Fight fans who know the Sonny Liston story know the former heavyweight champion of the world had, shall we say, a testy relationship with cops. Liston, who had himself a pretty lousy 1964 – with him shockingly losing the crown to massive, loudmouth underdog Cassius Clay that February – had another bad experience at the hands of the law at the end of the year.
Liston was pulled by the cops in Denver, on Christmas Day no less, this his umpteenth arrest (reports are sketchy, but some say Sonny had the bracelets put on him no less than 19 times during his adult life), and his Christmas was duly ruined. According to reports from the archives, two policemen who were on duty on Christmas Day noticed a man who was, as they called it, “staggering through a parking lot.”
The as yet unknown man got into his Cadillac and drove away, this in “erratic” fashion. The two cops pulled over the car, and upon doing so they recognised the former heavyweight champ. Then things got nasty. A shoving match ensued, and soon TEN cops were on the scene. And they still couldn’t handle Liston. Eventually, Liston reluctantly got into the back of the cop car, with him initially admitting to having had one beer.
The cops say Liston, at the station, changed his story and said he’d had “maybe six to eight beers…..and some tasty liquor.” Liston spent the night in jail. Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, current heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali, who had taken the title from Sonny when still known as Cassius Clay (and was still referred to by his “slave name” by the US media in 1964 and would continue to be so for some years) – came to Sonny’s aid. Ali, after reading about Sonny’s plight, told anyone who would listen that his ring rival had unjustly been made an example of by the cops (again) and that his arrest had been “pitiful.”
Now, if Sonny had downed as many as eight beers, along with some “tasty liquor,” and if he had been unable to walk straight, with him instead “staggering,” how did it take as many as ten cops to deal with him? The Denver cops, who we all know hounded Liston something terrible, couldn’t have made a mountain out of a mole hill, could they?
It seems they sure did.
Poor Sonny, he never was given a break; not by the cops, not by the media, and unfortunately not by most of the media and historians, and it continues to be this way today as far as some historians and so-called experts go. Liston had made a real splash when he posed, quite shockingly, as Santa Clause, this on the December 1963 cover of Esquire Magazine. Now, an ex-champ who nobody, so the story continues to go, wanted when he was the world ruler, was spending his Christmas Day inside an eight by four jail cell.
No wonder Liston found it tough to smile when in the wrong company. And for Sonny, most people were folks he would have described as the wrong company.
Sonny Liston always said that in boxing, there is a good guy and a bad guy, with him adding how his cowboy movie was different, as the bad guy – this a role he had long since grown used to portraying – won. But on Christmas Day 60 years ago, Liston seemed to be as down as could possibly be imagined for a star, world class athlete and former heavyweight king.
In short, during his still so mysterious life, Sonny Liston never ever did seem to get a break. Those rare few who had the good fortune of knowing the real Liston all commented on his intelligence, his great sense of humour, his generosity, and his absolute love of kids. Sonny, as everyone knows, died under murky circumstances some time in either late December of 1970 or early January of 1971. Officially he was 38 years old.
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