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Rob Steen

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Sonny Liston: His Life, Strife and the Phantom Punch Paperback – January 1, 2008

by Rob Steen (Author)

4.0 30 ratings

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The career of Charles "Sonny" Liston has attracted more debate and hostility than that of any other master of the squared circle. Even now, there remain more questions than answers: How much was he controlled and manipulated by underworld figures? Did he take a dive in the momentous bout with Cassius Clay? When was he born and how and why did he die? What is certain is Sonny's standing as one of the most formidable punchers ever to enter the ring. Despite all the efforts of the boxing fraternity, he was finally allowed to fight for the world title nine years after turning professional. Grasping his chance with indecent haste, he deposed Floyd Patterson with a first-round knockout, then repeated the dose a year later. He was not seen as a suitable role model by the civil rights movement because of his criminal past and dubious associates, and was reluctant to participate in the pursuit of racial equality. Meanwhile, he was constantly pursued and badgered by the police, compelling him to move from state to state in search of refuge. A larger than life character with a life of ups and downs, ending in tragedy, this is a mesmerizing portrait of one of the most formidable boxers of all time.

Print length

245 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Jr Books Ltd
Publication date

January 1, 2008
Dimensions

5 x 0.75 x 7.75 inches
ISBN-10

1906217815
ISBN-13

978-1906217815
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Sonny Liston was one of the most controversial boxers of all time, and while this revealing account doesn’t clear up any of the lingering questions about him, it does a thorough job of laying out who he was and why he engendered such fear and loathing. Liston won the heavyweight championship in 1962 from a completely overmatched Floyd Patterson and followed up with an equally stunning KO in the rematch. Then he lost to Cassius Clay (later Muhammad Ali) and, in that rematch, went down in the first round from a Clay punch that many contend didn’t happen. Did Liston throw the fight? That question never went away, nor did the stains attached to Liston from having served time in prison and, later, from his rumored associations with organized crime. Even Liston’s death was shrouded in mystery. British journalist Steen conducted a number of interviews with Liston’s contemporaries and supports those with extensive secondary research. The resulting portrait shows a man who, for all his toughness in the ring, was manipulated and exploited by his entourage. Solid supplementary reading after Nick Tosches’ definitive The Devil and Sonny Liston (2000). --Wes Lukowsky

About the Author

Rob Steen is a freelance journalist and has written for the Independent on Sunday and the Financial Times.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Jr Books Ltd (January 1, 2008)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 245 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1906217815
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1906217815
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.75 x 7.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #3,822,581 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,675 in Boxing (Books)

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4.0 30 ratings

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george c. luckette

Sonny Liston

Reviewed in the United States on July 28, 2015

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sony sony sony, the most complicated fighter in my day...often misunderstood, and always mistreated...great book for boxing fans of yesterday, and a even greater book for boxing fans today...read how it was and reflect on the fighters of today...

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D. Stover

Sonny Liston His life, strife and the phantom punch

Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2010

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The author gives us some very good insight on Liston's background and his connections with the worst elements that have infiltrated the boxing business since it became a money making business. The problem I had while reading the book was, as a person who has followed boxing for some forty-five years, it's apparent that the author is really not one that follows the sport. I'll list just a few examples. Steen (the author), states that when speaking about Nevada world title fights, that "Jim Corbett had reduced Bob Fitzsimmons to a state of near-paralysis in the fourteenth. Jim, the Cornishman remarked after rescrambling his senses, you gave me a bloody good licking, I will never fight you again." Problem is, it was Fizsimmons that knocked-out Corbett in that classic encounter!
Another example; The author states that Leotis Martin, the last fighter to defeat Liston, had "kept Joe Frazier at bay for almost nine rounds in the 1st section of the WBA heavyweight tournament" Martin never met Frazier in the ring and Frazier never was even in the tournament. Another example; Speaking about a $10,000 bet that Liston laid on heavyweight Mac Foster to defeat contender Jerry Quarry, Steen describes the fighter Quarry as "ageing and cumbersome". Quarry, at that time was in his early 20's, actually at his near peak, and was hardly "cumbersome", with two of the fastest counter-punching fist ever seen in the heavyweight ranks. With numerous, even very obvious errors in the book, one has to wonder about the authors many other facts and revelations ? I would not be so sure that a good deal of what the author states is completely true fact. But, much of the Liston story is well known anyway and the author's telling gives us some good food for thought. His literary style is good and his personal analogy of boxing in its violent form is spot-on. Despite Steen's apparent lack of historical boxing knowledge the book is still worth reading.

