The Devil and Sonny Liston

by Nick Tosches

  Within a month, it was announced in Las Vegas that Liston and Clay would sign in Denver on November 4 for a fight to be held in February. As it developed, the fight would take place in Miami Beach, under the aegis of Frankie Carbo's old friend Chris Dundee, the big brother of Clay's trainer, Angelo Dundee.

  Like the man said: La commedia e finita.

  ASTROLOGY

  IT WAS THE END OF THE ROAD. HERE HISTORY took the pen from the player's hand, where, for a moment, a heartbeat, no matter how tentatively, it had seemed to rest. What remained was epilogue and epitaph, chords like wind of death song, of threnody.

  America did not want Sonny as her champion. "It is hard to discern any merit in Liston," wrote Dan Parker in his column of February 13, 1964. And America saw Liston much as Parker saw him: "a sinister creature, full of hatred for the world." Liston had likened boxing to a cowboy movie. "There's got to be good guys, and there's got to be bad guys." The "bad guys are supposed to lose. I change that," he had said. "I win." But in his winning, he seemed invincible. There seemed no good, or other bad, that could conquer or stay him: and, in the cowboy movie of his championship, the good guys never had a chance. There was no show down in the ring, no battle, no melodrama - only fast and predictable victory for the villain America despised. The cowboy movie of his championship was a box office failure, and in a racket built on suckers' money, Sonny as a champion was bad, bad news.

  Moose Grayson had said that there had been a "settlement."

  Yes, said Foneda Cox. "They made a settlement with Moose."

  By "they," he meant the Mob. "They paid Moose off. I don't know how much, but a lot. I think they even bought him a house. The Mafia picked up all of Sonny's tabs when Sonny got into trouble. I think maybe they got sick of it."

  As the Clay fight approached, Liston was not only a bad draw and an unwanted champion. He was a man who could be exposed as a rapist at any time. This exposure would not only certainly cost him his title and end his career: with his record and reputation, he very likely could be returned to prison as well. Whoever had power over this exposure had power over Liston.

  It was at this time that Ben Bentley quit, claiming that he was owed money and that the Nilons had reneged on an agreement to let him have the rights to the Chicago closed circuit action for the Clay fight. "I don't blame Liston at all," said Ben.

  Before the fight, the sportswriter Jimmy Cannon spoke with the former light heavyweight champion Billy Conn, whose career had spanned the years 1935-1948 and who was now forty six years old.

  "The first punch Liston hits him, out he goes," said Conn. "He can't fight now," he said of Clay, "and he'll never be able to fight. He hasn't the experience. The only experience he'll get with Liston is how to get killed in a hurry", Conn said -as Cannon noted bitterly - that Clay "took all the dignity away from the heavy weight title by acting like a big phony wrestler."

  Look magazine ran a story entitled "Sonny Liston: King of the Beasts,"' in the February 25, 1964, issue. "In essence, Sonny epitomizes the Negro untouchable, the angry dark skinned man condemned by the white man to spend his life in the economic and social sewers of his country." A photograph pictured him at home in Denver, sitting on a couch between two matching and ornate fringed lamps: "The Listons pose for their first family portrait: from left to right, daughter Eleanor, 13, wife Geraldine, Sonny, his mother Helen and daughter Arletha, 17."

  Of the Negro untouchable: "His pleasures are simple: he drives a two toned 1964 Fleetwood Cadillac and likes The Beverly Hillbillies on television ('Whatever mah wife's watchin', Ah'm watchin')."

  The night of the fight was February 25,1964. It had been barely three months since the Kennedy assassination, and this was the first blood revelry that a post hysteric America had allowed herself. The crowd that gathered at Miami's Convention Hall, and all the other crowds that gathered in the closed circuit showrooms and theaters throughout America were there not so much to see a contest, for no contest was foreseen. This sense of the inevitable was evinced by the lackluster gate at Convention Hall, where only about half of sixteen thousand tickets, priced from twenty to two hundred and fifty dollars, were sold. What crowd there was seemed to be a part of a masque in the season of psychic plague, a ritual, a spectacle that pitted the embodiment of callow spirit and whistle in the dark braggadocio against that of the Adversary of the American Dream. The air of festive anticipation was unsettling. The scent of dear perfume and fancy cologne mixed with that of cheap aftershave, smoke, and sweat. The oversized head of tough guy manque Norman Mailer was no longer alone in blocking the view at ringside. Beside him sat fellow tough guy Truman Capote and Gloria Guinness of Harper's Bazaar.

