World Champion. Mob Property. Found Dead in Las Vegas. The Sonny Liston Story. | HoM Ep. 9

Mike Tyson says point blank: he was not the scariest fighter in the world. Sonny Liston in his heyday was. This is that story.Liston was born sometime around 1932 in rural Arkansas — no birth certificate was ever filed, so nobody, including Liston himself, ever knew his exact age. He was the 24th of 25 children. His father beat him so severely that scars were visible on his back when he fought. He never went to school. He ran away to St. Louis at 13, turned to armed robbery, and became known to police as the Yellow Shirt Bandit. He was arrested in 1950, sent to the Missouri State Penitentiary, and there, a prison chaplain told him to try boxing. He had never trained a day in his life. He destroyed a professional boxer his first time in the ring.He was paroled early because of his boxing potential. And almost immediately, the mob was waiting for him.John Vitale in St. Louis, then Frankie Carbo and Blinky Palermo in Philadelphia owned him — literally. A 1960 Senate investigation into organized crime revealed that Liston owned zero percent of his own boxing contract. The mob took everything. He received a weekly allowance while his managers pocketed the overwhelming majority of every purse.On September 25, 1962, he knocked out Floyd Patterson in 2 minutes and 6 seconds to become heavyweight champion — the first time a reigning champion had ever been counted out in the first round of a title fight. Floyd Patterson couldn't last a round the second time either.Then came Cassius Clay. Two fights, both of them controversial. In the first, a chemical substance on Liston's gloves got into Clay's eyes in round four — Clay's trainer Angelo Dundee told him just to run and survive. When it cleared, Clay destroyed him. Liston didn't answer the bell for round seven. Second fight: Lewiston, Maine, 2,434 fans — the smallest crowd ever at a heavyweight championship. The Phantom Punch. First round. Liston goes down. Jersey Joe Walcott gives a slow count. Nat Fleischer shouts from ringside that the count was past ten. Fight's over. Two thousand people immediately scream that it was fixed.He moved to Las Vegas. Worked as mob muscle. Did security for mob-owned bars and strip clubs. On January 5, 1971, his wife Geraldine came home from a trip to find newspapers piled outside and spoiled milk in the kitchen. Sonny Liston was dead in his bedroom. He had been there for days.The official cause: lung congestion and heart failure. The coroner found only small traces of morphine and codeine — heroin byproducts — and said directly that the evidence did not indicate an overdose-type death. But there were needle marks on his arm. And Sonny Liston was terrified of needles. His trainer, his wife, his friends — all of them said the same thing. He would refuse injections from doctors. He would not get shots for anything.In 1982, a police informant alleged a former Las Vegas cop named Larry Gandy had killed Liston with a hot shot of heroin over a money dispute involving Ash Resnick. The informant was later found dead in his garage in 1987, car engine running.No charges. No conviction. Official record: natural causes. Almost nobody who knew him believes it.Intro Music:Music by Marching Music -Guide Right -By John Philip Sousa | Royalty-free Music - PixabayOutro Music:Music by Marching Music -The Thunderer By John Philip Sousa | Royalty-free Music - Pixabay#SonnyListon #muhammadali  #cassiusclay #truecrimecommunity #true crime