Crime in Sports - #352 - Loss, Death & Conspiracy - Sonny Liston: Part 3

Episode Date: April 25, 2023

This week, we finish up what is maybe the strangest, and most crime soaked life, in sports history. He shows the holiday spirit by fighting an entire police squad, on Christmas Day. He also is involved in one of the most iconic, and controversial fights, in history, against Ali. Did he throw the fight? Did the mafia make him? The Nation of Islam? In the end, Sonny winds up dead, in a terrible condition. Which leads to even more conspiracies? Was it a simple OD? Heart problems? Or, was he murdered? If so... Who did it? The mystery continues...Fight 10 cops on Christmas Day, try to rehab your image by being a "nice guy", and have your death be a mystery, that endures for decades with Sonny Liston!!Check us out, every Tuesday!We will continue to bring you the biggest idiots in sports history!! Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman Donate at... patreon.com/crimeinsports or with paypal.com using our email: [e-mail] Get all the CIS & STM merch at crimeinsports.threadless.com Go to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things CIS & STM!!  Contact us on... twitter.com/crimeinsports [e-mail] facebook.com/Crimeinsports instagram.com/smalltownmurderSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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A first listen is waiting for you when you start your free trial at audible.ca. Each week on the Mr. Ballin Podcast, now available wherever you get your podcasts, you'll hear strange, dark, and mysterious stories about inexplicable encounters, shocking disappearances, true crime cases, and everything in between. So go listen to Mr. Ballin Podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Crime and Sports. Yay! Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed.

Thank you everybody for joining us. My name is James Petrigal. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you. We have a wild episode as usual. We're going to finish out Sonny Liston today. Part three of Sonny Liston. We are so excited because this is really... It comes to a head. it comes to a head this

is when it comes to a head this is when everybody knew him oh boy does he have the most wonderful christmas ever in this episode you're you know i love a good christmas story you're gonna think of santa claus in a completely different way now it's just amazing we can't wait uh quickly before we get to that we'll go through this very quick because we got a lot of episode we want to get through so shut up and give me murder.com get your tickets if you're listening to this when it comes out regularly virtual live show still available it's available it came out on the 20th it's available for seven days get in there boy did i waste jimmy i know that got him so stoned and all sorts of stuff so um that will have happened in the future you'll see see i'm predicting the future here this is good i've seen so do that live shows may 5th detroit may 6 pittsburgh and whatever patreon.com slash crime

and sports bonus stuff anybody five dollars or above two new ones every week we'll get to that it's all there just get in there and get it patreon.com slash crime and sports and you get a shout out you bet end of the show which is of course very exciting to have jimmy mispronounce your name terribly that said though clear that off and let's get right into sunny list because there's so much to get into here uh we left off with sunny um being arrested yeah shocking right um yes he was arrested for speeding and having a concealed weapon and he was driving 76 and a 30 doing a lot of sunny stuff yeah which was kind of well that that is sunny that's what he does he drives 76 and 30 so let's start out this week with october the 23rd 1964 oh boy this is uh you know there's going to be another fight with uh muhammad ali now and uh it's interesting to see him in the paper as Challenger Sonny Liston.

That's crazy. It says, too, Challenger Charles, and in parentheses, Sonny Liston. Like, we all know him as Charles. You know. By 64, yeah. Charles Liston. Old Chucky.

Rolls off the tongue. Yeah, everybody knows that. That's an awful name. He said that he won't underestimate Muhammad Ali or try for an early knockout this time. Oh. He says now he knows, you know, you got to be careful with Ali a little bit here. He does a little press conference on his way to training in Massachusetts where, you know, he's already here. He hates the WBA, the World Boxing Association, which has refused to recognize the fight and taken away Muhammad Ali's title in their organization. I think it was WBC and WBA were the two titles that they had listed and passed to him.

And now they're saying that Ali can't have that. Wait, hold on. When we left off, didn't he had just beaten Ali? No, Ali beat him. Oh. Ali won the title. Oh, yeah, you're right. You're right.

What am I talking about? I have no idea. He was the champ, right. And then Ali beat him. Now he's a challenger. So he's pissed at the WBA because now he can't have an opportunity to win this belt back, that belt. He says, quote, what has the WBA ever given to anybody? You've got to give something

you've got to give something before you can take it away okay fair enough fair point yeah he said i took clay too lightly in the last fight i don't anymore that's good uh they asked if clay did something that he didn't expect when he lost to him last time and he said quote yeah i didn't think he'd run that much any fighter fighter who runs is afraid. Okay. Which was just good strategy. It already does. It's strategy when you've got a guy who's a bull who hits hard and comes straight ahead at you.

He doesn't like to run around, so make him run. Art of war. He likes to do this, make him do that. Don't fight his fight. That's stupid. General Tso from a long time ago, right? Yeah, that's a... That's General Tso and his chicken i was gonna say that

they didn't they should have given sungzoo his own uh chicken recipe rather than this general so i don't know what he ever did for anybody but i feel like uh yeah this is much more valuable information so they said that uh liston said that uh um he's his he injured his shoulder two weeks before the fight last time that's what fucked him up and um so he said he didn't want to stop though his trainer made him stop in the sixth round he said now his shoulder feels fine and um you know he said he's ready to go his trainer willie reddish told him you can mess up your life last time when he when he wanted to come out for the sixth round he's like he can't get out there if you can't defend yourself. You can't lift your shoulder up.

So he says it was a mistake to stop, and he feels like if he kept going on, he could have eventually knocked Ali out. He thinks that. He thinks that, which a guy like Liston, you never know. He could have caught him and knocked him out if he doesn't get knocked out himself. Right.

What a bad shoulder. How are you going to protect yourself? That's the problem. Ali punches hard too, goddammit. But a guy like Liston doesn't think like that. Or really Clay at this point, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's going to be Ali for the next fight.

Got it. So he doesn't think really like that, though, Liston. He thinks, well, you know, no one can knock me out because I'm Sonny Liston. So eventually I could have just pounded him into the ground if he gave me enough time is the way he looks at it. So Christmas 1964. Oh, sleigh bells. He's in training. You think he'd be obviously he's going to be like laying low.

You got to. Maybe he'll spend it with the family. Eat some prime rib and bulk up. Not too much. Not too much. You don't want to get fat. You're in shape. You got cardio going on.

He decides that's not the path he's gonna follow for christmas he instead on christmas day 1964 gets in what's originally described as a quote shoving match that's how it starts out with with who do you think uh a police officer um yes how about 10 police officers? Holy! How do you get in a shoving match with ten armed people? That's number one. Santa put the wrong thing under his tree. On Christmas Day.

Ten of them. Yeah. Those guys are like, I'm lucky I'm getting time and a half for this bullshit. I've got to fucking fight Sonny Liston now. So he gets in a fight with them. It's in Denver. So the Denver police he gets in a fight with. They had accused him of drunken driving i guess and um yeah he disagreed he apparently had another idea of

what happened here so his arrest was the third this year for traffic violations and he's obviously off offered to he has to stand trial and everything like that um a shoving match with 10 cops unbelievable on christmas i like how they knew when they pull over a drunken sunny liston you better call in backup if it's one or two cops he will just kick your ass yeah maybe put you in a trash can there's a lot of things he's gonna do here i'm pulling over the liston man could you bring nine more please um i'm gonna need a lot of back. Whoever's out. I know it's Christmas. We're shorthanded.

Just so whoever's out there. All of them. All ten of them. Shit. Every time and a half soul we have right now. So at the time he was convicted for the last speeding, by the way, and got a $600 fine and a suspended jail sentence for carrying the concealed weapon. Here, his latest encounter, though, on Christmas Day,

officers said they saw him drive into a parking lot through the wrong... Yeah, into the... He went into the exit. Uh-huh. So you let that kind of shit go with Sonny Liston, I feel like. No, listen, law and order, James. Yeah, I feel like you go, is that the least of what he's doing right now? Who knows?

There's rules. It's fine. We're in a society. You have to abide by the rules. So let's all fight Sonny Liston. I mean, just common sense. Sarge, you want him to do the out? Send backup.

Is this worth it for a $4 ticket? Like, what are we doing here? That's why he was stopped? That's why he was stopped. Wow. So the officers summoned additional help when Liston became belligerent because leave him the fuck alone on Christmas, he's saying. So a representative named Hal Conrad of Intercontinental Sports, Inc.

That's the promoters of the Liston-Ali fight. And he's like, fuck me. Come on, Sonny. Jesus Christ. He said any court case would not interfere with the proposed fight. As long as Liston's on the street, this fight's going on. As long as he's free, we're doing it. That's's it he said the rematch would be held in late may or early june yeah and he doesn't care so he's ready to go so liston goes to court here the dumbest

infraction i mean it's serious infraction but the dumbest reason to start the infraction yeah that's i would say over that shit but it's also because he was once they got him they said oh you're also drunk and he said get the fuck away from me i'm also sunny list and leave me alone yeah so sober or drunk yeah whatever that man state i'm in yeah it's you're not up to the challenge you're not him you better call backup chief so he gets acquitted on drunken driving charges in february found innocent wow found innocent and liston after the whole thing the the six member county court jury found him innocent he said to the press quote if you've ever had a had a beer don't drive with nobody walk so don't drive if you've had one beer yeah that's what he's telling you here so in the weirdest words ever in the strangest

don't drive with nobody don't drive with nobody. Don't drive with nobody. Walk. Okay. Great. But then that's public intoxication then. Right. So really. How about get a ride?

Take a taxi, get a ride. So the Denver police officers testified that he was intoxicated when he drove his yellow 1965 Cadillac into an East Denver restaurant parking lot the wrong way. Driving a yellow Cadillac. The least inconspicuous. That is the most conspicuous car that's ever existed. It's like 65 feet long.

65 feet long, weighs about 12 tons. Bright fucking yellow. Bright fucking yellow. Like if you put a turret on top, it's a tank. Bright yellow. You've never seen that as a getaway car from from a robbery for anything no there's a reason sonny we had satellites in space that said did a yellow cadillac just turn into a we can see it from up here no we don't even have to tell us about it's just send 10 cops i think we see. Everyone can see it. So there was, I guess, more than six inches of snow had fallen as well. So that was part of it as well.

So he said that at his trial, though, he said, listen, I wasn't drunk. I wasn't being belligerent. I had two eggnogs with brandy in the spirit of the season. Oh, my God. I'm being a good Christian man and celebrating the birth of the season oh my god i'm being a good christian man and celebrating the birth of christ yeah with the tradition it's what i believe somewhere in the bible hold on your honor let me flip through the pages it says eggnog is fine on christmas i believe to drive you don't understand i drank brandy i'm fine well and a beer also so right away he admits to essentially

two mixed drinks and a beer he put eggnog and a beer inside him? On top of it. Gross. And a beer. That's a bad belly. But he said he wasn't intoxicated. Yeah. He's like, I'm not fucked up.

He said he was belligerent when the three officers who had been having coffee at the restaurant arrested him. He pulled in there like, oh, they just went outside, put their cups down and said, let's arrest Sonny Liston. Yeah. But he said the problem came from the treatment he received from the officers that he said i was belligerent yes but their treatment quote would have made a preacher belligerent okay they're belligerent too they were yeah even on christmas they're belligerent first yeah so they made me belligerent no more belligerent than a preacher or anybody else in the situation would have been he said quote i felt i was being picked on okay yeah he told the jury he felt he was

arrested not because he was drunk because he was sunny liston oh i mean sunny liston's a bad guy so well when you pull over sunny liston you go well he's probably drunk i'm sure he doesn't have a license um and he'll probably hit one of us. So basically, I better get my cuffs ready. Yeah, preemptively cuff him. I kind of think he's earned this by now. You know what I'm saying? This is like on the wire when somebody would jump out of the car and Bodie be standing there.

He might be holding. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? They're going to throw him up against the wall and search him because it's usual suspect at this point. Hook him up. Yep. Here comes. Oh,'s usual suspect at this point. Hook him up. Yep. Here comes. Oh, it's Sonny Liston. Oh, boy.

And then when you start shoving cops, that's not good either. That's asking for it. That's a little tough. So now to get back into the Ali fight. He's got to get back into training. This is the biggest fight of his life. It sure is. I mean, that's an odd way of training by fighting multiple cops.

It's a fascinating sparring match. Where were you his manager says he's like doing road work which is beating up cops and his yeah i was free range free range sparring yeah it was just out there you know you know it works it's just with all comers it's like road work to the next level so he the uh this fight coming in um people are suspicious of the first fight obviously because he didn't come out for that that deal here but um people are very excited for this fight obviously and intercontinental promotions again comes up there's the or the organizer promoters of this fight here um they said that if Ali should beat Liston and pick his opponent, he said that this was in the second contract.

There wasn't a clause for a rematch. Apparently, if Ali won, he could pick his next opponent, and it's Liston who he's going to fight. So that's how it works. his next opponent and it's liston who he's going to fight so that's how it works so um okay the world boxing association did not allow fight contracts with rematch clauses so they worded it like this instead oh that's why the wba won't sanction the fight oh how about don't worry about it wba yeah shut up a second a second match of that is a great fucking thing for the boxing world it's a yeah It draws an audience.

There's a story, for fuck's sake. Here's what the attorney for them said, though. Quote, we felt it would be better advised not to have a guaranteed rematch clause. We felt this was way more in the spirit of the WBA rules than a direct rematch, which was clearly outlawed. He said that it was subterfuge they used, and they didn didn't appreciate it so they're going to strip Ali of the belt. So stupid. So when Ali signed Liston to have a rematch, that's when the WBA voted

unanimously to strip him of the title and drop Liston from its rankings completely. Like he didn't exist. We're going to make this fight stupid. Yeah. Well, for them, it's a joke. For them to do that, it's a joke. These are the two big guys that everybody wants to see fight. They're the former champ who beat everybody before that,

kick Floyd Patterson's ass twice, and the new guy. Right. That's one and two. What are we doing here? This is ridiculous. So the World Boxing Council, WBC, and the New York State Athletic Commission and Ring Magazine continue to recognize Ali as champion because he is. Right.

That's stupid. Because he is the champion. Fucking dumb. Impressed by the WBA, which includes every U.S. state except California, Nevada, and New York, the only three at the time where big matches happened anyway. So pretty much the WBA is a paper, a complete paper tiger here. Like there's no, they have a paper belt but they don't have any power because where they fight they don't have any they don't hold any sway right yeah so um

apparently state boxing commissions throughout the nation didn't want to license a rematch between these fighters and it was difficult to find a venue because they were both so controversial what ali's what ali's a's a fucking Olympic gold medalist, so there should be no controversy there. But even controversy creates words. That's right. Creates press. But Ali, the only thing that's controversial about him

is that it's 1964 and he's black and he's got a big mouth. That's the only thing controversial about him. Other than that, there is no controversy. He's just a guy. He's done nothing. he hasn't even fucking uh you know got out of vietnam yet you don't understand james nothing opinions are fucking detrimental to things you can't you can't hurt people's feelings who are hardcore racists in the 60s they'll really get upset they're very sensitive hardcore racists are the most sensitive people ever they really are they're sensible james well no i'm not even joking here seriously like they're the most sensitive i

know they should carry tissues with them because they're very upset yeah and tampons and tampons they're very um no you know what if you can shove a tampon on yourself and bleed into it i think that's i'm giving you extra credit i just mean at that period period time yeah is that what you meant when do you require those when you require those you're oftentimes emotional maybe maybe but this is um yeah they get a little upset with ali for this whole time but um liston though apparently right away when they signed it liston is immediately established as the favorite. Yeah. So 13-5 favorite, which makes Ali a greater betting underdog

than Floyd Patterson was. Is that right? Even in the second fight after Liston had knocked him out quickly. Fascinating. So it's very interesting here. This time Liston's training hard. He said he's getting ready for a 15 round fight his last time he said i don't only need to train for seven eight rounds i don't need to train for

15 rounds um ali continues to taunt liston like before the first fight he dragged a he dragged a bear trap to the pre-fight physical because he calls him a big ugly bear yeah that's what i mean he's got he's putting some oomph into it yeah get some uh attention for this fight here it's a fucking boxing match how else do you announce it and he announced that he began manufacture manufacturing the sunny liston sit down stool because sunny stayed on the on the stool not bad this is what he's doing here he's gonna put it on qvc i think so yeah he's gonna have an advertisement for he'd be a good bitch man he would see that so the it was supposed to happen in boston and that didn't happen though um ali apparently needed a emergency surgery three days

before the fight oh shit got called off and moved uh for a quote strangulated hernia what is that sounds terrible i don't know what that is but i do not want my hernia or strangulated or anything else is that one like the you have the the hernia and then that piece is being like tight you know i mean around it i'm i have literally no idea i would assume i mean it sounds like because a hernia is basically your your ripped muscle and then your guts come through it right right? Again. Generally. Neither of us are... We're both trying to...