  Clay's pulse had raced to 120 during the weigh in, and the adrenaline of fear seemed still within him as he entered the ring. That fight or flee rush drove him forward and into Liston with a frenzy, and he took the first round. Sonny began to grind him down in the second, but his blows were delivered with none of the awesome power that in the past had felled man after man. In the third, Clay opened a cut under Sonny's eye, drawing forth what Sonny had given no other man since the days of those whippings. In the fourth, Sonny connected repeatedly, but again, his blows seemed oddly restrained, and Clay came in again to bruise Sonny's fearsome face.

  At the end of round four, Clay came to his corner screaming surrender. "I can't see," he wailed to his trainer, Angelo Dundee. "Cut off my gloves. Call off the fight." At the sound of the bell, Dundee pushed Clay to his feet.

  In the fifth, Clay, who claimed difficulty seeing, had no difficulty in dodging Sonny's punches, which seemed at times designed not so much to hit Clay as to punctuate the air of his blind bob and weave. Clay reached out his left arm, rested his gloved fist against Sonny's nose, as if to keep the beast at bay; and, though Sonny's reach was greater, he never struck or swatted that arm away.

  At the end of the round, Clay's vision returned, and Barney Felix, the referee, who had been about to stop the fight and award a technical knockout victory to Liston, allowed the match to continue. After six rounds, the fight was even on points. When the bell sounded to signal the start of the seventh round, Liston just sat there, refusing to rise and telling of a numbness that ran from his left shoulder down to his forearm.

  In the halls and cellblocks of the Jefferson City penitentiary - the one true stronghold of Sonny's popularity as a champion - the blare of radios was suddenly overtaken by howls of anger and disgust. The son of a bitch had thrown the fucking heavyweight championship of the motherfucking world. Shit, some reckoned: a thief for a penny, a thief for a pound.

  A few days after the fight, there came to light a contract that caused no small amount of speculation. Long before the fight - the contract was dated October 29, 1963 - Inter Continental Promotions, of which Sonny was a partner, had contracted with the eleven man Louisville Group to purchase for fifty thousand dollars the rights to promote Clay's next fight after the Liston match. This was a staggering amount to pay for the future rights to a single bout by a fighter who was seen as facing almost certain defeat in his upcoming match with Liston. Jack Nilon, trying to explain the suspect pre fight contract, said that "Clay represented a tremendous showbusiness property."

  Liston later said that he had injured his shoulder in the first round of the fight. Jack Nilon said the injury came long before the fight, during training.

  But the training and training camps of both fighters had been the object of much coverage by the press, and there had been no hint of any injury. During training just a year earlier, the news of a less debilitating injury, to Liston's knee, was pursued and covered as a major story, and that knee injury had been sustained off the training grounds and away from the eyes of the press.

  When the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly announced, on March 1, that it intended to investigate the contract between Clay and Inter Continental, Nilon said, "We never dreamed Sonny would lose the title." The contract, he said, was just "a lucky fluke."

  Tha
t was two days after the Internal Revenue Service filed liens totaling $2.7 million against Sonny; $876,800 against him and Geraldine; $1,050,000 against Inter Continental Promotions, Inc.; and $793,000 against Delaware Advertising and Management Agency, Inc., a Nilon run sister corporation of Inter Continental.

  Sonny was taken after the fight to be examined at St. Joseph's Hospital. Three hours later, it was announced by Dr. Alexander Robbins of the Miami Beach Athletic Commission that Liston did indeed show evidence of an injury to his left shoulder that was "sufficient to incapacitate him and to prevent him from defending himself."

  Officials at the fight had withheld the fight purse on suspicions that things were not right. The announcement by Dr. Robbins served to counter those suspicions and expedite the release of the purse.

