Book Review - 'Liston & Ali' by Bob Mee
Bob Mee chooses to close his Afterword to this tome thus: ‘The excellent website www.boxrec.com uses its own computer system for ranking active and all-time boxers, and the data it has analysed has produced some results that, were they advocated by a human being, might be considered eccentric. Ali is the number one heavyweight in history, followed by Louis, and, then, at three comes Floyd Patterson. Sonny Liston, who demolished Patterson twice in a total time that is less than it takes to boil an egg, is down in 16th place. Poor Sonny. Even the computer refuses to recognise him.’
This isn’t the place to explore the obvious arguments that any rankings system is contentious and that a refined statistical approach is the only one from which any subjectivity is removed – though it will occasionally throw up seemingly weird anomalies.
BoxRec’s all-time rankings nicely fit Mee’s justifiable thesis (a word I don’t use lightly given the depth of research involved in his exploration) that Sonny Liston was, ultimately, never given a fair crack by, well, anyone other than his wife, Geraldine. Despite all the negativity surrounding Liston, both during his tragically short life and amongst cod boxing historians now, his loving wife offered a little perspective on the former heavyweight champion of the world whose epitaph on the plaque by his grave reads simply ‘A Man’: ‘He was a great guy, great with me, great with the kids, a gentle man.’
Sure, he was a villain, far more ‘Tyson’ than Tyson ever was. But running through Mee’s exploration of the two fights between Liston and Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali – which fortunately gives much wider historical context than merely focussing on the bouts themselves – is that Liston deserves greater understanding, even sympathy. As one of the fighter’s associates Harold Conrad put it, ‘Sonny died the day he was born.’
If you’re reading this review, given its location it is probable that you have more than a passing interest in boxing. It’s more than likely that you already know plenty about Ali, as indeed do people who have little interest in our sport. As a result, when reading Mee’s book (and I strongly suggest you do) you might find yourself taking more of an interest in the less well-known and far more gripping story of Liston. 25th May 1965 was the date of the second contest, in which Ali stopped Liston in the first round amidst scenes of shock, confusion and ultimately, disgust.
Mee cleverly whisks the reader away from this to focus on the victor, giving us a rapid account of Ali’s life over the next six years including the exile due to refusing to be inducted into the US Army on religious grounds. Drawn in to Ali’s compelling tale, even if we know the generalities so well if not the detail upon which Mee relies, we temporarily forget Liston. How apt. Mee starkly slaps us with: ‘By the time Ali was cleared by the US Supreme Court, Sonny Liston had been dead for six months.’
Lulled away from Liston’s tragic story, the reader is shocked and, inexplicably, guilt-ridden.
The author – who also takes the reader through the ‘ownership’ of Liston by Mafiosi and more legitimate businessmen alike in forensic detail – re-examines the fallen champ’s final years in Las Vegas with particular and understandable concentration on the mysterious circumstances surrounding Liston’s death the day before New Year’s Eve, 1970 at the age of…well, who knows? Mee typically drills away at the facts about Liston’s birth but this is another mystery that merely adds to the tragic enigma.
One fact that can’t be escaped is that Liston was capable of being the brute he was commonly portrayed as. But the portrait offered here will undoubtedly make an open-minded reader, even an informed one, see Liston in a more favourable light than the commonly accepted dark shadow cast over 50 years by an unfriendly media.
A few years ago, some stranger e-mailed me with a random question about the American radio commentary of a 1950s heavyweight match. This is what happens when you make your email address public. I’d been reading one of Bob’s earlier works, ‘The Heavyweights’ so dropped him a line on the off chance. Within half an hour, back came a very helpful reply with a level of detail that very few people, if any, could have mustered no matter how long they were given. Mee is the most knowledgeable and best British boxing writer around today and this book is confirmation of that.
‘Liston & Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King’ made the long list for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year; if you’re a fight fan who likes pages as well as punches, stick it on your short list.
