SONNY LISTON/ ALI FIGHTS Posted on December 11, 2015.

The FBI did not want to open an investigation on the Sonny Liston/ Ali fights. Because they knew that they weren’t fixed. The FBI felt that the press was basing its leads off of rumors. And the FBI did not trust the press. The FBI had just investigated boxing in 1960 and would just continue to rely on its continued wire tapping, boxing experts, informants and contacts within the Boxing Commissions nationwide.

“GERSTEIN ORDERS DOCTORS‟ REPORT ON LISTON‟S SHOULDER INJURY” by William Tucker Reporter of the Miami News 2/26/64

The Justice Department in a statement yesterday, Senator Hart hinted that he was less interested in the fighters themselves, than the men around them. He did not draw any conclusions. In the first Sonny Liston Cassius Clay fight Sonny Liston was not able to come out for the seventh round, complaining of pain in his shoulder. My grandmother told me this before she died that, “What the world does not know is that before the scheduled first fight against Cassius Clay, Sonny was working on his roof cleaning the storm drains, and he fell off the ladder onto his left shoulder injuring it. His then managers the Nilon brothers convinced Sonny to go ahead with the fight anyway, knowing that his shoulder was hurt. Grandma Geraldine, told me that that was the dumbest thing Sonny ever did. She told me that the Nilon brothers destroyed there relationship over money. She said that, “people will fight each other over money, even if it is a nickel more than they had before.” The press and most fans did not believe that Sonny was telling the truth about his shoulder pain and thought that he had thrown the fight. But what most people overlooked and have forgotten is that… Miami News: State Attorney Richard Gerstein ordered a complete report on the medical examination of Sonny Liston whose torn shoulder tendon lost him the heavyweight crown to Cassius Clay. Gerstein said the sudden end of the fight with Liston unable to come out for the seventh round “left me wondering whether what I had seen happen actually did happen.” The Miami Beach Boxing Commission held up Liston‟s $367,000 purse until a team of doctors confirmed that his shoulder injury was sufficiently bad to make him unable to continue the bout. Wires from all over the country flooded the Boxing Commission today denouncing the fight as a “disgrace” and “an insult to boxing. Despite the agreement of eight doctors as to Liston‟s condition, the Commission said it also wanted to have Liston examined by its own physician. The Commission was to have a special meeting later today. Sonny Liston, the supposedly unconquerable “killer,” threw the punch and when it missed the follow-through, twisted a tendon in his massive left shoulder. That was the diagnosis of eight doctors who went over the 7-1 favorite with X-rays and other devices for more than three hours last night and early today at St. Francis Hospital. After hours of waiting, Dr. Alexander Robbins, chief physician for the commission, reported that the injury to Liston‟s shoulder “would be sufficient to incapacitate him and prevent him from defending himself.” The 30-year-old fallen champion “suffered the injury to the long head of the biceps tendon of the left shoulder with the result there is a separation and tear in the muscle fibers with some hemorrhage of the muscle belly,” the statement said. Liston, also wearing two pieces of tape under his left eye where Clay opened a cut in the second round, said he injured himself late in the first round. “I tried to throw a left hook,” he said in a voice almost inaudible. “It missed, I felt something snap. “I just couldn‟t throw a punch… not the jab anyway. My arm was killing me.” Both camps loudly disclaimed any suggestion of a rigged match. “Put a Bible before me and I‟ll swear it was on the level,” said Jack Nilon, Liston‟s manager. “This is not a fix,” screamed Clay. “I am the greatest. He didn‟t touch me. I closed both his eyes.” Former heavyweight champion Joe Louis commented after the fourth round that Clay “is surprising the whole world.” A spokesperson for the Justice Department emphasized that the government has no evidence that Liston himself or Katz and Nilon ever split purses with Gangsters. They had nothing on Liston, but he being a boxer was caught up in the interest of the Mafia. Baron managed Liston from 1958 to 1961. At present George Katz of Philidelphia and Jack Nilon of Chester Pa. are co-manager of Liston. Liston bought out his contract with his fight manager Joseph (Pop) Baron for $75,000. Sonny Liston was never interviewed by the Justice Department about the fights.