7 people found this helpful

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Pugwash

The Phantom

Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2009

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Questions abound around Sonny Liston's memory almost forty years after his death. How good was he? where does he rank in the hierarchy of al_time heavyweights? How did he die? How shadowy was his existence?

This book answers few, if any of these questions, but Liston deserves examination in boxing history, perhaps as the first felon heavyweight champion, and this book is a start.

Sonny liston terrorized the division in the late 1950's and early 1960's, and most white contenders, as well as the reigning champions of the time, Floyd Patterson and Ingomar Johanson, gave him a wide berth. His menacing, baleful stare kept the white sports media and the advertisers of the day away from him.

Yet, the adjective most common in describing him was "intelligent". Not in the literate, well-educated sense, he could neither read nor write, but in the sense that he realized what his own persona was, and that he had a quick wit.

This book delves into his personality as deeply as it can. He trusted few, and had almost no friends, aside from his wife. He was clearly a "bad boy." although with some redeeming qualities.

There are several authors to read if you want another glimpse into the life of Sonny Liston. A.J Liebling held Liston in high esteem, and wrote some revealing articles in the twilight of his life. The book "The Cold Six Thousand", by James Ellroy takes a darker, if fictional, look at the Liston character.

This book gives the reader the primary knowledge of Sonny Liston. Look at it as Liston 101, or the Liston Clif notes. It is a quick and fairly entertaining read.

4 people found this helpful

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Sabrina

Good read

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2015

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I'm excited to read this book. It has a movie based from it and I'm expecting a very interesting read.

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feedthecat

If already familiar w/ Liston story, don't buy this book

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2008

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I purchased this book to kill time while waiting for the bio's of Joe Gans and Harry Greb to be released, and didn't expect very much from it since no one had bothered to write up a review for it and because it's only 233 pages and was written by a sportswriter with whom I am unfamiliar. Well, I was right not to expect a whole lot. As author Rob Steen admits in the book's first chapter, "The Sour Science", he holds antipathy for the sweet science and this is evident throughout the book. I would have been willing to put up with this bias ('tho I am a big fight fan, I am not blind to its problems) if Steen were a master storyteller and a good writer, but he is not. This left me only to hope that he would reveal enough information with which I was not already familiar to justify the $20 that I had shelled out. Again, this was not the case. The only thing that Steen revealed that had not been mentioned in most of the articles and TV programs about Liston was that he had insisted that a clause be inserted into the contract between the company that held the rights to the closed-circuit broadcast of his first bout with Clay/Ali and the individual venues that would screen it that stipulated that those venues could not segregate their patrons by race (which demonstrates that the 'Bear' did, in fact, take a stand on civil rights) and Steen also provides the reader with the long-forgotten opinions of Marty Marshall, Liston's first conqueror, on his bouts with him.

One is also left feeling disappointed by the brevity of Steen's accounts of each of Liston's 54 pro bouts (save the ones with Marshall), particularly since he spends so much time writing about Liston's mob connections, the mob's control of boxing, and Clay/Ali's ties to the Black Muslims (given that these aspects of Liston's and Ali's respective careers/lives had been so well documented by others, I would have thought that they would have been given short shrift by the author to allow for a greater discussion of other aspects of Liston's life).

All in all, the book is a decent read, but if one were desirous of learning about Liston's life and career, but unwilling to spend $20 or the time it would take to read 233 pages, I suggest that one go online at their local public library and read William Nack's article on Liston, "O Unlucky Man", which ran in the February 4, 1991 issue of Sports Illustrated and from which Steen gleaned MANY passages for his own book.

February 2010 Update:

In its review of (the reissue of) this book, the March 2010 edition of The Ring Magazine more or less corroborates what I "penned" above and also mentions Nack's SI article.

17 people found this helpful

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Robert B. Clements

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2015

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great book. I loved sonny back in the day and thought he laid down in the ali fights

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