Charles “Sonny” Liston, St Louis 1956
his mother with the help of the police. He soon turned to crime and led a gang of tough street kids who specialised in mugging and robbery and, due to his penchant for bright shirts, became known to St Louis PD as the Yellow Shirt Bandit. In January 1950, he was caught after a gratuitously violent robbery and entered the Missouri State Penitentiary. Along with two accomplices, he’d robbed three people at gunpoint and was rewarded with five years on each charge, all to run concurrently. Liston, now a big, mean mofo, soon learnt how to survive the rigours of the state pen. Three dominant gangs controlled the penitentiary, all of whom were white. It’s been said that Liston, having fallen foul of each gang, challenged the leaders to meet him at six o’clock in ‘the Hole’, a storage room beneath the cellblock. Four men walked in, but only Liston walked out, the rest battered and unconscious on the Hole’s concrete floor. As Liston said later on in his career: “I didn’t mind prison.” His pugilistic prowess soon came to the attention of the authorities, who decided the best place for him was the prison boxing ring. The first problem they encountered was the regulation gloves. Most heavyweight boxers’ hands measure some 12 inches in circumference; Liston’s measured 15 inches. Later in life, his gloves had to be tailor made to accommodate this 172
mammoth fist that was rated the largest of all previous heavyweight champions. His gloves were made by Sammy Frager of Chicago, who found that making the boxer’s glove fit whilst keeping the weight down to eight ounces was an almost impossible task. Liston was a bull of a man who, standing at just over six feet, had thighs that measured 25 inches, a 44-inch chest, a 19-inch neck and a reach that stretched to 84 inches. For his first fight in prison, however, the gloves were eventually squeezed on and the laces left untied. In the ring, Liston, now nicknamed Sonny by the prison chaplain and boxing coach Father Schlattmann, found his feet as easily as his opponents lost theirs. He strolled through the opposition, knocking the pen’s heavyweight champion out cold and almost killing another. Before long, Liston’s reputation had spread beyond the prison walls, reaching the ears of Father Alois Stevens. The priest had heard there was this enormous convict that they couldn’t get anybody else to fight. They had to put two men in the ring with him at the same time and he still won. Stevens, together with a sports writer for the St Louis Times, drove down to St Louis in search of opposition for the mighty Liston. Via the auspices of a former boxer and trainer, Monroe Harrison, they came up with the best heavyweight in the city – the 32-year-old Thurman Wilson. After
just two rounds with Liston, the formidable pro was said to have quit, ending the bout with the words: “I don’t want no more of him.” Harrison had been heavyweight champion Joe Louis’s favourite sparring partner, had trained Archie Moore and, in his own words, had at last found a “live one”. Harrison, and the then publisher of the St Louis Argus, Frank Mitchell, campaigned for Liston’s release. By 30 October 1952 he was back out on the streets ready to start his job as a labourer at a local steel plant. In February 1953, they entered him into the open-and-novice heavyweight division of the amateur Golden Gloves tournament. Liston swept the competition, going on to win the Midwestern Golden Gloves title, beating an Olympic heavyweight champion, and then the national title, becoming the Golden Gloves heavyweight champion in March. In June of that year, he defeated West German Herman Schreibauer to become the Golden Gloves world heavyweight champion. In five months, Liston had gone from unknown ex-con to amateur champion. His first pro fight, against Don Smith, an impressive newcomer who had knocked out all of his previous opponents, was marked by the fact that he knocked out Smith with his first punch. It lasted a mere 30 seconds. Not all was plain sailing however. Liston fought Marty Marshall and, having been told to “carry the boy for three or four rounds”, as he said, he knocked Marshall to the floor in the first. Marshall jumped back up, catching Liston off guard as he was laughing with a punch that broke his jaw. Liston still worked on for the remaining eight rounds, only to lose on a close points decision. In the rematch, Liston battered Marshall in six rounds. Marshall said after the fight: “He hit me like no man should be hit… He hurts when he breathes on you. I think about it now and I hurt.” This was followed by five consecutive knockouts on the run. Such prowess soon attracted the attentions of a number of interested parties. One was John J Vitale, boss of the St Louis mafia – itself a satellite of the Chicago mob.