We can now do what people could not do in the fifties, sixties, and seventies. We can “look backwards and forwards,” with the “power of contextualizing events and processes.” So, lets understand the history of heroin. In 1889, heroin was invented as medicine. The company was Bayer, yes, Friedrich Bayer sold Heroin over the counter. His company created Synthetic chemical medicines. He applied chemical analysis to plant drugs, by purifying the main active ingredient of opium. “Recalling Morpheus, the Greek god of dreams, Serturner gave his drug the name morphium‟ which later became morphine.” So this was widely used as pain relief in the Civil War, Franco/Prussian War. So Heroin was prescribed in place of morphine or codeine (another constituent of opium, isolated in 1832). If Sonny Liston was a heroin user, then we have to accept that he would have the symptoms that come with the disease, dry mouth, flush skin, constricted pupils, fade in and out of wakefulness, slow breathing, unclear thinking, memory loss, decision making and self control deteriorated, itching, nausea and vomiting, constipation, skin infections, lowered immunity illness, pain suppressed, neglecting their own needs, a days dosage becomes the most important need, look haggard, not eat properly. The Liston family has stated, that Sonny was never acting like a user. We would have noticed withdrawal symptoms. When did Sonny have the time to become a drug user? Are you with me? Sonny boxed from 1953 to 1970, and took only 8 months off after the 1965 fight with Mr. Ali. Sonny then won 15 of his last 16 fights before he died. My question to those who to this day, still want to see Sonny only as a thug, slave to the Mafia, drug using womanizer is… what do you call, a boxer, with a record of 50 wins, 39 KO‟s 72%, 4 loses 3 by KO, with 54 bouts, 267 rounds, becoming the 5th ranked heavyweight in the world before he died?… “A Man.”

A Lie is Impenetrable to Logic Posted on December 13, 2015 “A Lie is Impenetrable to Logic” Geraldine Liston said that she was the first to arrive at the house, to find her husband Sonny Liston laying dead from a heart attack. Retired Sergeant Dennis Caputo, said that he was the first to arrive at the scene to find Sonny dead. He also stated that he found drugs on Sonny and drugs in the Kitchen. Well, I called Mr. Caputo and asked him one question. I asked him, “are you clairvoyant?” I told him that he would have to be clairvoyant, to have known that Sonny was dead, and to be the first to arrive at Sonny‟s house. Because according to the Autopsy Report that had been released only to me, after being behind lock and key for over forty years, my grandmother never called the police, she called her next door neighbors doctor, and the doctor called the investigative coroner. Dennis Caputo, was not one of the officers at the scene, there were no drugs found on Sonny or in the house, Sonny had no barbiturates or hallucinogen in his blood or urine, according to the report, no needle marks were on his arms at the time of death, and his death was never ruled a homicide, because he died of heart failure. Mr. Caputo first said, that he was not clairvoyant and defended his story up until, I told him that I had the Autopsy Report in my possession. That is when retired officer Caputo changed his story from being the first officer to arrive at the scene, to the lead officer in the investigation. I asked him what investigation? Why would there be a need for an investigation when Sonny‟s death was not ruled a homicide? I also asked him where are the drugs that he was supposed to have found on Sonny and that was in the house? He said that he turned them into the lab. I said to him then, where is Sonny‟s “incident report?” He said it was in Sonny‟s file. I told him that I checked Sonny‟s file, and the only thing in his file was Sonny‟s gun registration. Then Mr. Caputo told me that the police not only lost the report but he also told me that the drugs that he had confiscated never came back from the lab. I told him, how could something as insignificant as Sonny”s gun registration be in Sonny‟s file after forty years and not his incident report? But remember that there was no need for an investigation because Sonny‟s death was not ruled a homicide. I mentioned the fact that if he found illegal substances in the house when he supposedly arrived at the scene, and if he is correct in saying that he led the Sonny Liston investigation, then who did he take to jail that day and what suspects did he interview? I explained that he could not have taken Sonny to jail, because he was already dead. There were two officers that arrived with the investigative coroner after Geraldine found Sonny, and the names of those two policemen are on the autopsy report. And the two policemen Dennis Caputo, and former Las Vegas police sergeant Gary Beckwith, who has also been interviewed about the circumstances surrounding the death of Sonny Liston, names were not on the autopsy report as witnesses. These two men have single handedly helped to keep the mystery of how Sonny Liston met his demise alive for decades. All based on innuendo, speculation and conjecture. Instead of the facts, evidence and good policing. My grandfather “Sonny,” was born on May 8, 1932, and died “A Man,” on January 5,1971. SP

My colleagues indicate that Sonny had a potential life threatening problem with the bundle of His. Additionally he had significant lung disease that would have hampered a normal person never lone an elite athlete and top 10 fighter ( I believe he was ranked number 6 in the world at the time of his death). An amazing man.