  Later, a Detroit physician, Dr. Robert C. Bennet, would state that he had been treating Liston for bursitis in both arms and shoulders for the past two years. He said that Sonny had been taking cortisone shots for this bursitis almost continuously in the months preceding the fight. In his medical opinion, the bursitis was not connected to the injury that had stopped the fight in Miami.

  "I think Liston's problem in the fight was that he swung and missed, severely stretching or rupturing his arm four or five inches below the shoulder," the doctor said. "In our post fight examination, we could see the swelling and the blood."

  Bennet was Joe Louis's doctor. When Joe had a dope seizure in New York in 1969, it was Bennet who helped to protect the fighter's image by covering the details of his emergency hospitalization. Bennet was also the physician for the Michigan State Boxing Commission. When I discovered this obscure circumstance, I could not but recall Truman Gibson's story about his encounter long ago at the offices of the Michigan commission, a story that also involved Joe Louis, as well as many other things.

  Where were the doctors before the fight, and where were the doctors during the fight? Why would a man who had gone the distance in agony with a busted jaw in an insignificant fight - why would such a man fold in a world championship title match from a pain or a numbness in his arm? Why would a man with the most devastating right in boxing, a man impervious to punches, allow an injured left arm to move him to such passive and compliant surrender?

  There are stories of the immense losses Ash Resnick incurred in Miami by betting on his friend. There are other stories of suitcases of money being sent by Ash to New York, where other, less ostentatious bets were made.

  The night after Bennet's disclosure, Sonny was arrested back home in Denver. Doing over seventy five in a thirty mile per hour residential zone, he was carrying a seven shot .22 revolver in his righthand coat pocket, along with six cartridges and one spent shell. The arresting officer, Patrolman James Snider, asked him about the pistol.

  "It's mine. I shot at my girlfriend."

  He was in his Cadillac. There was a girl in the car with him. The cop told her to get the Cadillac out of there. He could barely force the handcuff around Sonny's wrists. Another cop arrived, and together they got him cuffed.

  Sonny was drunk - he told the cop he'd had half a bottle of vodka - and he got belligerent during the ride downtown, asking the cop if he wanted to "mix it up" or "go round and round" and once trying to escape when the car slowed for a stop sign.

  "I really didn't know who I had," Snider said, "until I got to headquarters and another patrolman said, 'Hi, Sonny."'

  Sonny refused to take a Breathalyzer test. He was charged with speeding, driving without a valid Colorado license, and reckless and careless driving. He was let off easy on the pistol. Under Colorado law, it was a felony for an ex convict to be in possession of a concealed weapon, but it was charged against Sonny only as a misdemeanor.

  On the following day, Sonny was served by federal marshals with a notice of a $115,000 lawsuit that Ben Bentley had filed against him the previous Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. The suit claimed fifteen grand in overdue wages and a hundred grand in lost income pursuant to Inter Continental's failure to honor its commitment to grant him Chicago closed circuit rights.

  On March 23, State Attorney General Richard E. Gerstein of Florida announced that, after a month's investigation of the Liston-Clay fight, it had been decided that there was no evidence of foul play. However, he said, several other circumstances surrounding the fight were "questionable." He spoke of "a well known gambler and bookmaker" - he did not name him, but he was talking about Ash Resnick - who "enjoyed the full run of the training camp and was present in Liston's dressing room prior to the fight." Gerstein also said he wondered why Liston would pay fifty thousand dollars for the right to choose Clay's next opponent and promote his next fight "unless he or his managers knew the outcome of the fight in advance."

  Kefauver was dead, but his spirit lived. On March 24, the day after Gerstein's guarded announcement, Senate investigators in Washington questioned Sonny's partners in InterContinental Promotions. The first called to answer was Garland Cherry, the Pennsylvania lawyer who held five percent of the corporation. He revealed that Liston had signed over more than half of his stock in December to Sam Margolis.

  Sam was a big heavy guy, fifty-one, who smoked and chewed on a cigar as he sat before the committee.