I have a hernia. I don't know what the fuck it is. It's funny to hear two idiots sit and try to figure out just from the name of something what that could mean medically. It's got to mean that the muscle tear is tight and there's more shit coming through than the hole. It sounds so logical that I feel like if you told it to a doctor and went that's what it is right they go no not even close you're fucking stupid it's just like oh sorry i don't know what i'm talking about that's right it sounded logical to me but all he had one apparently he had one yeah so it would be delayed six months about oh my to recover from all this yeah they don't have laser surgeries back then when they can

zip you gotta stitch it yeah it's they're cut through muscles and shit to get to things so the new date may 26 1965 and um as it approached there started being stories that the promoters were tied to organized crime oh great it's boxing every fight that's ever happened some one of the promoters is tied to organized crime so shut the fuck up but it's a bigger deal now for some reason. So they said that the people, they were having second thoughts. The district attorney, Suffolk County district attorney,

sought an injunction to block the fight in Boston because the Intercontinental Promotions was promoting a fight without a Massachusetts license. And it's a huge deal. So anyway, May 7th is when they end up pulling the fight out of boston and alia surgery and all that kind of shit so they needed a new location quickly and so they had to figure it out because they had a closed circuit television commitment yeah to go out i mean this was a big fucking deal people go to the theaters back then to pay and watch the fight so the governor of maine stepped forward attaboy it's like you can have it here no one

else does anything up here nobody here everyone will be fishing so you won't be the roads are open it's lobster season so i don't know lewiston maine it's a mill town with a 41 000 person population it's north of boston so people who are going to go from boston can take the drive up there it's 140 miles north of boston not bad at all they obtained a permit and um started working with a local local promoter the venue was selected as central maine youth center wow it's a junior hockey rink that's where they're gonna do this that's where they're gonna do this that's where it's sunny listed wow Can you believe that? Wow. That's fucking wild. So Lewiston was the smallest city to host a heavyweight title bout since Jack Dempsey fought Tom Gibbons in Shelby, Montana in 1923.

In Montana? Montana. Yeah, I don't know if they were going out to like a mining camp or something like when Johnny Cash played the prison. I don't know if it was one of those fucking things. That's amazing. that's crazy uh they said that it is uh it's to this day it's the only heavyweight title fight ever held in the state of maine yeah because where the fuck else are you gonna do it they don't have any major cities there's no major arena they have junior hockey

arenas that's what they have you got portland and banger and they are neither of them are very big no they're just small, nice places. It's awesome. Yeah, they don't want any part of this shit. Good for Lewiston. Yeah, good for them. So they said that it's going to be wonderful. The Governor Reed said that the, quote, this is one of the greatest things to ever happen in Maine.

Yes. Very excited here. Very excited. The atmosphere, a little bit tense. Ali has come out at this point, since he's champ and embraced the Nation of Islam and all that sort of thing. So there's a lot of infighting in the Nation of Islam, too, at this point, because this is a few months after Malcolm X has been assassinated and he was fighting with Elijah Muhammad. There's a lot of political stuff going on between them. a lot of political stuff going on between them and so um rumors circulated that ali who had apparently publicly snubbed malcolm x after malcolm x had broken off with elijah muhammad there

they said that ali might be killed by malcolm x's supporters in retaliation for malcolm x getting killed because he's the most famous one on that side because he's the champ. That's what they said. So the FBI took the threat seriously enough to post a 12-man, 24-hour guard around Ali before the spy. He had a dozen FBI agents around him, which for them, they were probably also spying on the Nation of Islam. It was probably part of it too. I mean, that's what they wanted to do. And and liston's camp then claimed they got a death threat from the nation of islam um so they were now not only in addition to a dozen fbi agents he also has the fruit of islam around him which is the bowtie security force that you'd see in many different uh aspects even fucking uh the uh oj simpson defense team used them oh is that

right yeah yeah they even used them. Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah. They even used them around them for a long time. Yeah, had a bunch of them around there. So they would surround him. And so Ali would come and he'd have his normal entourage. Plus he'd have shitloads of the bow tie guys. Plus a dozen FBI agents around that.

So it's quite a lot of layers going on here. That's a ring around the rosy that's a lot so it finally happens on may 25th 1965 at the central main civic center where it all happens here and uh ali comes into this fight listens the listens 35 and 2 coming in ali 20 and 0 referee here by the way uh jersey joecott, who's an old champ boxer. So they have a – I like that. I like an old boxer being the ref like that. Number one – They know boxing.

They know boxing. They know when someone – they can see cheap shit because they've done it. And number two, I think they have the balls to go, all right, get the fuck breaking up. I also think they can recognize when somebody's really hurt. That's the other thing. You can really tell when somebody's been stung. Because they've hit a guy and seen it in their eyes before. Or they felt it. Exactly.

They know what it looks like. So this fight, the attendance for it, 2,434. Oh, my God, that's amazing. That's amazing. We could sell more than that in Chicago this year on August 12th. Less than 3,000 people got to see this? That is fucking crazy by the way by the way somebody i just have to say that somebody we were making fun of impact wrestling

a couple weeks ago tna wrestling you know it was that's impact we're making fun of them and somebody tweeted at me because the uh impact posted this thing sold out for the fifth straight time and they were like looks like they're doing pretty good to me and i looked up the venue it's like a 2 000 seat venue they're not doing so if a major wrestling company is bragging about a 2 000 seat venue that's embarrassing that's fucking embarrassing not even in the united states too in toronto so 2 000 canadians are coming to see you no offense canada yeah but um there's only 2 000 of you you. Shut the fuck up. Jesus Christ. Their audience is too fast. Are you kidding me?

And they're bragging about it. Wow. Looks like they're doing pretty good to me. Okay. Let's play 10 straight days in a 100-seat venue. We sold out 10 straight nights. Look at us. That's stupid.

Jesus Christ. 10 straight nights look at us that's stupid yeah jesus christ so this fight will be one of the most controversial in the history of boxing this is i mean you could definitely arguably the most famous fight in history this is by far the picture in this fight the most recognizable shot ever you see that picture you know exactly who's fighting and exactly what happened. You know everything. You see Ali. It's him with his crook of his arm there. It's almost like a flex, but it's his second punch that he threw. Yeah, and it's that fucking, he's like yelling.

It's iconic. As iconic a picture as can be. It's that and Lou Gehrig standing at the mic saying he's the luckiest man. There's like a few pictures that really transcend time. And that's one of them. So midway through the first round, Liston throws a left jab. And what's said by Ali and everybody else is that Ali went over it with a fast right. Okay.

Now, if you watch the film, Ali definitely throws a right. It is quick as fuck. I mean it's a lightning right but knocks out knocks Liston down yeah now the the thought is that he with very very quick punch like that almost like a little jab yeah Sonny Liston doesn't get knocked out he's just not that kind of boxer that gets knocked out he's taken that punch before a hundred times he's taken twenty times harder yeah so he goes down like a ton of shit on his back here he rolled over Liston

he gets up to his right knee so it looks like he's getting up and then falls over on his back again so like he's too out of it to do anything now many of the people in attendance because it was so fast and unless you were watching Ali's arm, if you were watching Liston come in, you wouldn't even have seen it. They didn't even see the fight.

They didn't even see the punch. Really? So in the crowd, people are like, what the fuck? And people start booing. They think it's just like they're standing there, and then Liston just fell down and acted like he got hit. They're like, Christ, he could at least have him throw a punch. So it's weird here now jersey joe walcott the referee this is where it's great to have a pro boxer as the referee because he knows yeah sometimes a punch is short but it'll get you he said he had a hard time getting ali to a neutral corner ali

initially stood over over uh liston as that's the that's the fight and you see his mouth open he is yelling quote get up and fight sucker nobody will believe this really that's what her that's what Walcott heard him say from while he was trying to get him to the neutral corner he's saying get up and fight sucker nobody gonna believe this get up the wait is over. So far, you're not losing. The only thing you're losing is my patience. Quickly, I see that. Bing! The queen of the courtroom is back.

I didn't do anything. You wouldn't know the truth if it came up and slapped you in the face. I see he's not intimidated by anything. I can fix that. New cases. She wanted to fight me leave her a Loam okay, so that this is not a so this is a period Classic Judy did you sleep with her? Yes, your honor you married his cousin

His brother that's not him. Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door That's not him. Yes, ma'am. I would make a beeline for the door. The Emmy Award-winning series returns. How did I know that? I have a crystal ball in my head. It's an all-new season. It's streaming. You can say anything.

Judy Justice, only on Freebie. Taylor Swift is soaring high. Her every move captured in the news cycle and devoured by her devoted fans. She's broken billboard records and made Grammys history, not to mention becoming a billionaire in the process. But along the way, Taylor has had to wage war, first by taking on a very powerful, very famous manager, Scooter Braun, and then by going up against the biggest live events company, Ticketmaster. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's show, Business Wars. We go deep into some of the biggest corporate rivalries of all time.

And in our latest season, Taylor Swift will shake up not only the music business, but Hollywood and the NFL. Follow Business Wars wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. So, yeah, he's doing that. So, Neil Leifer, by the way, is the guy who took the picture

from Ringside, and it was chosen as the cover of Sports. The most ripped-off person on the planet, probably. Oh, absolutely. Think about how many T-shirts you've seen that on.

Yeah, I own one. That's what I mean. I guarantee he got nothing from it that's from that no absolutely his family lives in trailer parks now motherfucking t-shirts that man's family and bob ross's family two most raped people on this planet that's it fucking hardcore man poor fuck he uh this this was on the cover of sports illustrated later on that was at the the century's greatest sports photos and it really is and it's on the cover of Sports Illustrated later on that was at the century's greatest sports photos issue. And it really is.

And it's on the cover. So Ali then began prancing around the ring with his arms up. That's the fight here. When Walcott got back to Liston after trying to get – because he won't start the count until Ali goes to his neutral corner. He goes to Liston and looked at the knockdown timekeeper, Francis McDonough, to pick up the count. Liston had fallen back down to the canvas, and Wolcott did not pick up the count. He said he couldn't hear McDonough, who didn't have a microphone. So also that he said McDonough didn't bang on the canvas or motion to a number count with his fingers to say where we were,

because he's going to go over and pick it up rather than start from one. Now they start from one. Wow. They don't start counting until you're in the neutral corner. Is that right? It takes you 20 seconds. You better hurry the fuck up. Whereas back then they'd be like, I'm on five.

That's fucking wild, man. So McDonough, though, he claimed Walcott was looking at the crowd and never at him. Really? So, yeah, he's going to blame the ref on this one. So after Liston got up, he ends up getting up. Walcott wipes off his gloves, as they do, and he left the fingers. He said to the timekeepers waving both hands and saying,

I counted them out, the fight's over. So Liston thought he was ready to go. He didn't know. Walcott never did any counting. He was like, okay, we're ready to go. And then the time guy on the any counting uh-huh he just he was like okay we're ready to go and then the time guy on the side's like no no i already got him yeah it's over like four seconds ago so walcott said after the fight he said nat fleischer was seated beside mcdonough who's the time guy and he was waving his hands too saying it was over so then walcott ran back

to the fighters um who had resumed boxing oh jesus they started fighting again is that right absolutely yeah that fight they're they're they're going at it again when it's over so then walcott had to go in in the middle and fucking you know tell him anything from here on out is assault yeah he had to basically duck his head in there and be like hit me mother like yeah yeah don't hit me guys so he rushed back in there and stops the fight and gives the obviously it's ali's win yeah so liston's like i was just punching like what are you talking about this is crazy i'm standing yep um it's one of the quickest heavyweight title knocked outs in history really it's it's announced as one minute is that right that's what

it is the official time of stopping was one minute which was wrong actually liston went down at 144 got up at 156 the fight was stopped at 212 officially okay so that's the official here um also mcdonough and fleischer the two counters on the side were wrong in their interpretation of how the rules applied under rules, the timekeeper's supposed to start the count at the time of the knockdown. The referee's duty is to get the boxer scoring the knockdown to a neutral corner, then pick up the count from the timekeeper and continue it aloud for the knockdown boxer.

Under the rules of the main commission, the referee was authorized to stop his count if a boxer refused to go to the proper corner. That's a penalty. If you don't go to the proper corner, I'm not going to fucking start counting this guy. That's their rules. So they said it might have been better if Walcott

had stopped the count by the time knockdown timekeeper until Clay went to the neutral corner, then started again. That's what the main commissioner said. So now Walcott said, quote, I did my job my job look i'm brain damaged as fuck too listen not taking shots guys listen i'm the most mush putting brain man in this ring so out of the three of us i'm the guy with the worst of it so uh you know i did my best he said

that uh i did my job he said ollie looked like a man in a different world i didn't know what he might do i thought he might do. I thought he might stomp him or pick him up and belt him again. Really? He was just... Ali's a... He's not crazy. No, he's a sportsman. He was just being a showman.

He still knows the fucking rules. Jesus. He's not going to grab an anvil and hit him with it. No shit. That is crazy. Now, McDonough, the timekeeper on the side, said, quote, If that bum Clay had gone to a neutral corner instead of running around like a maniac, all this trouble would have been avoided.

So rather than them doing their job, he blamed the guy who is in the middle of a fight. Yeah, but I lost count because of him. I can't count to 10 when people dance. When someone's walking around with their arms in the air, he was talking. Do you understand? It's very distracting. I'm trying to. Wow.

Counting to 10 is tough that way. Then he said after Jersey Joe, after he got that wild man clay back to a neutral corner, but he didn't. So that was that. So he blames the referee and Muhammad Ali rather than him whose only job is to count to 10. And he doesn't do that properly or at the correct time as well. But it's not his fault. And then he realized it's way past 10 seconds, right? It's everyone else's fault.

So when the fight ended, immediately, because the people in the crowd, number one, it's a minute into the fight, they barely sat down. Some of them are still arriving, for Christ's sake. There's probably people still getting beer, too. Yeah, there's people in the car going, oh, boy, it should be mid-first round right now. It's going to be a great fight. And they get in there and everyone's leaving.

There's people arguing with parking tenants saying, $8? How dare you? This is crazy. Back then, 75 cents. Are you out of your mind? Are you out of your mind? That's my car payment. I can get five malts for that much.

That's crazy. Jesus Christ. I could send my kid to college for a semester for that. Jesus Christ, didn't he? I could send my kid to college for a semester for that. So the fans started yelling fix from the side of the ring because that's what they thought. They didn't see a punch. They called the knockout blow.

This is the famous phantom punch, they call it in this here. Ali called it an anchor punch instead. What does that mean? Just knocked him down like an anchor pulled him down so it wasn't a phantom punch it was an anchor punch i've seen this fight on classic sports and i've he misses him a few times too yeah if he connected with all of them he may have killed that man that night i don't know if he's that front who knows maybe it's fixed too that's the but with liston anything's you know what i'm saying anything is in play with liston that's the but with liston anything's you know what i'm saying anything is in play with

liston that's the thing yeah it's christmas fight 10 cops do something like he's done so much crazy shit it's really difficult yeah we don't know he's involved with the mob he's fucking not he's a manager like who the hell knows what's going on with this guy he also did not have a day job after this ever again so who knows what money he got 13 to 5 odds if those are the odds i'd bet against those i yeah i'd bet i want to know the f and we'll talk about this but i want to know uh exactly because the fbi would have been looking at betting lines to see when they moved and shit like that so i'm very curious to see if this was you know well if somebody lays it off properly though a lot of theselers, they'll do it all over the country with 100 different bookies, so it's all laid off and doesn't look like it's coming from one person.

It just looks like there's a, you know, the odds are moving because there's a bunch of people at the last minute going, well, I'll take a chance on the underdog. So there's a bet from a Lonnie Siston. Yeah, exactly. Actually, no, he wouldn't even know it's happening, probably. He wouldn't make the money on it yeah Lonnie Siston Charles Charles fucking Charles Siston that's his name from now on it's Charles they'll never know that

no one knows my name is Charles. It's fine. Yeah, just see if there's a bit from Charles listed. Is there anything for that? Have we looked on that at all? They think I'm Sonny. I mean, I don't know. Jesus, I'm just Charles. I don't know. Well, there actually is another Charles, as we'll talk about.

So, you know what? That would be possible. Ali said he was unsure after the fight as to whether or not the punch connected. That's what Ali said. As footage from the event shows Ali in the ring asking, he asks a guy next to him, quote, did I hit him? I mean, obviously. Which you should know that probably. Yeah.

You can feel when you connect with a man's head hard enough to knock him out, I feel like. When you threw a punch, did you feel it hit anything? No shit. You should know. Well, Ali told the Nation of Islam minister, Abdul Rahman, he said that Liston laid down. And Rahman said, no, you hit him. Oh. Okay.

Rahman doesn't want any sort of controversy. This is good for all of us. Everyone shut the fuck up. No, no, you. No, you hit him. You're the champ. Everything's great. Rockman later said, Ali hit him so fast, Ali didn't even really know he hit him.

So fast, he didn't know. No matter how fast you hit someone, that doesn't affect the impact. That's like saying, I mean, I was driving 100 miles an hour. How could I tell if I ran that kid over? I have no idea. Who knows? I was sure everything happened so fast. I've heard that you won't know what hit you, but I've never heard, I'm so fast, I don't know if I hit anybody.

