Question of the Day - 11 October 2022

Charles "Sonny" Liston (also known as the Bear) was the boxing heavyweight champion of the world from September 1962, when he knocked out Floyd Patterson in the first round of their title fight, until February 1964, when he stopped fighting Cassius Clay (who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali) after the sixth round of their title fight, losing by default; Liston, who was a 7-1 favorite to win, claimed he hurt his shoulder in the first round.

Liston, the 11th of 12 children, grew up rough. He learned to box in prison, where he did a five-year stint in his early 20s for armed robbery. Between 1953 and 1970, he fought 54 bouts, winning 39 by knockouts and losing only four. In a rematch with Clay in May, 1965, he was knocked out in the first round.

Six years later, on January 5, 1971, Liston was found dead at his home in Las Vegas. According to his death certificate, he died six days earlier on December 30, based on the number of newspapers at his doorstep. He was either 41 or 48 years old; his birth year is variously listed as somewhere between 1922 and 1930, as there was no birth-certificate requirement when he was born in Arkansas. 

He was found by his wife Geraldine, who'd been away on a trip for a couple of weeks. Liston was in their bedroom, half on the floor and half on the bed, with a foot bench broken nearby. The initial cause of death was believed to be a backward fall, forceful enough to break the bench. 

The police investigated, quickly ruled out foul play, and suspected that the cause of death was a heroin overdose. The first responders found a substantial amount of heroin in a balloon on the kitchen table and cannabis in Liston's pocket. The police, however, didn't find any paraphernalia: no spoon, no tourniquet, no needles. In fact, it was well known to everyone who knew Liston that he had a serious phobia about needles and examples abound that verify his severe aversion to receiving injections. Several of his close friends insisted that Liston could never be a junkie, since what he was most afraid of, even more than Cassius Clay's anchor punch, was hypodermics.  

But given the amount of time that passed between his death and discovery, the body was already too decomposed for toxicology texts to be conclusive. The official cause of death was listed as heart failure; Liston had been hospitalized a month earlier for chest pains.    

On the other hand, the coroner found "traces" of "heroin byproducts" in his system and "scar tissue" on the inside of his elbow that might have indicated injections. Still, Las Vegas boxing trainer Johnny Tocco later said that Liston had received an injection at the hospital, about which he was upset for weeks, and that was the needle mark the coroner saw on his arm.

As for Liston being murdered, theories abound and there was testimony that, at face value, seemed to have a modicum of credence. At that point in his life, Liston was struggling financially and some of the speculation centers around money.

One account said he was a debt collector for a group of loan sharks, who at that time would have certainly been mob-connected; when Liston wanted a higher percentage of his collections, they got him drunk, took him home, and gave him the overdose. Another report had Liston involved with Westside Las Vegas drug dealers. Through an intermediary, the cops warned Liston to stay away from the dealer's house, which was going to be raided by the law; when Liston was present during the raid, the dealer believed the ex-champ had set him up and gave him the hot shot in revenge. 

A couple of theories had it that Liston was paid to take a dive, one in the rematch against Ali, who'd changed his name by then, another against Chuck Wepner in their fight six months before his death. Liston was said to have thrown the fight to Ali, but later he threatened the mob that he'd go public with the story and they killed him. With Wepner, he took the money, but knocked him out in the ninth round, so the mob rubbed him out for that. 

Johnny Tocco is believed to have admitted to a friend that when Geraldine couldn't contact her husband for a few days, she phoned Tocco and asked him to go the house. Tocco obliged, finding the door locked and Liston's car in the driveway. When Liston didn't answer Tocco's doorbell ringing and phone calls, he summoned the cops. When they broke in, Tocco said they found the house in some disarray and Liston on the floor with a needle sticking out of his arm. Tocco didn't say who might have cleaned up the place before Geraldine arrived to "find" Sonny slumped in the bedroom, but he did claim that the police knew Liston was dead for several days before Geraldine came home and "they left him there to rot."

Given the fact that Geraldine first called Liston's lawyer, then his doctor, and then the police a few hours later, she might've known too. 

As for what we think, it seems clear that he died of an overdose. Someone probably wanted him dead. But who and why are a mystery that will probably never be solved.