  SENATOR PHILIP HART: Mr. Margolis, what is your business?

  SAM: I am in the vending-machine business.

  SENATOR HART: Are you or did you have a partnership in a restaurant in or near Philadelphia in recent years?

  SAM: That is prior to the vending business?

  SENATOR HART: Prior to your entering the vending business. What was the name of the restaurant?

  SAM: Sansom Restaurant.

  SENATOR HART: All right, who were your partners in that restaurant?

  SAM : My partners was my wife, Carlo Musciano, and Frank Palermo.

  SENATOR HART: What discussions, if any, did you have with Frank Palermo concerning Liston in either a fight or the promotion of it?

  SAM: I don't know if we ever discussed it or not.

  Sam was asked by committee counsel if he knew Angelo Bruno, the criminal overlord of Philadelphia:

  "Do you know Mr. Bruno?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you have any conversations with Mr. Bruno about Sonny Liston?"

  "I don't recall having any conversations with Mr. Bruno about Sonny Liston."

  Under questioning by Senator Keating of New York. Sam said that he and Sonny had an agreement whereby Sam would receive half of whatever he could get for Sonny from the Nilon brothers in negotiating his position during the formation of Inter-Continental.

  Keating asked if steps had been taken to put the agreement in writing.

  SAM: No. I trusted Sonny.

  SENATOR KEATING: Were you his manager?

  SAM: No.

  SENATOR KEATING: What was your title?

  SAM: Friend.

  Sonny had endorsed the shares before they were filled in with Sam's, or anyone's, name. The shares were now worth about a hundred thousand dollars after taxes. Sam had given fifty of the two hundred and seventy five shares to his lawyer Salvatore J. Avena, who was one of two attorneys serving as counsel to him before the committee.

  Keating brought up a meeting at Goldie Ahearn's Restaurant in Washington, D.C., on March 19, 1958, the night of a local middleweight fight between Jimmy Beacham and Willie Vaughn. Present were Frankie Carbo, Blinky Palermo, and Sam.

  SAM: We did not have a meeting. We went there to eat.

  SENATOR KEATING: Was Sonny Liston's name brought into the conversation?

  SAM: I never heard Sonny Liston's name mentioned there at that time, Senator.

  When Jack Nilon came before the committee, he was asked about the 1962 manager's contract with Liston that entitled him to a third of Liston's purses.

  SENATOR HART: When did the change from thirty three and a third percent to fifty percent occur?

  NILON: I would say after the Clay fight, after it was signed.

  SENATOR HART: Are you a license
d manager?

  NILON: No.

  SENATOR HART: How do you act as the manager in the Clay fight if you weren't licensed to be manager?

  NILON: I wasn't the manager in the Clay fight.

  SENATOR HART: Who was?

  NILON: I had a second's license.

  SENATOR HART: Who was the manager?

  NILON: Actually, there was no manager.

  At one point, Nilon expressed the feeling that he did not really "feel that I want to be a fight manager," upon which Senator Hart asked him, "As the manager of Liston under this fifty percent agreement, what compensation would you receive, based on the Miami Beach Clay-Liston fight?"

  NILON: I would receive - the gross sum estimated is probably four hundred thousand.

  SENATOR HART: But you don't want to be a manager, nonetheless?

  NILON: There is more to life than bread alone.

  For years, Sonny had alluded to the inevitable. It was as if his fate were writ on a crumpled piece of paper, like those slips they had found on him in St. Louis in the summer of '59: an old and faded and irrevocable haruspicy folded away and sometimes forgotten amid those other slips, amid the lint and the nickels and the thousand dollar bills.

  "He told me, he said, 'Foneda, I'm gonna tell you. I've got to lose one, and when I do, I'm gonna tell you."'

  Though Foneda went most everywhere with Sonny, it was strongly suggested that he remain in Denver and not come to Miami for the fight. "They said. 'Well, you ought to stay here with your business.' And I said, 'No, I ain't worried about that. I got a cousin here that can run my business.'" But Foneda did not go.

  "So, this is the only thing that I hold against Sonny, is that he did not tell me when he was actually going to lose. And I'm back here betting."