No one knows exactly when he was born. Historians don’t know, he didn’t know, and even his mother couldn’t remember. What’s more, no one knows for certain when he died either: these are the blurred outlines of a life wrapped in shadow—marked by grim memories of a childhood never lived, a brief yet incredible career in the ring, and an ending that could hardly have been any different.
Sonny Liston was one of the greatest boxers of all time. But more importantly, Sonny was a man—“a man,” as engraved on his tombstone: not a celebration of masculinity, but rather the most ordinary yet profound declaration of humanity and fragility, courage and mortality one could imagine.
His life reads like a novel with a tragic ending. Today, we celebrate his birthday—but the date is meaningless: Sonny chose it himself, simply because he needed a birth date in order to fight.
Liston was an astonishing boxer, with raw talent and a remarkable physique. At age twenty, he stood about 182 cm tall (roughly 6 feet) and weighed 90 kg (198 lbs), with a bull-like neck and, above all, enormous hands hardened by circumstance.
Sonny had once been a child, but he never truly had a childhood. Born Charles L. Liston (no one knows what the “L.” stood for), sometime between 1925 and 1932 in Sand Slough, Arkansas—a name that literally means “sand swamp,” surrounded by cotton fields and marshes as far as the eye could see—Sonny was the second-to-last child of a brutal sharecropper who had 25 children with two wives. Sonny never attended school and never learned to read or write. By age eight, he was picking cotton and accumulating scars—on his mind, on his face, and most of all on his back, marks that remained from the whippings he received daily from his father, Tobe Liston, a petty, violent, and mean-spirited man who deeply scarred his son’s early years. “The only thing my old man ever gave me was a beating,” Sonny would later recall. “I had nothing as a kid except a bunch of brothers and sisters, a helpless mother, and a father who didn’t care about any of us.”
In 1946, his mother finally left that violent and sadistic man, taking only some of the children—probably due to the haste of her escape—and fled to St. Louis, where she found work in a shoe factory. Around age fourteen, after selling some pecans for a few coins, Sonny fled the plantation in search of his mother and eventually reunited with her. He tried attending school and making a fresh start, but he was constantly mocked and excluded because of his illiteracy. That path inevitably led to one outcome: Sonny joined a gang of young delinquents involved in theft and robbery. Prison followed soon after. In 1949, he was arrested for robbing the Unique Café near his home and identified as “the Negro in the flashy shirt.” In 1950, he was convicted and sent to Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City.
It was in prison that he learned to box, thanks to a fellow inmate named Sonny. He liked the name—and the guy—so he made it his own. The first time he was released from prison, in 1952, it was thanks to the mob. He had caught the eye of the right people due to his physical prowess and boxing skills—he had knocked out everyone inside the penitentiary. Sonny was paroled following a campaign by the local press, orchestrated by Frank Mitchell, a newspaper editor in St. Louis, boxing promoter, and associate of the local mafia. In September 1953, Sonny turned professional. Thanks to Mitchell, he entered the orbit of Frank Vitale, boss of the city’s Italian-American mafia, who was in turn connected to Frank Carbo, Cosa Nostra’s kingpin in both legal and illegal boxing betting. In addition to boxing, Sonny also worked as an “enforcer” for Vitale.
These Were Tumultuous Years. These were the years of racial segregation, of denied rights for Black people, of blues and jazz—and, above all, of the mafia’s dominance, which easily wormed its way into the boxing world. Sonny navigated between these forces, trying to find his way through the tangled mess of an already burdened life. One of his early trainers, Johnny Tocco, would later recall:
“He was a loner. If it were up to him, he wouldn’t have talked to anyone… He always came to the gym alone. He always left alone. The cops knew he’d been to prison, that he’d keep getting into trouble, and that they’d eventually come for him.”
In 1956, while standing at a bus stop in a downpour, Liston met Geraldine Clark Chambers. It was raining heavily, and so Sonny gently picked her up, carried her to his car, and drove her home. About a year and a half later, they got married.
Despite Geraldine, Sonny never managed to stay out of trouble. He was repeatedly arrested—often for no real reason—and had numerous run-ins involving vagrancy, alcohol, violence, and resisting arrest. He eventually fled St. Louis and took refuge in Philadelphia.
Sonny’s rise in boxing was meteoric. In the ring, he was virtually unstoppable—aside from one occasion when he burst out laughing at the clownish antics of fighter Marty Marshall. But that was a one-off.
Sonny crushed world champion Floyd Patterson twice in less than a round, despite having everyone against him: he was seen as a menace, too Black, someone who had to be defeated. Even President Kennedy reportedly phoned Patterson to lend him moral support.
Then came Ali.
Ali had tried to intimidate him with his flamboyant and often bizarre behavior. He mocked him, calling him “the Big Ugly Bear.” But deep down, Ali had always feared that man with the menacing gaze.
The first time they met, in 1964, the bout ended when Liston retired in the seventh round due to a dislocated shoulder. But the match was quickly clouded by suspicions of a fix. Sonny had looked subdued, and his withdrawal was viewed as suspicious—especially since, years earlier, he had fought ten rounds with a broken jaw, showing tremendous toughness. An unusual surge of bets placed against the favorite only fueled speculation.
The rematch, later dubbed the “Phantom Punch” fight, was even more surreal and took place in an atmosphere of extreme social tension—especially following the assassination of Malcolm X. Various theories have been proposed about what happened that night, involving threats from the Nation of Islam, which Sonny had refused to join, and pressures from the mob.
The years that followed marked Liston’s decline. He took on low-profile fights and was avoided like the plague by top contenders.
On January 5, 1971, Sonny was found dead by Geraldine in their Las Vegas home. His body was already in a state of decomposition. It was impossible to determine the exact date of death, though it was estimated to have occurred six days earlier. The autopsy revealed traces of morphine and codeine, consistent with heroin use.
Some believe he died in a state of depression, finding solace in heroin—allegedly introduced to him by his idol and friend Joe Louis. However, Sonny was known to be terrified of needles, which casts doubt on this theory. According to others, he was simply murdered—perhaps because he intended to expose the truth behind the controversial fights with Ali in 1964 and 1965. But these remain only theories.
What remains of Liston are images, memories, and regrets—for a life that perhaps couldn’t have gone any other way. Among them, there’s the image of Sonny, with the help of his wife, trying to learn to write his own name so he wouldn’t have to turn down autograph requests. A surreal image, so far removed from the public perception of him as a dangerous, violent man.
Those who truly knew him always described him as caring and deeply sensitive—perhaps two sides of the same coin. Sonny was all this, and more. More than anything else, Sonny was simply a man.