If I hit you. I'm so fast, I won't know what hit you. It's weird. That's different. Yeah, he said that he didn't really know what hit him and it took a long time before he even saw the punch he hit with sunny with i guess on the tape he said um ali never threw the anchor punch again nor did he ever refer to it again which if he had a punch that he gave a nickname to that won him you know knock sunny listen out

in the first round he probably never shut the fuck up about that. Till, you know, he dropped dead, basically. He'd have been shaken 30 years later talking about it. Have you ever heard of the anchor? Yeah. So, after the fight, a guy named George Shavalo climbed through the ropes and shoved Ali yelling, fix, fix, fix. So he shoved him. He was restrained, but he later said that he'd seen Liston's eyes while he was on the floor,

and he knew that Liston wasn't knocked out or in bad shape. He said his eyes were darting from side to side like this. He said when a fighter is hurt, his eyes roll up. If he's knocked out, his eyes roll up. But a lot of times you see this when a fighter's figuring out what to do he is looking back and forth because he's looking to see when he's coming to yeah where am i what's going on where am i who's over there who's there how far away because you're in a fight so your immediate thing is i'm in danger right it's holy

shit where's the enemy where's this where's you know where's my corner am i in the ring still things like that especially if you were out for half a second. It would scare the shit out of you. So that doesn't mean anything. Now, Larry Merchant, who was at ringside, Larry Merchant is obviously around forever. He, by the way, has done nothing but trash listing throughout his whole career as a person. He wrote, this is 50 years later, quote, throughout his whole career as a person he wrote this is 50 years later quote i saw the actual punch land on the actual chin as did others in my area of the press section so he said it was a

quick right hand that caught liston as he was coming forward that's what it was he said he came in just as the punch came out and that's probably what nailed him yep and if he wasn't if he was if you're going for a punch and you're not braced for a punch with your neck and it snaps your head a little bit, that's how you get knocked out. Yeah, it's exactly how you get knocked out. And moving forward while a punch coming back at you, it's adding force to it, throwing your brain into your fucking front of your skull. Yep, absolutely. So that's that's that he's spoken to about this, trying to figure it out over the years, said it's a classic example of a medulla oblongata KO.

So a water boy KO is what we would call this. This is the Sandler. This is where you attack the KFC guy. That's exactly right. This is where you're very angry about your mother and you attack someone. So a world light heavyweight champion, Jose Torres, who saw the fight, said, quote, it was a perfect punch. How about that? It's just one of those immaculate things where you were throwing a little punch, he happened to be putting his face right into it and not see it.

It's one of those things also where they always say in boxing that it's not the punch you see, no matter how big of a punch it is. It's the one you don't see that knocks you out, even if it's not that big of a punch because it makes your head snap unable to react to it yeah ever seen a seeing rockman knock out lennox lewis yes did that look i mean he just never saw that fucking punch coming yep and his head snapped and he went down like a ton of shit i mean just a lucky punch it happens it's it's boxing yeah christ it can happen jim murray of the los angeles times wrote quote it was no phantom punch and tex mall of sports illustrated wrote the blow had so much force it lifted liston's left foot upon which most of his weight was resting well off the canvas as he was coming in his left foot was forward and that's he lifted him up from right where he hit

him so it was a good shot. You can see he definitely punches him. Absolutely. He definitely does. He said – Larry Merchant said, Many people in the arena did not see the punch, understandably, or they couldn't believe that it had the force to knock out the seemingly indestructible former champion. He said that he thought the belief that the fight was rigged.

He called it the, quote, apparently unkillable myth. Many people believe that the moon landings were staged and probably, uh, probably right there in Lewiston also. So it's, it's, it's listed. It's the phantom punch. It's the moon landing never happened. It's that thing he's saying. Now they do a slow motion examination of the fight and it shows that the punch definitely landed. It was a short

grazing right to liston's cheek um and they said it looks like it's not a powerful punch but who knows what the hell kind of force right is behind it and uh don dunphy who's a hall of fame announcer he said that he didn't believe the fight was on the level he said quote if that was a punch i'll eat it i don't know what he's planning on eating there. The punch or the microphone he's talking into or a dick. Who's dick? Liston's, Ali's, Walcott's. Just the one. The counter guy.

Who are we talking about? Somebody. Yeah. Now, he says, though, that he was a guy who was in prison and the guards used to beat him over the head with clubs and couldn't knock him down. And he said, now this punch knocks him out about liston okay but other people said it's it wasn't the same liston anymore yeah he is anywhere from 33 to 47 years old at this point we have no fucking idea how old he is seriously yeah he's taken a lot he hasn't fought a lot in a long time it's been i mean he might he's lived a hard fucking life too no matter what those years are yeah double them because he's been doing some crazy

shit his whole life a lot of eggnog brandy going yeah the man's boozing on christmas not to mention he's got he's 35 and three in his fights but what about the the you know his fights on the street with cops and such he's got a there. There was 10 in one day. Oh, shit. I'm 10 and 0, motherfucker. 10 and 0 on Christmas. Mark it down. So Dave Anderson of the New York Times said that Liston looked awful in his past workout before the fight.

And Liston's handler secretly paid his sparring partner an extra $100 to take it easy on him. Really? So Liston was doing not well and your 30s boxing skills fall apart quickly in your 30s do they a little bit a little bit you can see it when you watch it my yard work skills diminished in my 30s for christ's sake and that's not defending myself yeah no your masturbation skills are the only things that you can hone past your longevity there besides that honestly everything else falls apart especially physical things yeah and boxing is the difference between being the heavyweight champ of the world

and losing every fight is this it's so fucking thin as far as you're this much less than that guy or this much less powerful that guy or this much less powerful your brain is this much more damaged or when you're 37 anymore it's falling apart no matter how much you don't want it to sure so yeah it seems it seems silly um so uh arthur daly of the new york times said that uh yeah they just knew he didn't have it anymore liston's handlers and um i don't know one ringside observer here who was former world heavyweight champion James J. Braddock, he said that the Ali right hand merely finished up what an earlier punch had begun. He said, I have a feeling that this guy, Ali, is a lot better than any of us gave him credit for.

So he set him up with a punch before that left Liston a little loopy, and then the combination of him coming in and the punch. He was already on edge. He was already on edge. Just needed a push. Yep. He said, it isn't the knockout punch that sticks in my mind as much as the punch he let go earlier.

It was a right to Liston's jaw, and it shook him to his shoe tops. For all we know, it could have been the one that set up the knockout. He might not have been right yet, but Liston's not not a guy who will when he gets hit and he gets hurt he's not a guy who says oh shit let me back off for a second he's a guy who goes i better hit you so you don't hit me next so that makes him charge he's just a different kind of fighter uh rocky marciano also he said that um uh he watched it live and then he watched it the next day on over again at the videotape. And it said watching the tape changed his whole view. He said, quote, I didn't think it was a powerful punch when I saw the fight from ringside.

Now, after seeing the video, I think Clay, seeing the opening, snapped the punch the last six inches. So, I mean, Jesus Christ,e frazier used to have a left hook that went from here to here that knocked people the fuck out nobody said anything so um he added that he still didn't think it was a knockout punch though as marciano said ali said he didn't think that he knocked liston out right um he said here in in a biography from 1991 he said quote the punch jarred him. It was a good punch, but I didn't think I hit him so hard that he couldn't have gotten up. Once he went down,

I got excited. I forgot about the rules. Yeah. The minute into the fight. So, um, Liston quoted two years after the fight said, Ali knocked me down with a sharp punch.

I was down, but not hurt. But I looked up and saw Ali standing over me. Ali is waiting to hit me the ref can't control him so he says that he was a little bit hurt but he wasn't like knocked out but he was staying down till the ref got ali the fuck away from him because he said he thought that if he got up he wasn't safe he thought the ref couldn't keep him away from so he's like yeah i get up and then he hits me five more fucking times i'm not not doing that, which is smart. Yeah. It's why, you know, that would be a smart thing.

So, I mean, who knows? So is that him explaining starting to get up and then going back down because Ali's running around? I guess. And then the extra time, I think maybe he fell down. And then once he got up, though, I guess, yeah, he's saying that he was not getting up on purpose. Yeah. Because Ali wasn't being controlled by the ref. He's supposed to go to a neutral corner so the guy can get up and not be attacked.

That's the point of it. So that's fucking interesting, actually. I didn't even actually think about it like that. One guy says he saw Liston in Las Vegas in 1967 and asked him what happened. And he said it wasn't that hard of a punch, but it partially caught me off balance. And when I got knocked down, I got mixed up because the referee never gave me a count. I was listening for a count. But the first thing you do, that's the first thing you do.

But I never heard a count because Clay never went to a neutral corner. So he thought that he was under the impression he wasn't getting counted yet. Yes. He thought, okay, I'm not going to get up because he's on top of me. And then once they get to a neutral corner, then the count starts. Then I can get my shit together, get up on five, and figure it out. That was what he was thinking that he said. He says that Liston told him, another guy said that Liston told him that he simply, he said he lost because the timekeeper couldn't count.

That's what he said because he was obviously ready to get in there and start fighting again. Mark Cram of Sports Illustrated said that Liston told him, quote, that guy Ali was crazy. I didn't want anything to do with him. The Muslims were coming up. Who needed that? So I went down. I wasn't hit.

That's what the Sports Illustrated guy claims that Liston told him a few years later. That's not good. That's not great to hear. Another guy here, Wilfred Sheed, he offered his opinions in a 1975 book called Muhammad Ali, A Portrait in Words and Photographs. He said that Liston was going to throw the fight going in. And when he suffered a legitimate flash knockdown in round one, he decided that was the spot to do it. You know, he said he got knocked off balance and got knocked down. He probably could have jumped right back up again.

This is a good as play sounding. Yeah, fuck it. If we're going to do it anyway, why stand here and get hit more? That's stupid. I already took one. I've been hit enough in my life. And they said it was Walcott's confusion and Ali's behavior that forced Liston to feign disorientation for far longer than a knockout of that type would have caused. Okay.

If he ran right to the neutral corner he started counting and you know listing he could have faked a 10 but it was like 25 seconds forever so it's he he threw it and they fucked up yeah it looks shitty because they fucked up if they wouldn't have fucked up you wouldn't be talking about this being thrown basically yeah i think it's a i think it's one of these meet in the middle type things i think think he got knocked down legitimately. Yeah. Just, and they said like a flash knockdown that happens all the time to people that don't expect to get knocked down. So I think he got knocked down legitimately.

And then I think maybe he said, well, there's no reason to really get back up now. Why would I do that? Why would I do that? That's, that's possible. Um,

in 1995, an HBO documentary about Liston here, uh, Johnny taco, toe, toe show who owned a boxing gym in Las Vegas. He spoke with a mobster named John Vitale before the rematch and was told not to pay any attention to what he heard about the fight. He was also told that this guy should be glad that he wasn't going to Lewiston. And when he said why, Vitale told him that the fight was going to end in the first round. So the mobster told him, don't even bother going to the fight.

You won't like it. So long trip for nothing. Nothing. So during the same documentary, FBI agent William F. Romer Jr. said, we learned that there very definitely had been a fix in that fight. The FBI did. He said that Bernie Glickman, a boxing manager from Chicago with mob ties, claimed that while he was conversing with Liston and his wife before the fight,

Liston's wife told Liston that as long as he had to lose the fight, he should go down early and avoid getting hurt. If you're going to lose anyway, just fucking go down. What are you going to do, get punched for five rounds for nothing? That seems stupid. Don't do it in the fucking last round yes this fight because a because a lot of the country hated both of these guys and these are the you know the top fighters and b because they're talking about organized crime and the nation of islam and this one and that one and fixed fights and all

this shit there was a huge outcry by a bunch of politicians and the press to abolish boxing at this point stop it all get rid of it all not because people are scrambling each other's brains and it's obviously crazy to do not because it's the wise thing to do two things in this in this world that if we started from scratch if aliens came down and said we're starting over from scratch with rules for stuff two things they'd go well boxing and motorcycles seem like the dumbest thing possible right why would you do either of those things so let me get this straight if you get in one of these yeah it's a big metal box that weighs tons yeah um you have to the rules are you have to have these special brakes and a belt that goes across that

keeps you in and airbags that come from five sides that like make you like a you know what i mean it inflates you in place that's all these things have to have now a motorcycle you just sit on an engine yeah and fucking go it's 60 that's legal and no helmet we're gonna leave we're gonna delete two two tires from it that's that's what i mean yeah not only are you have no protection but you balance yourself and some states like this fucking arizona yeah you don't even have to have a helmet on momentum will keep you up don't worry it's wild it's fine i don't care if you want to be splattered you want to be splattered on a truck that's up to you what i'm saying is if we started

with logically what should be against rules and what shouldn't be that's clearly the dumbest thing we have that's legal it's fucking crazy any sort any form of fighting of two individuals again boxing any of that shit they'd be like yeah you can't just stand and punch each other in the face for that long not that i shouldn't i like boxing i'm just saying if we if we started logically we'd definitely be like well boxing and motorcycles and let's go from there don't do any of that seems crazy so they want to abolish abolish boxing bills to ban the sport were planned in several state legislatures at that point became a popular political move. You know, especially in the south and the Midwest. It was especially popular to say that a promoter in San Antonio apologized to his theater TV customers on the basis that they had been defrauded by a shameful spectacle

and donated his take to the boys clubs of San Antonio. Oh, he won money on a fight. Well, he ran the theater pay-per-view crowd, so that money that he made there. The California legislature in session received a resolution calling for an investigation by the state attorney general to determine if its closed circuit viewers had been

fraudulently duped out of their money. So from the consumer side, they're doing it. Um, for those who, there's, here are the theories. Okay.

There's theories to all of this, that this is the, this is the list and took a dive list here. Number one, the mafia forced him to throw the fight as part of a betting thing okay and that the fbi would know that because they monitor that kind of shit number two liston bet against himself and took a dive because he owed money to the mafia okay that would probably be no um he they they would maybe owe him well if he owed money to the mafia they would maybe make him

take a dive as his payback to them for what that could happen but he wouldn't bet on himself to them right because he's betting with them right so if he owed them money he's not they're not gonna let him bet on himself against himself right this isn't fucking snatch that's what i mean uh stupid but they if anything he's worked for them. They would fucking owe him. Maybe, but he's a gambler, though. Oh, good point. So anybody who's a gambler like this. He loves those fucking casinos.

He loves to gamble. Oh, man. So a couple of members, here's theory three. A couple of members of the Nation of Islam visited Liston's training camp and told Liston they would kill him if he won. Oh, so now it's a. I mean, it would take more than a couple, probably. Ten cops couldn't do it. They all got guns.

Let's say we had to go threaten Sonny Liston's life. Yeah. What kind of fighting force are we bringing with us? Just me and you, or are we bringing more people? You want to bring SEAL Team 6 or some Israeli army? Listen, motherfucker, and we we're gonna threaten him and tell him he's not allowed to do a thing he wants to do i'm not doing it alone that seems a couple yeah um yeah that seems like an under i don't believe that unless they said like eight car

fulls came i don't believe it i just don't i'm gonna take at least a krav maga class yeah yeah and at that point too it's not like the nation of islam had the same rep like the mob that if you cross them, you'll definitely end up in a car trunk. They were fucking new. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Let's see what you got. You know, I got other guys over here who I know kill people in there. They want me to do something else. So also here, a author, Paul Gallander, claims that members of the Nation of Islam kidnapped Liston's wife, Geraldine, and his son, Bobby. And Liston was told to lose the fight to Ali or he'd never see his family again. Oh. I don't believe that either.

I feel like if you kidnap Liston's wife, you better hide. That is, I'd be, I'd sooner, I'd sooner kidnap Liam Neeson's wife. That's what I mean. No shit. At this point, too, he works with the mafia. So if they kidnap his wife and son, he's going to go to the mafia. My wife and son got kidnapped, and they're going to go get him back for him. That's how it's going to work, because he's making them money.

I don't think any threat of injury to him was made. That's what I don't think either. If anything, it's got to be a financial arrangement. That you could get Sonny on. Sure. Especially a boxer at the end of his fucking career. Who's worked with the mob. Yeah, I could see that going. They're going, listen, Sonny,

you're getting old. We've got to feather your nest egg a little bit here. You know, oh, let's go over here. At some point, you're going to want to sit down. I'm going to fucking do that. Yeah, we're going to get you one of those stools Ali is selling. Looking perfect. So Liston was afraid that he would be accidentally shot by followers of Malcolm X as they tried to kill Ali in the ring. That's one of the other rumors.

There's also claims attributed to Liston and others that he threw the fight in return for a share of Ali's future purses. Like they offered him like a cut. Like, listen, if you just throw this, Ali will give you a cut in the future. Remember, everybody had two percent of you. We're going to give you two percent of him. That's what I mean. I don't believe any of those things. The claims of these facts here, though, Chuck Wepner.

