Sonny Liston's measurements.

[Lazy Man]

I love how people quote stats like height and reach, when none of them are official, at all.

Don't put much stock in them

 

[AznCezi187]

His reach for his size was incredible. A 6'1 HW with one of the greatest jabs in the history of boxing, insane!

 

[ZroC]

manny's arms aren't especially long though are they? do you have them dinasaur arms?

no they're in proportion to the rest of my body. Bizarrely he and Mayweather seem to have longer arms than middleweights and a lot of heavyweights, which is why I think these stats are being manipulated whenever a boxer or promoter feels the need to over compensate for something. I mean Roy Jones Jr's arm length is apparently 24 inches and Wlad's are 26 inches. We're supposed to believe that a 5"5 Filipino has the same arm length as Roy and is close to that of one of the tallest HW champs in history?

It wouldn't even be that bad if Manny was known for having unnaturally longer arms but he's not. It's supposed to be the opposite actually. Same thing for all these boxers who have disproportionally long arms. Your wing span and your height are meant to be almost identical to each other. So basically all these boxers are either lying or they're suffering from Marfan Syndrome.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfan_syndrome

 

[mozfonky]

I love how people quote stats like height and reach, when none of them are official, at all.

Don't put much stock in them

height is the one I usually see discredited by top fighters after they retire. Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike tyson have often say they weren't the height they were listed as but I've seen when hbo had a film measuring tyson as 5-11.5 but it could have been the angle it was filmed at. I also remember a funny story early in Mike's career when his "20 inch neck" was used for publicity, the reporter tried to approach mike with a measuring tape only to be met by a scary look from Mike.

 

[downeykids]

He had no chin tho. He got dropped by a phantom punch

 

[mozfonky]

I think you're joking but consensus was he took a great shot, especially after the cleveland williams fights. Ali put on some of his best performances against Liston even though he wasn't physically mature.

 

[mozfonky]

anybody know the proper way to measure fist size? I want to measure mine. Had an old article pre-leonard/duran 1 and they were comparing fist sizes of each guy and showing how duran had bigger ones.

 

[SuwoopBangin]

He had no chin tho. He got dropped by a phantom punch

hey man give him some credit. it wasn't a phantom punch, it was a poltergeist punch. very different.

 

[ZroC]

height is the one I usually see discredited by top fighters after they retire. Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike tyson have often say they weren't the height they were listed as but I've seen when hbo had a film measuring tyson as 5-11.5 but it could have been the angle it was filmed at. I also remember a funny story early in Mike's career when his "20 inch neck" was used for publicity, the reporter tried to approach mike with a measuring tape only to be met by a scary look from Mike.

It's either inside the thumb or outside the fist. There doesn't seem to be any proper fist size. But since measuring seems to be about obtaining the maximum size I'd say around a closed fist is the way to go. That's from your smallest knuckle (left knuckle on your left hand) to around the bottom joint of the thumb on your same hand. I can't even tell you if that's with a closed or open fist because no one ever bothers to report on these things with a degree of certainly.

 

[JustinvR]

Take this shit with a pinch of salt. I'm 6"4 and according to some stats Manny has a longer arm length than me. In fact working off memory if you take Manny's documented arm length seriously and compare that to his wing span then his chest must only be a few inches across.

Manny's reach is about 67 inches if i'm correctly, if you have a reach of 67 inches while being 6'4 you have some serious T-rex arms.

 

[Lazy Man]

height is the one I usually see discredited by top fighters after they retire. Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike tyson have often say they weren't the height they were listed as but I've seen when hbo had a film measuring tyson as 5-11.5 but it could have been the angle it was filmed at. I also remember a funny story early in Mike's career when his "20 inch neck" was used for publicity, the reporter tried to approach mike with a measuring tape only to be met by a scary look from Mike.

Pretty much only weight can be called an "official" measurement. Even those have been known to be messed with at times.

But when people talk about someone's reach or their hand size or neck length or toe circumference... I just can't put much stock in it.

 

[Lazy Man]

anybody know the proper way to measure fist size? I want to measure mine. Had an old article pre-leonard/duran 1 and they were comparing fist sizes of each guy and showing how duran had bigger ones.

