Sonny Liston learned to box behind bars.
He was imprisoned in 1950 for a series of robberies and, years later, returned to prison for assaulting a police officer and stealing his gun. It was a reverend, in that same prison, who taught him to fight. When he got out, he strung together 26 consecutive victories and on September 25, 1962, in Chicago, knocked out Floyd Patterson in just over two minutes to become world heavyweight champion.
Then came his two battles against Cassius Clay, the same man who would become Muhammad Ali. In the 1965 rematch, in Lewiston, Maine, Liston was knocked out in just 1:45 of the first round, by a punch that many spectators did not even manage to see. He ended his career with 50 victories and was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1991.
Years later, his wife went to see him in Las Vegas, where she found him lying there, swollen and dressed only in underwear and a T-shirt. Forensic investigators determined that he had died at least a week earlier. There were fresh needle marks on his arm; heroin and a syringe in the house. The official cause was pulmonary congestion and heart failure, but the cause was never entirely clear.
