Free The Devil and Sonny Liston by Nick Tosches Page B

has the luck and good connections of Roxborough and Black, then maybe Liston will fulfill the bright promise he now shows." (John Roxborough and Julian Black were the managers of Joe Louis from the outset of his career, in 1934, to 1949.)
    "His backers," said the Press , " are prepared to move his headquarters from St.Louis, his home town, to Chicago."
    Backers. Connections. Chicago. If only they knew.
    Less than a month later, on September 7, fighting again at the Motor City Arena - not televised this time - Liston suffered the only loss in his rise to the top, when he was defeated by Marty Marshall, the light heavyweight champion of Michigan.
    A story circulated that Liston, who had never seen anyone he prostrated spring so sprightly back to his feet, was so bewildered and bemused when Marshall rose from a first round knockdown that his mouth hung open in disbelief, and Marshall caught him off guard with a punch that dislocated his jaw.
    The truth is that the punch that allegedly fractured Liston's jaw came three rounds later, and Liston, busted jaw and all, lost only by a close decision after the full eight rounds. It is with the loss to Marshall that the record entry for CHARLEY (SONNY) LISTON ends in The Ring Record Book of 1955. Regarding that sole and unlikely loss to a fighter twenty pounds lighter than Sonny, Frank Mitchell contended that "Marty Marshall is a clown," and that Sonny could have knocked him out if he had wanted to when he hit him in the second round. "But Sonny tells me he was told to carry the boy three or four rounds so the fans could get their money's worth. Sonny got to laughing, Marshall hit him, and broke his jaw."
    Sonny himself told a somewhat similar story: "I was told to take it easy for a couple rounds. Marshall's a clown, they told me, who'd bounce around and flick punches from all sides.
    "I was standing there, kinda wondering, when all of a sudden he lets out a yell, and with my mouth wide open, gaping, he slugged me right in the jaw. It didn't hurt, but I couldn't close my mouth. I had to fight the last six rounds with my mouth open. After a while it hurt bad."
    Neither of these accounts makes much sense. The blow that busted Sonny's jaw came in the fourth round of an eight round fight, and by then Sonny surely should have fulfilled his crowd pleasing obligations. But that is not what intrigues. It is the casual , almost whimsical " he was told to carry the boy three or four rounds, " the casual , almost whimsical " I was told to take it easy f or a couple rounds. "
    Who was doing the telling and who was concerned that the humble ticket buyer should get his money's worth? Who was so compelling and so powerful that he very likely decided the outcome of the fight?
    Note that in Mitchell's version, he himself is innocent of knowing anything about anybody's being told anything until Sonny, after the fight , "tells me he was told." In fact, said Mitchell, he was not even with Sonny in Detroit. "I was busy with the newspaper," he said. "I sent Sonny up there alone " , Mitchell said that Sonny was "very angry" with him for not going to Detroit with him, and for giving him the bill for having his jaw wired. But Mitchell expressed no anger at Sonny's listening to them , and Sonny expressed no anger at them for telling him to take it easy. "Marshall's a clown, they told me" - those were Sonny's words. "Marty Marshall is a clown" - those were the words of Mitchell.
    As for Marshall's being a clown, of the fifteen fights of his four year career, he had lost only twice and drawn only once.
    One thing is certain. Nobody in the fight racket ever gave a fuck about the suckers in the seats, except maybe for the guys that were selling the peanuts.
    And it wasn't like it was back in the ring in that penitentiary yard; it wasn't even like it was back in those alleys of dirt, fist, feet. It was a world of they and of them . And, just like back in those sandy slough plantation fields, when the Man says move,