Here we go. Credence to those claims is provided by the fact that after his last fight with chuck wepner because that's liston's last fight is with our bayonne bleeder himself there chuck wepner liston seemed more preoccupied in supporting the proposed ollie frazier bout and ollie's claims to the title other than his own career if you don't know when crystal pepsi was discontinued what was in al capone's vault or which famous meteorologist is own career. Discover the craziest rabbit holes on Wikipedia with me and my funny friends as we bring the cyber frontier directly to your tympanic membrane. And if you listen to my podcast, you'd learn that that's the science-y term for eardrum. We embark on a hyperlink roller coaster as we start out on a Wikipedia page and go from link to link to link to link, careening through trivia, oddities, and unexpected connections until we collectively

shout, how the hell did we get here? Follow WikiHole on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to WikiHole ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Okay, but that might be because he, there's a lot of reasons for that. He might have promoters, because he there's a lot of reasons for that. He might have promoters because he's living and hanging out in Vegas by then. So he might have promoters saying, hey, if you're pushing this fight, we're going to we'll give you chips at the casino. Who the fuck knows what behind the scenes arrangements we have there.

So in the end, even though it's been 60 years, we have no fucking idea what happened. That's crazy, right? How could we? Yeah yeah we don't know i mean even though after the fight even if one of them said what happened by then they'd have other motivations for the who knows what the hell i mean you could want to sell books you can there's a ton of reasons to say you did or didn't do anything sunny wants to keep not working so he'd like that who knows gambling would be fun yeah you do that a living. So he didn't complain about the list and didn't complain about the breach of the boxing rules being declared knocked out without a count. Yeah.

The ref never said it. The ref never said for once. Yeah. Which is crazy. You need to do that. And also Ali asking his handlers, did I hit him and all that kind of shit. And also Ali asking his handlers, did I hit him and all that kind of shit. So in a Sports Illustrated report from 1991, they say that, quote, two well-dressed black Muslims showed up in Maine before the fight.

And when Ali had just become a Muslim and Warren Liston, you get killed if you win. That's I don't believe at all. No, is it? Two guys are both getting knocked out. He's going to fucking pile them, stack them like cordwood outside. Anymore? Come two at a time motherfuckers literally multiple cops don't scare him right who have guns and would love to shoot sonny liston come on two muslim fellas i'm not scared not if i'm him i am he's not yeah right i don't want to fight two guys we should be he's not at all yeah um he liston publicly denied

taking a dive um sports illustrated writer mark cram said that years later liston told him about the ali thing about the muslims i wasn't hit so who the fuck knows um during the fight though he's gonna remain uh liston's gonna remain after this fight inactive for about for over a year really in terms of boxing and actually he'll be plenty active out on the streets as we'll talk about october 5th 1965 yeah get back in the mix here for sunny he's speeding again uh-huh doesn't seem to be able to not where's he going denver he's in denver again uh he's arrested and charged with driving 38 in a 25. He's gotten a license either. Oh, that's why.

13 isn't arrestable, right? He never has a license. That's a big issue. The patrolman said he clocked Liston's 1965 white Cadillac. Oh, he's got a white one now. He's just trading in Cadillacs for new Caddies. That's the thing. On the radar and made the arrest.

They said he was alone in the car. And there you go now he's he's in a movie here or he's uh yes he's in a movie here um he's in 65 in 65 it is uh gets a 4.8 out of 10 on imdb it's called harlow and it's loosely based on the life of 1930s star gene Harlow. And he plays a fighter. Is that right? So there you go. He gets a little work there. That helps. March of 1966.

You know what? He's got to clean it up. Yeah. He's got to really lock it down, button it up. You know what I'm saying? If you want to take another chance. You got to do it. Get a run at it.

He's going to move. He needs to move. He needs a new fresh slate. No more Denver. Fresh slate. You know, somewhere where he can start a clean, wh life again yeah you know like vegas in the 60s that's where he needs is that right that's where he moves he moves to vegas swear to god he moves to vegas oh man that's not doing a lot for that i'm not involved with the mob shit no and wait

do you see where he lives and shit it's basically he's basically uh de niro's casino house the one he lives in yeah where the feds land there in the gulf that's where he lives his fuel and landed on the eighth green yeah look at these fucking guys hey hundred bucks anybody who hits the fucking plane they started hacking the balls at the plane i love that so much hundred bucks for anybody who hits the plane. Might have been a thousand. I don't remember. So there's this article talking about his wife, Geraldine, set up housekeeping Wednesday at Liston's new home near the 16th fairway of the Stardust Golf Course.

Literally on the golf course. Literally that. It's the fucking house. That's amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if that house is Sonny Liston's old house. I really wouldn't. I think that house is sunny liston's old house i really wouldn't i i think that house is significant it might be that literally if it's sunny liston's old house i will shit myself because that's amazing i wonder if it i know that house is very is very significant i don't know that also who knows if when they filmed it though if that was actually that house

or if that was a fuck in fucking la or if that was i'm not gonna google it but it was in vegas i know they filmed it yeah yeah who knows i just mean like you can steal a shot somewhere if they had to i'm just saying i don't know if they stole the shot or whatever but either way i think that it was based on that so uh geraldine said that sunny's gonna come up to vegas after tuning up for an exhibition bout in anchorage Alaska. She said he would leave shortly after for a comeback try in three bouts in Europe. Oh. So they moved there. April 5th, 1966. It's a different Sonny.

Yeah. You know what, Jimmy? He's matured. He's good now. All it took was Vegas. You know what happens, Jimmy? Sometimes the world gets a little crazy. Yeah.

And you just need to step back. Yeah. You need to get yourself in a good blackjack game yeah and uh post-nuclear blast yeah maybe go to a brothel and uh yeah the the the radiation left in the air will clear your thoughts it's just better breathe in the fucking blast zone here's a this article he's working to change his image okay wow that's interesting um yeah he said he's gonna do it he's interviewed by change his image. Okay. Wow, that's interesting. Yeah, he said he's going to do it. He's interviewed by an executive sports editor for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer when he returned from Alaska. And they asked him, what are your future plans, Sonny? And he says, quote, try to help the kids out.

Pardon? It's so funny that the reporter asked, quote, what do you mean exactly? Yeah. Like, what does that mean? Yeah. He said, Liston said, why, what do you mean exactly? Yeah. Like, what does that mean? Yeah. He said, Liston said, why don't they ever write that? Write what? He says, what are you talking about, Sonny?

And Liston said, the good things I do, the people never hear about them. They just let me spit on the sidewalk and it's news. But you never see the good things in the newspapers. My wife and I have stayed up all night to be on television helping raise money for that drive. What's the name of it? All night. All night, and I can't remember what it's called.

You spent 12 hours hearing about one thing pounded in your head, and it's apparently super important to you to the point that you want to talk about it. What's it called? What's the name of that shit? Little fucking twisted up pretzel kids you know what the fuck i'm talking about jerry's telephone he said and somebody yells out multiple sclerosis and he said yeah that's it which is fucking hilarious they've got they got several of the

sclerosis multiple motherfucking multiple yo they got plural sclerosis they asked me if i do shit for single sclerosis i said yo fuck them sclerosis motherfuckers, but you get me a multiple? I'll help that little motherfucker out, man. That's cool. I got him. You can handle one sclerosis. He said, yeah, that's it. Multiple sclerosis.

He said, but nobody hears about that. Yeah. That's all right. I don't want them to put it in the papers. Yeah, you do. You just did it yourself. You just asked. You just said, I don't want them to put it in the papers. Yeah, you do. You just did it yourself. You just asked. You just said, why don't they do that?

Then people would say that I'm using the kids to make a play for sympathy. I don't want no sympathy. All I ever wanted to be was Sonny Liston and to be treated like any other citizen who has rights. Yeah. Listen, I don't care if my heart is as hard as a rock. When you see these kids, it does something. Some of them can't walk. Some can't hear or talk.

When you see these kids and the people who are helping them without getting paid anything at all. And then he shakes his head and he says, every man's got a tender spot somewhere. Understand? For instance, I might not have a tender spot for you, but every man has a tender spot for something. I can remember once I was at home in Denver. I picked up this little boy, and right away he hugged me. He wouldn't let me go for nothing. I had to rock him to sleep and everything.

All these homes are crowded, and some crippled kids can't even get in. They got a line down the steps of crippled kids. All the way down the sidewalk. Little fucking stilts and crutches and shit and wheelchairs. Some of them just laying on the sidewalk. They got to rock them all to sleep. Fuck, man. There's a line of those kids.

I don't have time to fight anymore. That's my problem. He said these crippled kids can't even get in. I don't understand why the government doesn't do something. They send money overseas and all, give help where it's needed that's what i say i want to give my biggest we need to have sunny in on the national budget talk because he really i'm sure knows give him an empty blanket i don't feel like he could fucking probably i feel like his wife pays all the bills in his house yeah i don't think Sonny knows how to pay things. He said, I want to give my biggest help to these kids.

Maybe if I do this for them, there'll be a bigger place in heaven for me. Okay. Alrighty. That was a lot. And then he says, man, when you get ready to kick off, you're going to be scared. Okay. You better be able to show in heaven that you did something good on earth. But if you put

that in the paper people will say sunny liston is using the kids to get sympathy i don't need sympathy from no one you just went on for four fucking paragraphs about how you're tender and you're rocking crippled kids to sleep and shit and now you're i don't want to use them for my benefit i want you to use them for my benefit i benefit. I'd like you to get down that I do wonderful things even though I don't want you to tell anybody about it. But write all that down and just put all that out there if you could. Wow. That's amazing. May 22, 1966.

Sonny Liston. Oh, boy. He is in Vegas. He's drinking. He's in Vegas. He's drinking. He's hanging out. He's doing all these wholesome things he was just talking about. In between the MS telephones. What he does is he shakes the dice.

He rolls them, and he rocks a crippled kid and puts him down. And then if he wins, if he gets on a good run, he can rock like three, four crippled kids to sleep while he's on a crap run. He's winning to buy swings, four cripple kids to sleep while he's while he's on a crap run he's winning to to buy to buy swings to swing them all he said you know what remember i said the government doesn't do enough sonny liston is gonna win all the money and help all the cripple kids that's right uh sonny liston said um you know there's no dice he's in vegas but no dice no drinking no girls no girls, no smoking, no swearing. Only wholesome stuff. Okay.

Only wholesome. He said, no more growling at newsmen. No more bitterness. No more any of this shit. Yeah. This is crazy. He said, just clean living. Clean living.

Yeah. And he also wants to kick Muhammad Ali's ass. Those two things. I need to do that. He'd like to do that. Yeah. Exactly. He leaves for Europe, and what he hopes will be a comeback,

he's fighting the Germany's heavyweight champion Gerhard Zeck on June 30th. That's his first fight since the Ali fight. That wasn't an exhibition. He's billing himself the new Sonny Liston. Oh, not bad. Wow. The new Sonny Liston. I don't know what that even means.

The new Sonny Liston. The new and improved Sonny Liston. Yeah. Wow. Now with more crippled kids. That's what it says on the box in a little yellow circle. Now with less sclerosis. Yeah.

Now with only one sclerosis. Sonny has got it down, these kids down to a single sclerosis. That's impressive, Sonny. He really has done something. Thank you. My hat's off to you. He says he'll go after America's fighters one by one until he reaches the top. How old are you?

Right. He doesn't know. We don't know. In your 30s, though, he said when he gets there in about a year, he hopes he says he hopes Clay is even still around. Oh, Bali is even still here. He says, well, what if what if you don't make it all the way to Ali again? And he says, quote, what if you don't make it all the way to ali again and he says quote what if you die and don't go to heaven okay well what if anything at that point what if carrots

were red that's what i do who cares that's what i'm saying what are you doing man if my grandmother egg balls should be my grandfather what are we talking about what are we doing here i don't get it so he says uh what if i die and don't go to heaven he says then i'm dead that's all but we don't talk about that no sir we think only good thoughts we're positive thinkers true don't let this man get hit in the head anymore no i don't know what you're talking about it's already not good it's really bad um so he thinks about the losses and he says that uh thinks about them as he relaxes in his new home near that now they're saying it's the 14th green not the 15th stairway 16th fairway so i don't know which one it is but um maybe moved maybe moved down the way to the party he's like you know what i don't like being on the fairway i want to i want to watch putts go

in that's more fun for me yeah he, my wife wanted me to come here. She likes the shows. And you know how it is. Where the wife goes, you got to go too. True. There you go. He just said, that's 60s, angry, happy wife, happy life. That's what he just said.

You know, if she bitches, it's going to be miserable. And they were like, you want to rephrase that? And he goes, you know how it is. Where she goes, you got to go too. Is that, we can print that out. Where she goes, you got to go, too. We can print that. Is that cleaner? That cleaner. He says he blames the whole debacle on his clay debacle with Ali,

that whole fight and the mess on his former manager and the second part on the bad refereeing. So he says it's all wholesomeness now and training. And he said he drinks milk. Ew. Imagine Sonny Liston drinking milk. That's got to be a lot of milk right he'd be like could you put some bourbon in it that's going to be a weird a weird milk right all i drink is eggnog now he already has a mustache that would look pretty good maybe covered in white that would be cool you could do a commercial yeah um liston

drinks milk he eats raw honey swims a, hunts rabbits and quails. As we know, Vegas is famous for its quail hunting. Yeah. Although in the desert, they do have quail. Yeah. So I guess you could. And though he says that his trainer says he's a real health food nut now. Is that right?

Oh, he's just- Honey and quail. Clean body, clean mind, he's saying. It's all good. His trainer says he gets all this stuff at the health store what else can be uh what else can he be okay um his uh oh wow by the way his trainer also works at uh he is the security guard at a casino that liston hangs out at that's how they met so this is the good decisions he's make he's making he's

hanging out in a casino gambling he meets the security guard and says you should train me i'm i'm i'm scouting for my wow i'm not gambling that is i'm building my my team back up wild oh by the way uh his other best friend there samuel Sams. Stop it. Samuel Sams, who's a blackjack dealer. Is that right? Yeah. This is his new management team and his new blackjack dealer and a security guard. Holy shit.

And Sams, he just says that he's Liston's advisor. I'm his advisor. I tell him to hit on fucking 17, but outside of that, I'm not taking his advice on anything boxing related, are you? When should I stop hitting would be my question to ask him. If the dealer's got 10, we stay on 16? Is that what happens? Yeah, what's your rule here? When do you have to stop hitting?

Right. So this guy says he will accompany Liston and his wife Geraldine to Europe, but he denies any formal managerial contract between them. And now his trainer, they're the security guard. The blackjack dealer is going to come for the ride, but the trainer is going to stay behind in Vegas. He says he's helping Liston without pay. Oh, pro bono. Pro bono. He said, quote, we're his friends and great fans.

He just found these hangers-on who want to hang out with him because he's famous, and he's letting them do professional things for him. That's crazy. Met them at the casino in Vegas. Well, yeah. Well, he's probably at three in the morning. What do you think that these offers came at three in the morning? It's just the two of them sitting somewhere.

Yeah, just hanging out, just losing money in blackjack. Liston, they're saying he runs four miles a day, bikes a lot, and they said whenever he bicycles, most of the neighborhood kids run behind him. Is that right? Via Rocky, or a la Rocky. That'd be fun. Yeah, that'd be cool.

Yeah, that's a cool thing. Hey, get the fuck away from me, you little bastards. I'm going to the brothel. Leave me the fuck alone. This is how I exercise. I get that. I'm riding to the cat house. Y'all may want to stop in a little bit or who's got fake id keep running so um he said all this is going

to make him a better fighter a better boxer not just a fighter he's doing all this he says he exercises his shoulders swinging an axe and dances to a record for cardio as well to be light on his feet yeah you know because that's what ali does in the 60s yeah he's dancing he's all right if you want to be happy for the rest of your life never make a pretty woman your wife he's grooving and i could see him grooving to that that's his that's his song and his wife yeah yeah ugly women propaganda yeah yeah so uh the the trainer here slash security guard he says liston has new speed agility and a left hand out of nowhere now that's nasty he said he's got no bad habits he's in good company and he'll regain the title good company he's good now as it gets i think he's ready to you know what i think he's ready to take it all home and climb back to the top.

I don't even know why we need to do the rest of this episode. Let's get started. He won the belt, lived happily ever after. Then he was president, and he's been a rock star for the last 30 years. End of story. Prime minister. Oh, and there is no more multiple sclerosis. He wiped it off the face of the earth.

MS is gone. Nobody even has single. Nope. Gone. No sclerosi. Anywhere. So he makes his comeback in 66 here. And this is when he's in Sweden.

He fights Gerhard Zeck, like we said, who's 32 and 5 coming into the fight. So not bad. Liston beats him. Knocks him out in the seventh round. Wow. 12,000 people here saw this. More people saw that than Ali. By far.

Yeah, it was in Stockholm. So, you know, it was an interesting thing here. He beat him with a short left-right combination. They said the German's face and shoulders were covered in blood from a cut over his right eye. He got up reeling at the count of 10, but the ref waved it off. You're a mess. You're a fountain, sir. Jesus Christ.

This is bad shit. Your forehead's the Bellagio. I was like, you're a mess. You're a fountain, sir. Jesus Christ. This is bad shit. Your forehead's the Bellagio. To the bunker with you. Yeah. So August 19th, 66, he fights Amos Johnson, whose nickname is, for some reason, not only his nickname, he's got Adam Amos, like an atom bomb. A-T-O-M. A-T-O-M, Amos Robinson, which is not.

