cleveland
Williams, Mike DeJohn and Nino Valdez succumbed to Liston's heavy
fists. By that time, Liston had already attracted the attention of
organized crime. Tosches goes to great lengths in his book to convey
the ubiquitous presence of the mob in those days and the power that
men like Frank "Gray Man" Carbo and Frank "Blinky" Palermo wielded
in boxing. Basically, for a guy like Liston, it meant that you
either dealt with them, or you didn't deal at all.
As Liston made himself a serious challenger to Floyd Patterson for
the heavyweight title, Liston made his alliance with the Devil, as
Tosches refers to the mob. Because of this alliance, which was
public knowledge, Liston was called before the committee
investigating organized crime that had been established by Tennessee
Democratic Senator Estes Kefauver. Pressure resulting from appearing
before the committee, and from the diatribes of Patterson's manager
Cus D'Amato, caused Liston to buy out the contract of his manager,
Pep Barone, who was considered to be an undesirable, and name George
Katz, an old-time Philadelphian with political and boxing
connections, as his manager. It was just a matter of semantics,
though. Liston was beholdin' to the mob and everybody knew it. Sonny
had to put the proper face forward to the public.
On top of the mob issue, Liston had to overcome
more problems with the law before he could be free to fight
Patterson for the title. He was arrested twice in a period of months
in Philadelphia in the summer of 1961. For a while, he even lost his
license to box in the United States. After having his license
revoked, Liston made a smart decision, as he had when he bought out
Barone. He put himself under the care of still another Catholic
priest, Father Edward P. Murphy, a kindly Jesuit who was the pastor
of a predominantly black church in Denver. Liston relocated to
Denver with his wife Geraldine and friend/sparring partner Foneda
Cox and underwent extensive counseling with Father Murphy. Liston's
purpose was to show the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission, and
the world, that he was turning a new leaf.
The tactic worked. Just three months after
Sonny's move to Denver, his license was reinstated. (Which isn't to
say that Liston took advantage of Father Murphy, or that he had a
disregard for what Father Murphy had to say. Liston, in fact, had
great respect for Father Murphy and behaved admirably around him.
Cox, who was interviewed extensively by Tosches, went as far as to
say that Liston would still be alive if he had "spent more time with
Father Murphy.")
Liston celebrated the speedy reinstatement of his license with an
impressive 1-round knockout of German baker Albert Westphal, who was
ranked No. 4 among heavyweights, on Dec. 4, 1961. On the same night
at a different location, but on the same closed-circuit broadcast,
Patterson defeated unheralded Tom McNeeley in four rounds in what
would be the final successful defense of his crown.
In 1962, Liston went officially from being the poverty-stricken,
illiterate child of an abusive tenant farmer in Arkansas to being
the heavyweight champion of the whole world. Ironically, by the time
Liston finally became champ in September of that year with his
1-round KO of Patterson, the mob was beginning to lose its iron grip
on the sport and on Liston himself. Carbo was in prison and Palermo
would soon follow. If there is a flaw in Tosches' book, it's that
the author seems bent on
carrying the theme of Liston and the mob beyond its logical
parameters. During the years that Liston was champ, the mob was in
retreat. Yet, Tosches postulates that Liston threw his first fight
with Cassius Clay in Miami in February of 1964 at the behest of the
mob. That doesn't make sense. Clay was no debtor to the mob. What
advantage would there be to having the brash young boxer from
Louisville installed as heavyweight champ in place of Liston?
Tosches here betrays an ignorance of boxing that no doubt hurts his
credibility with those know the sport. Tosches insists that films of
Liston losing to Clay reveal that Liston was missing punches
intentionally. Clay, later to be known as Muhammad Ali, may have had
the fastest hands of any heavyweight ever to lace on a pair of
gloves. Clay is certainly to be counted among the greatest
heavyweights of all time. Did he need Liston's cooperation to beat
the rapidly aging champion that night in February of 1964? Hardly.
If it was truly a fix, then Liston would have found a way to avoid
taking the punishment that he received at Clay's hands before
retiring on his stool after the sixth round.
As for the rematch between the two fighters in an ice rink in
Lewiston, Maine, in May of 1965, there are a lot of possible
explanations for Liston's bizarre actions that night. Maybe Liston
realized that he couldn't beat the youthful Clay/Ali, and he opted
not to get up off the canvas in round one instead of absorbing
another beating. Maybe Liston was concerned about the death threats
that had been made against Ali in the wake of the assassination of
Malcolm X and Liston just wanted to get out of the ring that night
as quickly as possible. Tosches' explanation, of course, is that
Liston was again dutifully following orders given by the mob.
Liston continued fighting following the loss of
his title, mainly because it was the only legal way he knew how to
make a buck. He was still a fringe contender at the age of 40 or so
when he died under mysterious circumstances in December of 1970 at
his house in Las Vegas. Some suspect foul play; others believe
Liston died of a self-inflicted drug overdose. Tosches believes the
latter. As with the date of Liston's birth, no one knows for sure.
Tosches is admirably objective in his presentation of Liston. The
dark side is evident. The continual conflicts with the police. At
least two sexual assaults. Womanizing. Drinking. Gambling. Armed
robbery. Aligning himself with the Devil.
But there is another side. For all his womanizing, Liston had a
respect for his wife Geraldine and was faithful to her in his own
way. Liston and Geraldine had no children, but Liston loved kids and
enjoyed being in their company. There were also times when he showed
surprising compassion for the less fortunate. A story is told of
Liston ordering his driver to stop on a
busy highway, so that Liston could go and buy some pencils from an
obviously poor, old, white women whom he had observed. Liston
emptied his pockets of bills and returned to the car with all of the
women's pencils.
In the end, one can't help feeling some sympathy for Liston. He was
a victim before he was ever a brute. He overcame tremendous odds to
win the title and earn a measure of fame, but even so he was never
embraced by the public. That hurt him deeply, though he
instinctively hid the scars behind a scowl. He died in Vegas as
mysteriously as he had lived, a man bent under a great shadow,
afflicted by a legion of personal demons that no one could exorcise.
Least of all, Sonny himself. |
|