Too bad you don't have the article! They probably explained how they measured for that particular comparison. I know at the football combine, they measure hand span from thumb to pinky. Not helpful for your, at all, though!

 

[Simmo84]

Trainer Kenny Weldon believes it would come down to Rocky Marciano and Sonny Liston for the best slugger in boxing.

A lot of mystery surrounding Liston too. We aren't even sure of his exact birth date.

Or death date...

 

[mozfonky]

Tyson height is exaggerated. He's 5'8-5'9 and I have confirmed this visually.

many people have said the same thing, but I've seen a million pictures of him with different people and it's really hard to tell, he did look about 3 inches shorter than Ali, Taller than ray, close to the same height as jose torres and floyd patterson who were around six feet. If he really was that small, he really deserves much credit for being as successful as he was. I've always thought that him being so small also made it very possible at any time to lose a mismatch if he was even slightly out of top form.

 

[mozfonky]

Too bad you don't have the article! They probably explained how they measured for that particular comparison. I know at the football combine, they measure hand span from thumb to pinky. Not helpful for your, at all, though!

ya, i saved it for years, this was pre-leonard duran 1, if i'd saved every mag i've ever had, i'd have stacks to the ceiling. who knows, maybe the mag is online somewhere. I think it was "Sport".

 

[Spirit Breaker]

The 1930 census came out about a decade ago, but the rest of his family was listed. Included was his father, mother, 3 brothers, and 3 sisters. Based on that he could have been no older than 33 at the time of the first Ali fight.

Liston had to have been older than 29 in the first Ali fight. I read many bios that said his father had about 20 children. That coupled with the fact it is hard to keep track of exact dates when you are dropping out children in a cotton field. I don't say that to be racist by the way. By all accounts that is virtually how Liston's birth took place.

He probably told people he was younger or was encouraged to do so to make him a more valued commodity.

I also heard Hagler lied about his age.

I was going off an old post from Boxingscene.

Here is how they're listed by the poster 0Rooster4life0 and they were corroborated by a source back in the day (though he claimed to know them by heart) which is now a dead link. Anyway, this was his list:

John L Sullivan

HEIGHT - 5ft 10 1/2in
WEIGHT - 196lb
REACH - 74in
CHEST (NOR) - 43in
CHEST (EXP) - 48in
FIST - 14in

-------------------------------------------------

48" chest! Sounds like John L. was built like this:

 

[Spirit Breaker]

Like you said earlier... preservation of the myth... He probably had platform shoes... Same have been said about Arnold Schwarzenegger... That he is not really 6'2... That he might actually below 6'0.

It's really not a big deal because at the end of the day...

You know who was actually a pretty decent sized fighter I met? Chris Byrd.

I think he was listed at 6'1", but seemed taller and he was a thick guy. He was wearing nice clothes, but kinda looked like an ex NFL linebacker, only it was in his prime fighting days.

Evander Holyfield I met a few years ago. Still in incredible shape and was pretty tall. Seemed to be at least the 6'3" he is listed at.

 

[JayElectra]

Liston had to have been older than 29 in the first Ali fight. I read many bios that said his father had about 20 children. That coupled with the fact it is hard to keep track of exact dates when you are dropping out children in a cotton field. I don't say that to be racist by the way. By all accounts that is virtually how Liston's birth took place.

He probably told people he was younger or was encouraged to do so to make him a more valued commodity.

I also heard Hagler lied about his age.



48" chest! Sounds like John L. was built like this:

The Boston Strongbow wasn't a nickname given out easily... Seriously though, likely a tough motherfucker.

 

[daemonarch]

Fist measurements aside, I think Ali's waist at 34 and even Liston's of 36 at 220 BW is kind or pretty slim.
I wonder how many of today's HW can meet that criteria?

 

[RawHawg]

I remember watching Liston on "Love American Style". It showed a different side of Sonny, and much like his protegee Foreman (who also did Sanford and Son, SNL, etc..), seemed like he had a good sense of humor and could laugh at himself regardless of his public image.