So it's either Johnson or or robinson we're pretty sure amos is in his name somewhere he's 22 and 4 coming into this fight and this fight goes three rounds and sunny knocks him out as well and so there we go he's back on track he's 37 and 3 march 30th 1967 he fights dave bailey, wow, 15 and 16 coming into this fight. So that's not exactly a contender. Knocks him out in the first round, though, as he should. So he's beating guys as he should beat them, but these aren't top contenders. I don't know Dave Bailey, who he fights in Gothenburg.

I don't even know where that is. I don't know what fucking flag that is, Jimmy. Is it a flag? That's a flag there. It's like green. I don't even know where that is i don't know what fucking flag that is jimmy is it a flag that's a flag there it's like green oh yeah i don't even know what that is one of those northern countries with a with a yellow cross on it to the left it looks like swedish or not swedish i don't even know man it looks finnish hey we don't know those countries yeah you people eat like pickled fish a lot that's all we know outside of that and you like hot tubs i don't know anything else about you koozie no clue um but during this yeah under under a story about his fight on march 31st 1967 there's an advertisement that just says i want you to look at this come here attention all boys all right he's got my attention who will be eight years old by july 31st 1967 but not 17 years old by july 31st 1967

i have a very specific taste it's for 8 to 17 and then it just says gets guess what's coming and then there's six exclamation points are are those i'm sorry six question question mark six guess what's coming do each of those represent a letter and it spells out somebody's name? I don't know. This reminds me of the Simpsons thing with the Gabbo and all that shit, but it also- Is this a Zodiac letter? I don't know. Yeah.

Just for a young boy. I wouldn't keep my kid away from this, whatever the fuck this is. Believe me, at least eight. We never found out what it was. I don't know what it is. That's the other thing. I couldn't figure it out. So we don't know. There's no-'t know what it is that's the other thing i couldn't figure it out so we don't know there's no who knows what it is guess what's coming hopefully all the boys from 8 to 17 in the uh this area and survived this i'm not sure probably not

april 28th 1967 he fights elmer rush 15 3 and 2 coming into this fight here. This is in Stockholm again, so Sweden. That's what that flag must be. Okay. This fight goes six rounds. Rush is knocked down twice in the fourth, three times in the fifth, and four times in the sixth. Wow. Before the referee finally says, this is silly. Is that seven knockdowns?

That is two, three, five, nine knockdowns. Nine? That is nine knockdowns in six rounds the ref said okay dude why'd you show up that's enough elmer we're gonna fucking nine knockdowns wow and then he went and made quality glue for the next 50 years i was tired of this or they turned him into glue either one he's to take him to the factory may 10th 1967 here this is a newspaper article and it says Torney snub irks Big Bear Liston ex-champ ignored as

clay contender and says Liston said Tuesday he felt he was snubbed when plans were announced for an eight man elimination tournament to fill the world championship belt that was stripped from clay after clay became yeah it wouldn't go to the war they stripped him of his title.

And he said, quote, none of them want to fight me. Talking about those guys. That's what he said. And he says, this is bullshit. I beat all these motherfuckers. It makes sense that they would put him in at least the tournament. I guess he hasn't lost since, Ali. He was the champ at some point.

Yeah, and he hasn't lost since then. He says that he just won all these fights. He's been beating people up. Yeah, and he hasn't lost since then. He says that he just won all these fights. He's been beating people up. And he said that all eight of the tournament nominees refused, quote, good offers to fight me in Europe or anywhere else. So he said he had to settle for Elmer Rush to fulfill my contract to the promotion group headed by Ingmar Johansson, who's an old fighter there. So he said that he's knocking all these people out. He knocked this guy down nine times what the

fuck he said let them go ahead and fight it out for the right to meet me for the title he said i'm gonna wind up as a big drawing card anyway so he said i'll just take winner of who gets all that you know who wins this tournament here um so he said that he's been licensed by the nevada athletic commission but not been ranked since his layoff in the States from fighting Ali. Now, so you could, let's say you could train for this tournament. You could maybe watch this tournament. Or let's say you don't want to do that. You could head on down to the Drive-In Theater here.

In what year? July 13, 1967. If you happen to be in Sacramento, California here, you need to head over to the 49er Drive-In. What is playing? Well, adult entertainment. Oh, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They already got porn?

This is cool. This isn't porn. This is the weird world of LSD. Oh! This is an acid movie that they're playing at the Drive-In in 1967. Oh, wow. That's fucking cool they were already embracing it july 13th that's summer love middle of the summer love there so i mean

the weird world of lsd lsd on the campus and it said recommended for the parents of teenagers what okay that's what they're saying you should see this so you know lsd shit but it's really for kids to go and take acid and go watch this trippy shit right because it's i'm sure it's not like a medical documentary on the ill effects of acid it's probably like kids going whoa man and then there's like a color wheel going on something swirls and also while you're there we left your teenagers at home to go do this very parental scientific work you can check out the co feature which comes on afterwards you pay for both which is the mating urge what yeah so you can watch this acid movie and then watch people

fuck afterwards that's what's going on the mating urge the mating urge fascinating it's a terrible name for a porn gross sounds yeah it sounds like they're animals yeah yeah it sounds like uh it's narrated by somebody from uhigation Discovery or National Geographic. I was going to say more National Geographic and then I guess it would turn into Investigation Discovery because it's pretty rapey. So August 13th, 1967, he wants to fight in the U.S. again. He's eager to fight. Yeah. He says he's living quietly in Vegas and he's tired of being quiet, honestly.

I'll give this. This is a New York Times article, and it says, quote, In the driveway were two Cadillac Eldorados, a baby blue and a pale pink. Inside the pastel green ranch home, the immaculate living room was furnished in lavender Italian provincial. under Italian provincial through the sliding glass doors, aqua blue water in the 25 by 15 foot swimming pool shimmer shimmered in the dazzling desert sun. He's describing Ace Rothstein's house, right?

It really is. Beyond the stardust golf course was empty beyond that. The stardust golf course was empty baking in the 103 degree heat. He says, that's where I do my road work every other morning early before the sun gets up and they say do you play golf there and he says no i think he's gonna do that he said joe lewis lost too much no he said that joe lewis sucks at it so i don't do it okay okay um that's weird he said that he's said to lost thousands of dollars gambling on golf. Oh. That's Joe Louis.

Yeah. So it's competition. They said, though, he's been careful with his money lately, though, Liston. And it says his sumptuous home is evidence. So is his disregard for the gambling casinos on the Strip. Oh, he hates them. How did he meet those two guys, then? Right.

What about your pals? Come on. He said, sometimes I play a little blackjack at caesar's palace but not much that is the hugest understatement ever um he said that uh is as earnings from four championship fights two with clay and two with floyd patterson totaled more than 2.7 million dollars which back then is 20 million dollars yeah which isn't bad uh but he said he had to share that with his managers, trainers, the IRS. He said he still has money coming, a total of about $150,000 still from the clay bouts he's owed.

He says everybody's always hollering. I'm sorry, this is Geraldine. She says everybody's always hollering about the elements behind Charles. She calls him Charles. She does. Oh, my God. But if that were true, he wouldn't have money, and he's got enough to live.

The trouble is you've got to have some coming in, too, and we don't. So she's saying he's not making any money now. We've got to make this last. Yeah, exactly. So they said that he hasn't had a fight in the United States where he needs to make the big money. And it says when the World Boxing Association has its convention in Reno in two weeks, this

is Sonny, I'm going to try to get up there and try to get them to OK me. The reason they suspended me was because I had a return bout with Clay, but that wasn't in the contract I signed. That was in the other contract the managers, the hot dog salesman had with Clay's people in Louisville. Hot dog salesman. OK, so that's louisville hot dog salesman okay um so that's what they're talking about here that's what he wants he's pissed off liston's uh sought a right license in california but his application was denied he said they checked me out in new york

what the fuck and they said his career he only had 19 arrests and a two-year term in prison at this point okay so he said uh quote i got turned turned down in New York in 62 because they said I was connected to Blinky Palmero, who we've talked about as the mobster there, Palermo. But that was five years ago. All them guys are in jail. Palermo's in for 15 years. Frankie Carbo for 25 to 30. They can see I'm not connected with those guys now, and I was never connected with them. I know people think I'm old, but'm 35 no you aren't quote i got a birth certificate when my

mother had me so i guess she should know no you don't that's a complete fucking lie we know that for a fact i'm 35 i got a birth certificate if you have to say if i ask you how old you are you don't go i got a birth certificate and everything do you never I ask you how old you are, you don't go, I got a birth certificate and everything. Do you? Never. Because you know how old you are. Yeah. That's why. Exactly.

That's the point. If someone says, I got a birth certificate and everything, that's not how old they are, no matter what. And this is 1969? 67. Now he's saying he was born in 34. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now he's added. 32.

32, yeah. If he's 35, he'd be 32. But yeah, they said he's- That's still pushing. He said it's probably more like 30, and his mom said maybe 28. Right. So this is weird. It's anywhere between 28 and 33.

Now, he has used a birth certificate, but we'll talk about where he got that from, because it's hilarious. Okay. So he said his weight is about 225. He's got a flat stomach. He's doing well. Wow. He's ready to go.

Ready to go. He wants to be in consideration to fight Clay again. He said that he acknowledged that he said he played Clay, quote, played him cheap the first time when Clay became champion. And he said when he sat on his stool there, he said the second bout, he said, quote, it wasn't that hard a punch, but it partially caught me off balance. And then he's talking about getting mixed up again. So now he's saying he definitely did get knocked out.

He said, I was listening for a count, but never heard it. So he said outside here of his house while they're talking to him, quote, outside on a child's swing, a three-year-old boy, Daniel Weave, went back and forth. And he said, we've had him here since May, Liston said. Now, they have, they said, childless and 15 years of marriage, but he's got a...

Is he fostering? He must, because he's got a kid. Right. They're talking about his kid. So he said... And he's been here since when? This other kid's been, he's outside here since when this kid this other kid's been he's outside swinging since may apparently on a swing set i think he's been on that swing

for four months long times he said quote his mother's a waitress where we were staying in sweden and we got to talking to her and she told us she had a boy in some place like an orphan home and we asked her if we could bring him back we have a visa for him they're smuggling children they took a swed Swedish waitress's son because he was in an orphanage. They're like, well, we'll take him. And she's like, sure, here you go. We'll plant his ass on a swing.

And then these two brought back a little Swedish boy. What the fuck is going on? Unbelievable. On a previous trip, the Listons returned with an Irish youth, Peter Keenan, who lived with them for several months. Why is he bringing children? Why is he bringing European children here to live for a few months?

It's so fucking weird. Then he says, nobody ever mentions the good things that I do. Like, take European children here. He said, he points to some photos that show him at the hospital for cerebral palsy children. He said, and I got a certificate from the Leukemia Society, too. Says I got leukemia. Now, who the fuck would? But all they ever write about is when I get a speeding ticket.

They always give me the ticket business. The ticket business. He looked across the street at his neighbor's lawn and then shook his head and he said hey geraldine that man across the street ain't cut his grass he ain't letting the neighborhood or he letting the he's letting the neighborhood run down what is it some of the hoa now too look at this geraldine i'm gonna go cut his lawn quick this motherfucker's got weeds yep he says um he says they they don't think they'll think i was gonna fuck it up up because I'm the only non-white guy in this neighborhood. They think my lawn was going to be shitty.

Look at his lawn, he said. And I'm more outnumbering myself by bringing more white children. Yeah, I'm stacking the odds against me here. So November 13th, 1967, he needs a new boxing manager. Really? So we need a new boxing manager. Who do you go to? Experience now? H&R Block. He needs someone with experience. boxing manager really so we need a new boxing manager who do you go to uh experience hr block

he needs like someone with experience someone that can help craft his career get him on the right track is there an olive garden nearby um sammy davis jr is going to be his manager because why not the rat fat guy sammy day one of the same sammy davis jr a little ugly man the dance is nice and sings well is he ugly he's pretty ugly right oh when he was older his eye was all funky and shit he's younger he's a handsome cat everybody liked him you had a glass eye yeah he was married to that super tall fucking like swedish supermodel and shit why did he have a glass eye because he had one fucking eye right he just thought it looked cool jimmy popped it out and he was like what i think it's better for my career baby i think it's going to be good frank likes one eye i don't know what to tell you so sammy davis jr i

don't know what happened to sammy davis honestly i don't know what his accident i assume i don't know who knows his uh he will sign a contract to manage Sonny Liston. Jesus Christ. Liston's business manager said in New York that the announcement was a result of two months of negotiating here. Contract will be signed in Las Vegas where Davis will be appearing at a hotel to do a show. And this is, you know, mid Rat Pack days. Yeah, that's what's happening. This is, well, the end of the Rat Pack days.

But swinging. Yeah, he's still a huge star right now giant star so uh november 22nd 1967 here there's another article about liston and they start out with vegas is known as the city with no clocks yeah but by no me but uh time means a lot to charles sunny liston the one-time king of the heavyweights, who now makes his home in Las Vegas. And they go on to discuss all of that and him and Ali. I love when they talk about his fucking, I just love when they talk about all of his, like, what he's doing now and try to do a fluff piece on him. They do. He still trains, getting in five miles of road work on one of the city's finest golf courses every morning.

He weighs just five pounds more than he did for the second fight with Clay and appears to be in peak condition. But it doesn't do a fighter any good to be in shape if he's unable to get any fights. Now, here's the next paragraph. Age is a problem. Yes. Ring records list his age at 40, but most observers believe he's closer to 43. Oh, yes. Ring records list his age at 40, but most of their observers believe he's closer to 43.

Oh boy. This is old for a fighter, even Archie Moore, but he still ranks as one of the best. Liston, who's only licensed in Nevada and Massachusetts is not bitter about his plight, but is almost, uh, but in his almost childlike way admits bewilderment. He says, quote, if I mixed up with the underworld, it's pretty obvious they're not making any money off me. And isn't money the reason the underworld is interested in anything? Okay, that's fine.

By the way, his house was $100,000, which was a lot back then. So yeah, he says that occasionally he goes to the hotels, but I mean, come on. Not the casino, the hotel. You know, you gotta have dinner. It's a nice place. It's where all the restaurants are.

What do you want from me? So he said he's not hurting. He has his home. He has two $8,000 automobiles, which was a shitload back then. He said he also, you know, he's got a good bank account. He's still got 150 grand coming in from the Clay fight.

He's doing just fine. And now I was just signed with Sammy Davis Jr. So that's going to be great um for me it's perfect uh and maybe sammy davis helped him get this but he ends up getting a role in a film called head which it's a monkeys movie the monkeys uh quote the monkeys are tossed out about tossed about in a psychedelic, surrealist, plotless, circular bit of fun fluff. That's an IMDB review from it.

Were they, were they a psychedelic group? Was that? No, everything was psychedelic in the 60s though. There's always like those colors behind them. You had to be. Yeah, everybody did. Plus they were the knockoff Beatles. Yeah.

There's knockoff. They didn't, they were the actors who are the Beatles. Even more hideous Beatles. Well, they just made a show and cast four actors or five actors and said you're like the beatles and then they made two albums and said we want to do our own music and they were like you're fucking actors before that they didn't do play anything sing anything write anything and they're like no no we want to write songs we're a bad now they were like are you out of your they're gonna make cartoons about us this is crazy so march 16th 1968 he fights bill mcmurray whose alias is fred what i don't know fred bill i go by fred you know billy fred so uh this is a tko in the fourth round this is in reno uh sunny knocks about he's 40 and 3 now sunny may 23rd 68 so he's he's

wants to get back to this he fights billy joiner who's nine and three coming into this fight and joiner goes down in the third and then he doesn't come out for the seventh round billy joiner billy joiner nickname mike i think it's uh it's frank actually it's frank it's. It's Frank. It's Frank. It's Frank. July 3rd, 1968. Yeah. This is fucking amazing here. He's talking about, you know, the title of this article from the Pittsburgh Press is No Rocking Chair Yet. Okay.

And it's got a picture of Sonny. Yeah. And it says, Kindly old Sonny Liston has a fight coming up on national television Saturday. Kindly old. Kindly old. The prayers of the nation will be with him. His opponent, Henry Clark, is young and strong, and concern has arisen over Sonny Boy's safety.

A sparring partner knocked him down in the gym the other day, by some accounts, knocked him out cold. Liston is at the age where he should be looking for sedentary work. He's, even if he's 43, sedentary? Jesus Christ, man. Wow. I should be looking for sedentary work. And he does not.

And he does get business offers from time to time. But as Geraldine, his wife, says, they always want you to put up money, obviously, to be in business. Really? That's weird to invest in a company. Strange. You can't just say I'm sunny. I'm invested. I'm Charles.

So, yeah, he says that not much of it, he doesn't have a lot of the money that he, you know, still has here. Liston said, quote, about the Ali fights, he says, we went 50-50. What's wrong with that? And he said this was with his manager. He gave his manager 50% of his money that he made on something. So his manager said, he's a generous man. There's nothing cheap about him. The next little paragraph is, quote, a model citizen.

Content in the knowledge that he did what was right by Sam Margulies and others, Liston now lives in a $50,000 pastel. It was $100,000 in the last article. Pastel green split-level house on the edge of a golf course in Vegas with two Cadillacs, a swimming pool next to the patio, backyard full of playground equipment

for the neighborhood kids and whoever he imports from Europe that day. And the economy has shit the bed because it has lost half its value in two years. Terrible. Liston said, it's really nice here for us.

I got to say that. He says, at the hotels, I never have to pay for nothing. They always pick up the tab. That means you either gamble there a lot, or I guess they want you because you're famous. They're bringing people. One of the town's civic leaders said, we're lucky to have him. Lucky to have him. And it says the public reaction to him has changed hugely since he was champions.

the public reaction to him has changed hugely since he was champions. He said his habit of getting arrested every so often seemed to upset people then. Only Billy Kahn, the former light heavyweight champion, spoke up in Liston's defense. He's not a bad guy. He just likes to do bad things, which is one of the greatest quotes of all time. He's not a bad guy. he just likes to do bad things which is wow generally make you a bad guy you are what you eat you know what i mean like holy shit that is fucking amazing they go on to say sunny boy's normal expression was either blank or malevolent this and his sheer physical magnitude kept the whole world at bay. With interviewers, Liston was hostile.

It took sort of a bravery to cover his training camp. But after knocking out Floyd Patterson for the title, Liston campaigned to be likable. In his dressing room, he received the press cordially, muttering platitudes with his own flavor. Quote, now I'm the champ. The people own me in a way because I'm their champ. Shit like that. Now the next paragraph in a way because I'm their champ. And shit like that.

Now the next paragraph, with malice toward none. Okay. He's ready to go. At a press conference, Norman Mailer wrote here. Oh, yes. Norman Mailer is a writer who wrote kind of first person, kind of like Hunter Thompson-esque type shit, except obviously not like gonzo style but he was mailer was one of the guys at thompson always like looked at as the style at first and

then he hated him because he was kind of an old hack after a while so he norman mailer apparently badgered liston with irrational questions mailer was uh you know there and then they said you know liston didn't kill him or anything, so that's a good sign. Sports writers suddenly protective toward Liston shouted Mailer down or tried to. And Liston said, no, let the bum talk. The bum. The bum. So Mailer yelled, don't call me a bum.

And Liston said, you're a bum and I'm a bum. I'm a bigger bum than you are because I'm bigger than you. And then he said, bum. I'm a bigger bum than you are because I'm bigger than you. And then he said, bum. That's great. Then he asked him to shake hands and Mailer shook hands with him. And they said, quote, he was less irrational than he sounded.

Liston's transfiguration took time. In 1962, the country was not quite ready for a smiling, jolly, sociable Liston. The police were not ready either. His wife said, they just kept so much heat on him. It was impossible to live a normal life. Especially when you fight them every time you see them. Is this Liston's attempt to have like the Ali-Cavitt relationship? Cosell, you mean?

No, Cavitt. Ali-Cosell was the big thing. And Ali and Cavitt were good. He'd go on Cavitt too too but that's not the famous the famous one was cosel was defending ali for years and years and years and he cosel made it a mission to make muhammad al people call him muhammad ali and he represented him and said it was a bit he was i went on cavit too but that wasn't even close cosel did it every day that was his oh it was that was his thing yeah it was his thing because he called boxing got it it the cab just did an interview show right but when he would have him on it was like a big deal oh yeah yeah anytime he was on anything it was a big deal he's on johnny carson it was a

big deal i mean he was a showman genuinely loved that man yeah a lot of people did yeah so dick was a great interviewer too i've seen um did you see the documentary of him yeah yeah there's some i can't remember i downloaded a bunch they had like some like early 70s cabot shows that i looked at some cool people that were on there and they're always cool as shit those still alive yeah it's awesome i don't know how i'm sure he doesn't know where he is he doesn't know he's alive though he's tweeting and it's weird it's very strange so listen uh they say owes much of his current popularity to cassius clay it's ali at this point guys they said that the big bear could you to could lose to loudmouthed whippersnapper was say owes much of his current popularity to Cassius Clay. It's Ali at this point, guys.

They said that the big bear could you could lose to loud mouthed whippersnapper was incredible. It humanized Sonny Boy. Then when Clay turned out to be Muhammad Ali, a black Muslim, white America even pardon Liston for quitting on his stool in the first fight and getting up too late in the second one. They were like, well, at least he's not that. OK, so they said briefly no uh no boxing commission would let him follow his trade on the side of the atlantic he went to sweden and quietly making ends meet at no great personal danger now he's welcome in nevada and california if he

survives henry clark and keeps going he'll be the grand old man of the fight game. July 6th, 1968, fights Henry Clark who's 15-3-2. Not exactly taking the world by storm here. This is his first fight in America since the Ali rematch. This is a big fucking deal here. He's fighting 5th ranked Henry Clark.

It's nationally broadcast on TV in July of 68. This fight goes 7 rounds and it's called a TKO for Liston. How about that? So he beats him here. He said that he wants to fight Joe Frazier, who's an up-and-comer and a bad motherfucker at this point. And Liston says, quote, it'd be like shooting fish in a barrel. Easy.

I don't think so. Walk in the park with Frazier? Walk in the park with a young Joe Frazier. So next up, October 14th, 68. Now he's stacking them as we talk up here. He fights Sonny Moore, alias SD Policeman. San Diego? He's from Tyler, Texas, Jimmy.

South Dakota? He's a boxer from Texas, so he's the SD Policeman. Yeah. And his initials aren't SD. No. So I am confused. Let's just say that. San Dallas?

What is that? Very, very, very confused of what's going on. I don't know what the fuck that is. Jesus Christ. San Antonio and Dallas area? San Antonio, Dallas area policeman. I have no clue. He's 20 and 30, this guy.

So not that great, Sonny Moore. This is in Phoenix at the Vet, the Veterans Memorial Coliseum. Is that right? Absolutely. At that shithole. So did they knock that down finally? No. It's still standing there?

James, it's where the county fair is held. It will never go. Knock it to the ground. Never. Salt the earth behind it. And stop letting people have a fucking county fair there they will never there are deaths there every year the maricopa county fair is the hell on us it's hell it is a fucking it's like five blocks of blacktop yeah they wait till it's 105 out to

have it and then every year 50 people get shot there. Every fucking single year. That's all it is. It's just meth and gangs and fucking, it's the worst place ever. But you can get terrible food that'll kill you. But Rick Roll, what's his name? Rick Asley will play it this year. White Trash loves it there, though. They really do. White Trash and hardcore Mexican gang members.

The Venn diagram. Where they meet is the Maricopa County Fair. Hardcore white trash. And they go ride rides that all the handles on them just have 17 layers of duct tape. Duct tape, yeah. Duct tape and gang signs written on them, too. It's perfect. It's pretty awesome.

What is this, a meth pipe I'm sitting on this is great so who's he fighting now oh november 3rd 1968 oh he beat sonny moore in three rounds anyway so there you go knocks him out in three rounds november 3rd so three weeks later yeah he's fighting willie earls who's four six and one that was in october in phoenix that was in october do you think that was at the county fair? Like, at it? Beats me. It may have been. Did they even have a county fair back then? They've had it. They've never had it in the spring.

No, it's in the end of, it's in fucking fall. Every year. Well, yeah, it's still hot then, though. That's why I never think it's so hot when they have it. Yeah, it's fucking fall. So maybe they had it at the fair. I'm not sure. I wonder if they did.

Who knows if that's where they had the fair back then. It's never not been. It's always been there? Never not been. Well, I don't know. It's the fairgrounds. It's always been the fair. I'm not sure. I wonder if they did. Who knows if that's where they had the fair back then. It's never not been there. It's always been there? Never not been. Well, I don't know. It's the fairgrounds. It's always been the fairgrounds. It's a concrete.

It's fucking asphalt. Of course it's the fairgrounds. It's not fairgrounds. Of course it's the fairgrounds. There's no fairgrounds there. Nothing makes sense. Nothing. It's the fairgrounds.

Oh, I hate this fucking city. Like fucking poison. I hate it so much. Nothing makes sense. nothing makes sense here that had to have been what was happening then maybe who knows it's a draw i buy a ticket to the fair watch sunny sunny on sunny violence let's get it on fuck it um so yeah two weeks later he's fighting november 3rd against willie earls here and this is in juarez why is he fighting in phoenix and juarez don't know he's just trying to wow weird uh he knocks this guy out in the second round willie

earls next up november 12th nine days later el paso he's a little old to fight i think every other day it's over pittsburgh he's fighting now civic arena in pitts, and this is a main event on a benefit card for a guy named Ben Onalick, who's Pennsylvania's first heart transplant recipient patient. Is that right? Yes. They do a little thing for him. Benefit fight. Benefit fight. Yeah.

Roger Risher he fights, who's 29 and 11 coming in. Knocks him out in the third round, though. So he is 45 and3 at this point. December 6th, 1968. He's got to start thinking about his age at some point, and he is now. The title of this article from the Baltimore Sun is Liston No Longer Seeks Notoriety's Bright Lights. Really?

He's fighting, and why else would you be boxing? It says that any time Sonny Liston is assaulted by more than a handful of reporters, someone is sure to ask him his, quote, true age. Heavyweight Amos Lincoln will battle Liston at the Civic Center Tuesday night, contends that Sonny Boy is at least in his early 40s. The more cynical place his age somewhere between Satchel Paige and Methuselah. Satchel Paige is like 58 at that point, and obviously Methuselah. So there you go. Tomorrow at 1 p.m. at the Civic Center, both Liston and Lincoln will undergo a pre-fight physical by the Maryland State Athletic Commission doctors. Liston says, quote, I'm only 36.

Come on, Sonny. That's the bummer about your birthday being unknown in your youth nobody gives a shit no later on eventually it starts to hurt yeah he says that anyone who says otherwise is calling my mother a liar oh you don't want to do that we have quotes from her his mother where she gives five different birthdays so you're saying we're saying your mom isn't very bright we're not saying she's a liar we're calling your mom stupid there's a big difference your mom said it was cold out and then said it could have been june so yeah we're calling her dumb not fucking not a liar there's a difference yeah we don't think and we're also pretty kind of a bad mother

because she doesn't even know yeah when her fucking kids were born so at least she didn't have 25 kids like the father she had 12 12 is a lot that's a lot they said discussing his ill-starred past becoming more is becoming more tedious for the former champ who held the heavyweight crown for 18 months he says that i got turned down in new york when i sought a boxing license he talks about blinky palermo again and all that kind of shit he says um when they wow he they, wow. He said, I was never connected with them. He says, when they try you for murder, they got to produce a body.

Well, not really. We know that, but nobody, no crime, nobody, no crime. He said,

but nobody can produce anybody who is managing me except me. Okay. He says, boxing is the only way I know how to make a living. And I think I've got about two good, two more good years of fighting left in me. I just don't want to get hurt or punchy like a lot of fighters I know. He said, fighters are just like cars.

You get in a car and you put your foot down on the pedal to the floorboard, and that car is not going to last long. If the car has just one owner and that owner takes it easy, the car is going to last a long time. He says, although he lives in Vegas, he says, you know, it's still. He's hanging. He's he's doing he's laying low. He says, I'll try something else like being a doctor or a lawyer.

What? That's what he says when it's all done. A doctor can kill you and still get paid. And a lawyer can let you waste away in jail for half your life and gets paid, too. There's no way these guys can lose. That's because you got to go to school for 15 years first, which I don't think you're willing to do that. I don't think if you kill somebody as a doctor, you get paid.

I think you still have insurance. You still bill them, I think. But if you kill somebody, you get sued for malpractice. Yeah, probably, maybe. But also, you probably still get billed, though. I guarantee you, if a doctor kills you, a bill's still going to come in the mail later on. Probably. You might sue them to not pay it, but they're going to bill you.

That bill's going to be in the paperwork of being sued. And the lawyer goes, I want $100,000 up front just in case you get put in jail and can't pay me more. So, fuck you, double there. So, maybe he's got a point. Living in Vegas, Liston has managed to avoid the continuous police harassment, he says, he experienced in Philadelphia and Denver and where there's shit in there every day in the paper. He said, we haven't had any trouble in Vegas. We? Geraldine never got in trouble.

Just you. She didn't get in trouble anywhere. Don't lump her in with you. He said, anyone who burns a cross on my lawn, he won't burn anything ever again if i catch him but i don't bother nobody and they don't bother me so he says other than that he's not going to bother anybody unless the clan comes and burns a cross on his lawn and then he's going to come out swinging an insane ape crime on my front yard i will come out swinging at that point but in the 60s that was common yeah so uh the he says that he generally shuns the bright lights of the Vegas strip, except for, once again, an occasional hand of blackjack.

Ever so rare. When I'm hiring. Just when I'm looking for a manager or a trainer. He said, that's where I look, in the dealer's staff. He said, hiding his emotions carefully, he spends his time quietly preparing himself for another title shot. He said, I figure maybe about 10 more fights then i'll be ready for the championship again he just said two years he's got left so now he's gonna fight 10 more and a title fight in two years in two years he said fighting is like a

job no it is a job it's exactly what it is it pays your bills that's a job something you do for money let me pay you uh Fighting is like a job. That's why I don't mind training. I know I've got to do it. Good for you, Sonny. So December 10th, 1968, he fights Amos Big Train Lincoln. Yeah. So he's 42 and 12, Amos here.

This is at the Civic Center in Baltimore, and he knocks Amos out in two rounds again. Is that right? I mean, Jesus Christ. It's over. He can't fight this. Well, he is. He's winning. No, I mean Amos. Amos can in two rounds again. Is that right? I mean, Jesus Christ. It's over. He can't fight this. Well, he is. He's winning. No, I mean Amos. Amos can't fight it. Can't fend this off. No. The big train is not doing it.

What was Amos coming in? 42-12. Not a terrible fighter. Is that right? Might have been older, though. Second round, though? Yeah. February 20th, 1969. I think Sonny's been good now for a long time but uh he only has nine more fights sunny liston arrested in north vegas damn you think that was gonna be

the end of the crime come on now he's arrested and booked under the charges of driving under the influence of liquor again right yep he's released after six hours and um it's just a bad thing because he's been he was driving a pickup truck on the Salt Lake Highway on the northern outskirts of Las Vegas. I don't know what the fuck he's doing there, but why he's got a pickup truck now. Drunk, though. I have a lot of questions, but he was drinking. So March 28, 69, he fights Billy Joyner, who's 9-4 coming in. And this goes all 10 rounds, actually.

But he wins the unanimous decision. And it wasn't even close. All the judges, it was like 100-92, 100-90. He kicked this guy's ass. So 47-3. Next up he fights, this is May 19, 1969, George Scrap Iron Johnson. Oh, my. Has there ever been more of a journeyman-like bum fighter?

That's like the guys Rocky was fighting in the beginning of the first Rocky movie. I'm fighting Scrap Iron Johnson this week. I'm going to see the fight or what? You know, it's pretty good. Scrap Iron. I think I'm going to beat Scrap Iron. I think I can take him. It's either that or a guy that does not

fight, he just scraps. He probably does Scrap Iron when he's not fighting. He's 17 and 17, so he's not making a living off boxing probably. And he gets knocked out in the seventh round on scrap iron. Eight more to go. Eight more to go. September 23, 69, he fights the SD policeman again. Oh, is that right?

I still don't know where the hell he's from, but this is the Sam Houston Memorial Coliseum in Houston and knocks him out in the third round. All right. So he's from but he uh this is the sam houston memorial coliseum in houston and knocks him out in the third round all right so he's doing well here next up december 6 69 he fights leotis leotis martin his alias otis lee okay sure why not it's boxing just reverse him Just reverse him. Just reverse him. He's 30 and five coming in. And this is the last fight of his career. The Otis Otis Lee here. Otis Lee's last fight. OK, this is for the vacant North American Boxing Federation heavyweight title. It's a newly created title here.

This Liston ends up being knocked out in the seventh round. Knocked done. Ninth round. I'm sorry, knocked out by Otis. Really? Yes, which is super strange because during this bout, Martin, Otis Lee, suffered a detached retina because he got knocked down in the fourth round and detached his retina, like the Sugar Ray Leonard injury,

but he never fought again. This is his last fight. One eye fought back and won. This is, yep, knocked him out, and This is his last fight. One eye fought back and won. Yep, knocked him out, and that was his last fight is knocking out Sonny Liston. Wow. That's it, could never fight again. So Liston is 49-4 at that point.

But Sonny took his eye. Sonny took his career from him here. Wow. So this is from the paper, the Scrantonian Tribute. It was a terrible week for the old burlesque team of Sonny Liston and Cassius Clay, with both of them suffering humiliating Saturday knockouts that should deliver them into retirement. Ali shouldn't fight anymore. He's fighting until 83 or some shit.

Liston as a fighter and Clay as a bad actor. Liston closed his ignoble career with a nine-round loss to Philadelphia and Leotis Martin at Las Vegas, where the seemingly 50-ish Sonny Boy gambled once too often. A few hours later, Clay called the alleged star of the—Jesus Christ. A few hours later, Clay alleged the star—what the fuck?—of a racist Broadway show, Buck White. What the fuck does that mean? Buck White? It's a person?

Alleged the star of a racist Broadway show, Buck White, closed shop after six mediocre performances, conspicuous for a lack of customers. Oh, because he was acting. He was acting in a show called Buck White. That's what it was. Okay, Buck White. And it closed it was. Okay, Buck White. And it closed. And it closed after six things. Nobody showed up.

Because nobody wants to watch a boxer act. So they said, of the pair, one could find compassion only for Liston. Legitimately counted out for the first time. Legitimately, see? The Miami Beach and Lewiston were clay uh with clay were hardly authentic he just made a full sweeping this person just hates muhammad ali he won't call him muhammad ali and he fucking he won't give him any credit for anything and ripping his acting even anything he just hates him that's all it is and uh wow that's fucking funny we're far from

authentic and therefore at the end of the road from whence there's no return. Even if Liston hesitated, quote, I think it's over, to admit to the inquisitive Howard Cosell on television. Even if he admits that. Only in Cosell's imaginative mind was Liston on a comeback journey. To anyone who knows the score, he was fighting

in desperation to eke out an existence. With age and the handicaps, limitations it imposes against him, Liston did the best he could against a younger, more active foe. He even scored a knockdown as Martin backed away in the fourth and was hit by a sweeping left hook while seemingly off balance. In better times, Liston would have finished the job. Now he could only hope Martin would tire before him. It didn't happen, although by the sixth, both had lost most of their speed. tire before him. It didn't happen,

although by the sixth, both had lost most of their speed. Cosell didn't think so, but to the discerning televiewer, Liston lost the next two rounds as he dropped the first because Martin's jab was reaching the pathetic elder's face more often, whereas Sonny's punches came fewer and slower. By the

end of the eighth, Liston was bleeding profusely from a gash on the nose and close to exhaustion, leaving chiefly the question whether Martin, who hadn't thrown a worthwhile right, could reach him. The Philadelphian waited almost a minute into the fatal ninth before connecting. The first of two finishing rights staggered Liston and left him wide open for the crusher. There was never the slightest indication liston would rise and resume as the referee mike caplan started the 10 count liston slightly moved his head for better comfort if this were part of the performance clay should only act as well

he got more comfortable on on the game let me get a little comfortable here so mates are june 29th 1970 he's gonna fight again This is his last fight ever. Ever, ever, ever. He fights Chuck, the Bayonne bleeder Wepner. Wepner retired him. Our guy here. That's right. Chuck is 21, 5, and 2 coming in.

And we did a whole episode on him, if you want to know. What a great episode. That's a fun one here. He tries to get more money before the fight, though. Really? Yes. He wants more money. He demanded an advance on his $13, guarantee jesus and um yeah so liston said uh you know he wanted it in advance

and all that kind of thing then on the night of the fight he demanded two hundred dollars for what he called training expenses yeah um so they said he said no, no fight, not doing it. So the guy who was running the show said, not one cent. The deal was $13,000 for the whole package, and that's what you'll get. I'll call off the fight first. Liston said, then I don't dress. That's all. That's fine. So this went back and forth for a while.

They're in Jersey City. Crowd's growing restive. Restless and restive at the same time. The promoter climbed into the ring ready to announce that refunds were going to be made at the box office when suddenly Liston popped out of the dressing room wearing his robe and

said, fuck it, I gotta do it. It's his last fight, so Liston ends up winning the fight. He beats Wepner pretty good. Wepner wasn't a very skilled guy. He was just tough as shit. So the fight was stopped in the ninth round due to cuts over both of Wepner's eyes,

which is like half his fights. He's the Bayonne bleeder. Wepner needed 72 stitches. What? 72 stitches and suffered a broken cheekbone and nose. How do you? That's so many. that's so many cuts shit that's that's the craziest thing i've ever heard that's like a car accident that well it

makes sense because wepner who by the way wepner fought george for him and he fought muhammad ali he said after all was said and done that liston was the hardest puncher he ever faced right and that was in his last fight for christ's sake so not bad wepner went down in the fifth from a body punch uh the fight stopped by a ring doctor and round nine because of the fight the cuts so 50 and 4 he gets to 50 wins sonny does holy fuck man that's right 50 wins so july 10th 1970 they said he sat at a table in an office and talked with reporters as his left hand was in a water bucket. And, you know, he's got ice packs on him and everything else.

He said he still fights because he has no other income. But he was asked, did he think before the fight that if he lost, he'd retire? And he said, that's not on my mind. You start thinking that and you're whooped before you get in there. They said, how do you feel your age? Are there any things you did a few years ago that you can't do now? And he said, no, no. And they said, who would you like to fight next?

And he said, Quarry maybe, Frazier mostly. He wants Joe. Wow. They said, do you think the fight should have been stopped earlier? And he said, yeah. He said, I'm a bear, but not that much of a bear. Sure, I could have taken him out earlier, but it's like driving a car i never put i never put in gas when i think i got a tank full that way that's the way i felt on points so he's like i'm ahead

on points by a ton i'm not going to take any risks they were asked how old he was and he said 38 okay okay um the reporter said i read in the paper that you may be 45 and he said i get angry at people who say that that means they're calling my mother a liar that's his that's his line here people around him laughed uh there and they all laughed and he kind of laughed too you know like haha that's my that's my line here august 11th 1970 he's supposed to fight oscar uh bonavina but it's canceled because he's got other shit going on um because he's got a movie career coming out. That's what he thinks here.

So Sonny's acting and he plays the part of a farmer in the 1970 film Moonfire, which starred Richard Egan and Charles Napier. The plot here, truckers battle a Nazi who was hidden out in Mexico. Call in the truckers wow um 4.6 out of 10 on the imdb there so not wonderful november 27th 1970 he makes an appearance on the tv show love american style which is very weird um it's a fucking tv show you remember this it's a song too you know the song american style it's a fucking song never heard of it from 1970 um obviously 60s late 60s it's some fucking show i don't know he's on so uh november 27th 1970 is when he's doing that and it's here's from the uh here's the tv listings love american style love and the love and the pen pals is the name of it and uh the

next episode is love and the champ by the way diane keaton was on it is that right absolutely she was on that show that night and sunny liston is in this one so there you go um here's sunny that's him on the show oh doing love american style autograph scribbles out an autograph uh for godfrey cam on Love American Style. There he is. He also did a television commercial for Braniff Airlines, which was a... Canadian thing? No, Texas airline, I believe.

Texas, Oklahoma, that area. With Andy Warhol. What? That is a weird combination. Sonny Liston and Andy Warhol is an odd... Yeah. An odd, odd, odd duo, I would say. It's strange. Americana, Andy Warhol, that guy?

Fucking Andy the Artist, Andy Warhol, yeah. Fucking Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol. Put that together. He likes campy shit, and Sonny's campy. So December 2nd, 1970, he's recovering from a traffic accident. Oh, no. Oh, yeah. He's not doing well.

He's in satisfactory condition but he's been in the hospital for six days. Jesus Christ. They said he got what they described as minor injuries. You're not in the hospital for six days for minor injuries. It occurred on Thanksgiving Day. He was cited by the highway patrol for failure to yield

right of way. Obviously it's his fault. It wasn't until two days after the accident that he was admitted to the hospital. The hospital would not disclose the nature of his injuries, and they wouldn't talk. He's been treated by a plastic surgeon and a doctor who specializes in internal medicine. So we don't know what's wrong with Sonny here. He was driving a car which collided with one driven by some other guy um here at an intersection the other guy had minor injuries no passengers in either car okay december 16th 1970 sunny's arrested again yeah yeah he's got to get arrested obviously here um he was arrested for

investigation of drunken driving again released on 308 dollars bail they said he was driving his car erratically on the san bernardino freeway east of in east los angeles and uh it was 7 30 at night california patrol highway patrol officer was sitting in his cruiser on the freeway when he noticed a cadillac swerving in and out of eastbound lanes yeah is that sunny liston holy shit Is that a yellow Cadillac? That's Sonny. Is it yellow, pink, or blue? Is it any Easter color? Weird pastel shit. Flipping on his flashing lights, he pulled behind the caddy and stopped him. He knew it was Sonny Liston because he asked for his license.

Oh, he didn't know it was Sonny Liston because he asked for his license and said, What do you do, sir? Fuck business of it of yours what I do for a living. I drive a car, motherfucker. Shut up. The cop asked, Sonny living i drive a car mother sonny what do you do what do you do sir eat my cock is my answer to that fuck business of it does that have anything to do with what we're talking about right now nope is that just him asking what team do you play for is it one of those i don't know maybe because he has a big cadillac or something like a black guy behind the wheel is he just just being a dummy? No idea. He said

this. He said, quote, I'm a boxer. Unemployed at this point. So the cop described him as being moody. No shit. That evening he's brought to the LAPD Central Booking Unit, charged with drunken driving, and there he goes. Now,

on Sunday, December 27th, because that was December 16th so december 27th uh reports start to surface here that ali and frazier have agreed to fight at madison square garden and that's a big deal and um you know you know it was good stuff so according to an account rendered by a sports writer he said that he was about to come through town with $20,000 to repay an old loan, Sonny told his friend here. He said, Barney, be at the airport because from there I got to be someplace. Geraldine flew to St. Louis. When she landed, she called Sonny to tell him she'd arrived safely.

safely the next day sunny made a round of calls to friends and family uh then bought himself the christmas day present of two this is from the newspaper uh bought himself the christmas day present of two buxom white showgirls he brought to the town tavern on jackson street in a corner booth he spied clyde watkins and strolled over to him with the girls. What you doing later? Watkins asked him coming to your house to eat. Sonny said, jokingly, um, Watkins said he looked like he always looked. He said,

I didn't see anything much different about him. Um, so this is great. I said, Sonny was feeling good. Looked like he was feeling good for the first time in months. Yeah. The wife's out of town.

He bought two chicks. Yeah. Wife's out of town. He's got two hot girls on his arm. He's like, this is great. Um, so the, uh, the next few days is is kind of a it's it's on shifting grounds here yeah that um they said that so this is this is from an anonymous thing later on but it's got links and some factual shit in it so we don't know if this is true but there's so many theories

here anything could be true so we'll throw it out there the uh this poster on an anonymous thing said that sunny had breakfast the morning of december 28th with uh somebody at harry's which was a breakfast place at which time they went over plans to referee for him to referee a fight in japan oh they're gonna pay him a bunch of money so according to this post he returned back home later that morning and called his sparring partner to tell him he was leaving for Los Angeles, but that they should, you know, get together when he returned for a couple of days. Right.

So this Bates confirmed this in an early in the early afternoon. He set off for L.A. in his new Cadillac, obviously. So now this anonymous post cites phone records from Sonny's car telephone as showing that he made two calls to Geraldine, one to Paramount Studios where he was headed for a meeting because he's doing acting now, and several to the International, I guess the hotel. By 8.30 in the evening, he'd reached L.A. and he'd had dinner at the Biltmore Hotel with his agent. According to what this poster says, they also say that he was told by the hotel's bartender that the men had their last drinks about 11.30 p.m.

They also cite valet records from the hotel. I don't think they keep fucking valet records from 40 years ago. As showing that the next day, Sonny took a cab to Paramount Studios, where they would have a record of when he came and went there where he attended a 3.30 meeting with the casting director Jim Merrick according to this poster here

Merrick's office confirmed the meeting at the studio's front gate logbook showed it lasted until 5.30pm so a two hour meeting Sonny then took a cab back to the hotel where the front desk records said that he checked out after midnight for the drive back to Vegas. So, um, that's pretty specific shit there. So at this point, uh, because

apparently one of the last persons to see Sonny here was an undercover narcotics agent who stopped by to see him on December 30th. Uh, but they they said but we don't know what happened there um so when this poster said when they asked dick robinson then the head of the fbi the federal bureau of narcotics and dangerous drugs office in vegas what he thought he said maybe it was something simple like a guy wanted to shoot the shit about boxing who knows we don't know why they're meeting maybe you want to do an anti-drug commercial we don't know who knows so they said there weren't but 10 people who were working drug cases back then he said uh but he wasn't anywhere near sonny's home that day so he doesn't know so another a sergeant with the sheriff's department who worked closely with this

robinson person who was the the the bureaucotics and Dangerous Drugs person here said that that he didn't visit Liston, the guy. So there's differing reports whether this agent visited Liston or not, this federal agent. So one of the deputies who worked with this guy insisted he wasn't near Sonny that day and they don't know him at all. insisted he wasn't near Sonny that day, and they don't know him at all. So, quote, there's a half dozen people on the Las Vegas Police Department who also could have fit the description of an undercover narcotics agent, but they don't know. So, Geraldine hasn't spoken to him in about two weeks now and had decided to return home after visiting her mother over Christmas.

So, she goes, gets here. It's 1,600 miles from St. Louis. She comes in here. She said that she was asleep, Geraldine, at her mother's house on December 28th when she was startled awake by a dream. She said, Sunny was falling in the shower and calling my name jerry jerry i got real nervous i told my mother i think something's wrong so late in the evening she returned home um she said there was a stack of newspapers piled at the door when she got home

she discovered that all the doors inside the house were unlocked and she couldn't find sunny so she said there was a heavy smell in the air though it's stunk in there she said she said quote i thought he must have cooked something and left it on the stove you know something putrid so uh as she followed the odor upstairs she finds sunny dead at the foot of the bed what where he had he's been there for a week rotting um so he's at the end of the bed just in his underwear oh god dried blood congealed under his nose and um she had the seven-year-old with her so she took the seven-year-old away from this uh his body was very bloated he's been dead for six days jesus in ve Vegas? In Vegas, yes.

So his wife was, you know, she said she thought it was heart failure. But then they found needle marks in his arm as well. That's never been a thing. It's very strange. Now, it's believed that Geraldine avoided calling the police for several hours due to desperately trying to reach a doctor with the naivety that Liston had a hope of a she could bring him back. When medical aid finally arrived, they said, you know, he's fucking dead. Obviously, this is a fucking dead man. Very dead. You can smell him.

So this is from the newspaper. They said an autopsy yesterday failed to show the cause of death for Sonny Liston, who for 17 months was the heavyweight champion. His wife found him dead. Jesus Christ. Now they call it a $60,000 split-level house. It's really fluctuating in Vegas. The Vegas market shifts. The state market is volatile.

It's sandy like the desert. I'll tell you what. A pathologist said that after an autopsy he made no conclusive findings on the cause of death he called for toxological and microscopic studies of body fluids and tissues the coroner's office said that he uh results may not be put out until friday or saturday they ruled out any possibility that he was murdered they said that he apparently was undressing for bed when he fell over backwards and uh with such force that he broke the rail of a bench jesus captain jean clark chief of detectives for the sheriff's department said quote what possibly may be uh what

may possibly be a quarter ounce of heroin was found in a balloon in the kitchen a half ounce of what appeared to be marijuana was found in liston's trousers pocket he said and a capsule containing a black powder was found on the dresser and he said they're going to analyze all that sergeant dennis caputo of the clark county sheriff's office here department said one of the first officers on the scene there he found the quarter ounce of heroin in a balloon in the kitchen and the weed in his pocket, but no syringes or needles, which usually, you know, you're probably going to have something unless he snorts it. He doesn't have a syringe or needle. How is he going to do that marijuana?

How the hell is he going to put that marijuana in his system? I can tell you what they found that didn't contribute to his death. That's one thing, especially in his pants pocket. that didn't contribute to his death. That's one thing, especially in his pants pocket. Some people found it suspicious that the authorities couldn't locate any drug paraphernalia that he would need to inject the fatal dose, such as a spoon to cook the heroin, or arms not wrapped in any, there's no tourniquet, there's no anything. But a former police sergeant said, quote,

it wasn't uncommon for family members in these cases to go through and tidy up to save family embarrassment. That's very common when anybody somebody dies like that they'll see it's just it's just your human nature clean up these needles throw them away just you clean shit up before you have company you know what i mean they don't realize oh this is a crime scene and dairy already yeah well in the fucking homicide book they talk about that all the time they'd have to go did you throw away his works and they go yeah why did you do that you need that it's important so and this is one of these where we hear this a lot with these uh kind of mysterious deaths um a the the priest that knows him said there was he

was afraid of needles he would do everything to avoid taking shots uh his they talk about his dentist said there's nothing Sonny feared more than a needle and I know. He's this dentist. So according to his trainer he canceled a planned tour to Africa in 63 because he refused to get all the inoculations because he didn't want needles to touch him. Is that right? Didn't like all the needles.

Liston's wife Geraldine also said that her husband would refuse basic medical care for things because he didn't want to get shots. Wow. He said the month before he died, some guy ran into Sonny while he was making a left turn. He had a whiplash, so they took him to the hospital. And he said, quote, look what they did. And he was pointing to some little bandage over the needle mark on his arm,

even though he was in the hospital for other shit. He said he was more angry about that shot than he was about the car wreck. A couple weeks later, he was more angry about that shot than he was about the car uh car wreck a couple weeks later he was still complaining about that needle mark to this day i'm convinced that's what the coroner saw in his exam the hospital needle mark oh which makes sense it was just two weeks before that not even not even two weeks because if he died if he died like christmas eve that happened like the 17th it's like eight eight days later. So that's very possible. So they said he was super angry about that. On January 1st, Geraldine called Johnny Toccio there, Toccio, and said that she, I want to call him Johnny Taco because that's just a cool name.

She said that he had not heard from Sonny in three days and that he was worried, too. A few years before Johnny Taco died, he allegedly told one of his good friends that he went to Liston's house and found the door locked in his car in the driveway. So Johnny Taco called the police and they broke into the house. And Taco said that the living room furniture was in disarray, but the house did not yet smell of death. furniture was in disarray but the house did not yet smell of death he said they found liston lying on his bed with a needle sticking out of his arm and taco left the house before the police did so he's saying they found him and they just left him there is that right for gerald i guess they cleaned shit up and left and drug him off the bed because she found him on the floor yeah it was a broken thing he fell into um now a liston biographer here said johnny johnny taco wasn't a braggart

he told me in the strictest confidence but it was like he wanted to get it off his chest a lot of officers knew sonny was dead before geraldine returned home on january 5th but they chose not to let him they chose to let him rot is that right he's saying they went in found him and went well we'll just leave And that's a lot of paperwork and they just left. What? I don't know about that. Now, there's also claim that he was murdered as well, obviously. Publicist Harold Conrad

and others believe Liston had been deeply involved as a bill collector of a loan sharking ring in Vegas, which is highly possible. When he tried to muscle in for a bigger share, he thinks his employers got him very drunk, took him home, and him with a needle is what they're saying. So they said professional gambler Lem Banker. He's a gambler named Banker.

Lem Banker insists that Sonny was murdered by drug dealers to whom he become involved. Banker said he was told by police that Liston had been seen at a house that would be the target of a drug raid. Well, that doesn't mean he was killed by drug dealers. Banker said that Sheriff Ralph Lamb told me, tell your pal Sonny to stay away from the West side because they're going, we're going to bust the drug dealers.

Banker later learned that the police told Liston the same thing to his face. Liston was allegedly present at dealer Earl Cage's residence during a raid by narcotics detectives. Because of that, Cage may have thought Sonny was an informant and shot him with a hot dose as retribution. They're saying he gave him a hot shot. So, another theory, the mob promised

Liston some money to throw the second Ali fight, but they never paid him. As the years passed and Liston got more poor, he got angry and told the mob he would go public with the story unless they gave him the money and that got him killed they would go fell over to fuck you on it was seven years ago six years nobody fucking cares anymore and everyone thinks you're full of shit because that's all no one will believe you uh number four Liston was supposed to take a dive when he fought Chuck Wepner six months earlier

and killing him was payback for his failure to do so. So, yeah, that's what they're talking about. So Ali said this. There was a lot of people who wanted him dead. Oh, no, that's they were talking. I'm sorry. That's not Ali. That is the director of something.

So law enforcement. There's a lot of people who wanted him dead. He said the mob is unforgiving. So there's that. Geraldine said it was heart failure so it's either a drug overdose heart failure the mob this one that one but it's crazy they can't pinpoint it other people say it was a heroin overdose because of the needle mark on his arm and the green balloon of heroin found in his house as well one theory is that liston blabbed about being paid to throw the fight to ali for payoffs and was murdered to shut him up um shauna sale who wrote he wrote a wrestling book too i'm pretty sure uh headlocks and lies or something i can't remember the name

of it he wrote a wrestling book that guy he said quote the murder of sunny liston las vegas heroin and the heavyweights. That's his book. And says that whether or not Liston had money coming to him, his announcing it was not good. So many believe Liston died what's called an enforced overdose where they stuck him with it. Some theorize that a jazz musician who dealt heroin with Liston had a role in it. Alternately, a cop is believed to have been hired to kill liston at the request of the mob at least one person a drug dealer slash beautician named earl cage yeah may have feared liston's loose lips he said cage thought sunny

was an informant for the cops and um there's that and uh they said uh there's also liston had been in a car accident a week before and could have mixed up medication to dull his pain with alcohol or other substances and had a lethal effect, too, because he had painkillers. Accidental overdose. Absolutely. If you're a guy who's used to pain, you might need extra painkillers. And you mix that with just being a boozy guy. Yeah. Very easy to die like that.

Isn't six days later still enough of a window to be able to find out what's in his system? Not in the, probably back then it was probably a lot spottier. So they said other theories too, including that a mobbed up prostitute was the killer. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's a good character. That's a good one, yeah. Somebody, a boxing insider said, quote, Sonny Liston's fate was sealed in the womb.

We don't know when that was, but. At some point in the 20s or 30s. At some point. He reached for the stars, and when he grabbed the star, it burned him up. So here is Liston, a loner, was alone at the end. Terrible. You talk about all this type of shit. Liston was a bully.

He relished playing the part. Here's the thing also. Liston, this is the crazy shit here liston um he we'll talk about it for a second here but sonny used his brother's birth certificate is that right whose brother's name on the birth certificate is charles oh so we don't even know what the fuck sonny's name actually is no less his fucking it may not be charles oh so we don't even know what the fuck sunny's name actually is no less his fucking it may not be charles it's pretty crazy we'll talk about it so they said that um uh they said all about the people are trying to like eulogize sunny type of deal um here's one about his uh it's a fluff piece here from the Philadelphia Daily News in 71. Quote,

I was sitting in a dreary flat in Belfast rapping with a guy. The night word came over TV about honey, Sonny Liston had died. If I'd been alone, I think I would have cried. There's only so much grim mythology about the poor guy. So little fact, I decided no matter how many months would pass before I'd get home, I'd write one last piece about Sonny Liston. I did no matter how many months would pass before I'd get home, I'd write one last piece about Sonny Liston. At one time, I'd almost been his Boswell. This was when I was about the only reporter in America Sonny would talk to. You gonna write my life story, the big guy used to tell me.

You're my man. He had a funny idea of how his biography should be written. No references to his scrapes with the law. Nothing about his two prison terms quote only the good stuff sunny would beam actually believing he could dispel all the ghosts in his past by just omitting them from his life story it could have never been of course because the ghosts from sunny's past had a bent for turning up palms out one such ghost turned up at sunny's aurora illinois training camp just before the first title fight with floyd patterson in 62 there's a guy here who claims to be your brother liston was told by a trainer

but the funny part is he says his name is charles e liston right so sunny said quote chase the bum get him out of here yes he came looking for me when I was doing time in Jefferson City, too. Liston didn't grant his brother an audience. That's his brother's whose fucking birth certificate he used. He's using your identity. We don't even know what his real name is. He might be older than that. He might be older.

His name could be Chris. We have no fucking idea. Or they could have, with with 25 kids they might have forgotten what they named him and they were like oh shit we already had a charles fuck did we i forgot about that shit all right well now we have two charles is that charlie around here chuck and charles you're chuck now younger ones chuck holy so he said liston never did grant his brother that audience but the significant uh significance of the visit was to grow and dwell on his mind later when sports writers started to speculate on his true age. The fact of the matter was Sonny had to use his brother's birth certificate because he didn't have one of his own.

One of 24 brothers and sisters from a sharecropping background in Arkansas, he never knew how old he really was. It's a hell of a way to go through life, especially for a fighter. One of the enduring myths about Liston concerned his alleged lack of intelligence and wit. He was a functional illiterate. True. But that was a reflection of his background, not his intelligence. People still blink when I say this, but I found Sonny Liston to be one of the most intelligent athletes I ever knew. It doesn't have an education.

He never went to school. How the fuck was he supposed to read? As for the wit, Sonny had it in abundance. He simply was very selective about sharing it with others. A hangover gathered from his prison years. That makes sense. What if, because black people age so well, what if he

died of old age? Yeah, maybe he was actually 76 years old. He's actually 30 years older than we thought. He's actually older than his mom. He was the firstborn. He was his mom's dad. He was his own grandfather. Hi, I'm Sonny Liston.

I'm my own grandfather. Nice to meet you. So to compensate for his inability to read, he has developed enormous memory capacity. I remember our post-meal walks around the half-mile track between the Thunderbird Inn in Las Vegas, where Sonny trained for his second fight with Patterson. For diversion, he'd recite word for word every LP record comic like Red Fox and Pig Meat had ever made. What? He just recited every-

He knows all the recs? Yeah, he just listened to it over and over. Wow. Like we did when we were kids. Maybe he's a comic in there somewhere. Then he'd recreate past conversations involving one humorous situation or another, duplicating every last accent and tonal nuance. He goes on to wrap it up by saying that no matter when his life story would be told,

it could hardly include only the good stuff and then right below this touching article is an ad for porn um this girl look at her face she looks like she's in the middle of it jesus the title is sex cures the crazy an exciting drama pregnant with sex and its variations pregnant that's a weird way to put it it's full of it charlene's injustice both films in sensational color i would hope so jesus christ so sunny is buried here is his grave oh there's got a little boxing glove in it down there and just on his grave it's just quote a man that's a man a man. That's it. A man. A man. And his birth date, for a laugh. 32.

32, 70. A man. He's a man. I'll give him that. So there's tributes to a bronze copy of a marble statue of Liston sculpted by Alfred Herdlika in 1964. It was erected in 2008 between Old Castle and Karl Splatz in Stugart, Germany and a successful race

horse which won the Irish St. Ledger Classic was nicknamed Sunny Boy Liston. It was named Sunny Boy Liston. So there's some tributes. There's Sunny Liston and one of the craziest fucking stories we've ever heard in my life between the arrests and the What a short

life to have full of so much chaos or long life we don't know short or long life or medium life the man may have been 70 he could have lived his life expectancy we don't know either way that's sunny liston yeah that's why we needed three parts because he did a whole lot hope you enjoyed sunny and uh if you did tell the world get on whatever app you're listening to and give us five stars it really does help drive us up the charts head over to shop and give me murder.com right now get your tickets live shows virtual live shows still available for purchase get in there also may 5th in detroit may 6th in pittsburgh get your asses in there come see us and uh get your merch as well while you're in there patreon.com slash crime and sports all your bonus

episodes. New episodes every other week. We're running late, so I'm not even going to talk about them and get into them this week. You know where it is. You know you're getting two new episodes, and we had personal ads last week, so fucking listen up. And BTK Childhood about him stroking his grandmother's hair and shit. Creepy as fuck. Stroking off the

family members. Self-bondage.ikes we'll tell you talk all about that so patreon.com slash crime and sports and you get a bonus uh you get a shout out at the end of the show as well so do that follow us on social media at crime and sports on facebook and twitter at small town or no it's crime and sports small town murder on instagram there you go so do that follow us keep hanging out but right now i need to hear the names of the people, Jimmy. The most wonderful fucking people on the face of the earth. The people who keep this show going.

Hit me with the names of the fantastic people who have donated this week and made our lives much easier. Jimmy, hit me with them right fucking now. This week's executive producer, Jordan Bennett. Alec Hawk Frost. Happy birthday, Alec. Clayton Love. Happy birthday. Joel Celerat, Celerite.

And Inidza? Inidza. Inidza, probably. Ott, Clay. And Clay Thorson's friend, Rich. Hang in there, Rich. Rich. Rich.

It's Clay's friend, Rich. Rich, it's a tough life. If you know anyone named Critch also, you still have to. Tell them also. You're a tough teamster. Hang in. Other producers this week are Liz Vasquez, Andre, and Charlie Moldova. Big Ragusa, Carmine Ragusa's wife, husband.

Some 90 Day Fiance references there before. And Carmine's wife. I think that's what it is. I don't know. Rabbi Shmuelovich's new mustache. Haystacks Calhoun. Ashley Dick at the United States Postal Service. Thank you, Ashley.

Oh, well, thank you. Liz Hayden and her friend Jerry. Happy birthday, Jerry. Thank you, Ashley. Oh, well, thank you. Liz Hayden and her friend Jerry. Happy birthday, Jerry. Happy birthday, Jerry. Janice Hill. Shepard Bassett. Bassett. Larry Burse.

Mary Ann with no last name. Mallory Konofsky. Hallie Haley. Haley McHale. Ted Van Poppel. Mackenzie Garreau. Lucy. Nope, that's Susie.

Bastille. Jamie Boner. Yep, or Bonner. Probably Bonner. I don't know. Mary Smith. M.S. Yarborough. Anna Jantz. Jantz, maybe. William Bonner. Probably Bonner. I don't know. Mary Smith, MS Yarborough, Anna Jantz,

Jantz maybe, William Bruni. Bruni Jr., Bobby with no last name, Christy Festermacher. Becca with no last name, Jacob Desrockers. And Kit Shaw, and Keith maybe, on Keith probably. Amanda Oborski, oh boy. Michael Maynard,

Lori Bauer, Andrew Jones, Mary Ann with no last name. Isn't that Chipper Jones' Oh, boy. Michael Maynard. Lori Bauer. Andrew Jones. Marianne with no last name. Isn't that Chipper Jones' name? Andrew Jones? I think so. No, no. It's Larry.

Chipper Jones' name is Larry? I believe he's Larry. Andrew Jones was the center fielder they had. That's right. You're right. Those 90s. Andrew Hanson. Sherry Weichgram.

Which Graham, maybe? Ryan Dean. Shannon Jameson. Luis Castro. Nicole Brianna, Caitlin Fritzinger, Tilda Preble, Bronston Brown, Jessica Hallmark, Cheyenne Reed, Micah with no last name, Confusing Shit, Grace with no last name, Sheila Torres, Lexi with no last name,

Dr. Love Muscle, and his cat, Mr. Buttons. Julie O'Neill. Rebecca Lagueux. Lagueux? What? I think I spelled that wrong. Jillian Nusslein. Sorry, Rebecca. Sorry.

Rebecca L. We tried. Jillian Nusslein. Nicole Veitch. Veitch, maybe. Lauren Gorman. Barbara with no last name. Ann Gears.

Rachel Roberts. Muff Punter. Gross. Nicole Jennings. Carrie Fletcher. A bucket of wriggling peckers. TJ S. Scren, Megan Campbell, demon juice, Elizabeth Thrower, Brandy Hunter, Marissa Heacock, Andrew with no last name, Kenny Coondog, what? Rebecca Simpson, Dana Lashawn Gleason, Juliana Taylor, Corey Forsman,

Miles Hollywood, neurodiverivergentHippie, Victoria Gray Bross, Chelsea with no last name, Kate Gray, Joe Galante, Jessica with no last name, Caitlin Scott, Nicole Dubay, maybe Doobie, Jay Forty, Jonathan Tippett, Leah Kaufman, Travis Hembree, Joanna Slattery, A. Rivera, Snoop Warg, Crystal Cooper, Carla Evans, Harvey Elder, Christy Mitchell, Magna Trzasky, H.S. No name, just H and an S. Micah Farmer, Pat McGroin. You, Pat McGroin. I know what you're doing, Amy Hilliker, Alicia Rose, Jared Redding, Cindy with no last name, Robert Bensept, Patrick Lofney, Jillian Newingham, MMM, two Ms, Jasmine Sullivan, Michael with no last name, Aidan LeBlanc, Abby M, Tammy Harper, Bryce Schmitke. John Shea. Callie Howe. Howe, maybe. Callie Howe. Ashley Smoltz. Ashley Frazier. Leo Rios. Eric Falk. Chuck with no last name. Allison Hogue. Sarah Sue McClain. Lauren Jones. James Pilsen. Keith Wilson. Josh Goodenough. Goodenough. Megan Hupp. David Bailey. Grandmaster Gerald.

Bridget Naughton. Naughton, maybe. Sean with no last name. Kevin Williams. Probably not that one. Van Lambert. Rebecca with no last name. Chupa.

You, Chupa Mavariga. How dare you. Faith Sadowski. Sarah Curran. Dusty Kendall. Jennifer Dexter. Anthony Koshinsky. Shannon Litanich. Emily Scott. Sasha Elmore. Gabriel Lopez, Cora Gavitt, Josh Bentley, Ioana Carr.

That's a real name. Ioana S.F., Miranda G., Amy Armstrong, Tyler Scott, Brittany Scott, Steve Maliden, Matt Krause, Megan Williams, Elias, the dude, Mark Villanueva, Margaret Schaefer, Molly Pine, Alex Hatfield-Evans, Alejandra Herrera, Rebecca Kiker, and all of our patrons, thank you so much. Thank you, everybody, from the bottom of our hearts. We can't tell you how much we appreciate all that you do for us. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. And keep hanging out with us, and hopefully you'll make it to a live show. Come see it. It's a fun time.

Come on out. Come on out and see us. Thank you to everybody for all that you do for us. And if you want to follow us on social media individually, very easy to do, head over to shutupandgivememurder.com.

There's links to everything. Drop that menu, find them, do that. Keep coming back and listening to us. And live from the crime and sports studios west we will see you next week hey prime members you can listen to crime and sports early and ad free on amazon music download the amazon music app today or you can listen early Crime and Sports early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.