Fight Talk

The scene: a recent press conference at the training camp of Heavyweight Challenger Charles ("Sonny") Liston, in New York's Catskill Mountains. Liston has not yet arrived; Trainer Willie Reddish and his assistant, Joe Polino. are talking with reporters and a London TV producer. Enter Liston, glowering.

Liston: Where that fifty bucks you owe me?

Polino: I dunno nuthin' about no fifty bucks.

Liston screws his heavy features into a frightening grimace. He swings a vicious right to Polino's jaw. The muscular assistant trainer staggers, spits out a mouthful of teeth, backs off and grabs a golf club to defend himself. Liston draws a gun. Bang! Bang! A red stain spreads slowly where Polino clutches his chest. Sportswriters flee in panic; one newsman from Baltimore cowers behind the fireplace. The TV producer faints dead away.

Knowing Sonny Listen's reputation for viciousness in the ring (33 victories, one loss, 23 knockouts) and his "bad boy" record outside it (19 arrests since 1950, on charges ranging from armed robbery to assaulting a police officer), his training camp visitors could be excused a certain amount of nervousness. But it was all only Liston's idea of a gag. Polino's lost "teeth" were actually white beans; the gun was a blank pistol, the blood ketchup -and the victims just Liston's playacting trainers. It is his sparring partners who are the victims of Liston's real malevolence.

"Don't Tell Me."" One after another last week, they climbed bravely into the outdoor ring at The Pines, the swank borscht-and-bagels resort where Liston was training for his Sept. 25 bout with World Champion Floyd Patterson. One after another, they were helped out. "In the morning, Willie Reddish asks who's got The Bear today," sighed "Slim" Jim Robinson, who has had difficulty lasting one round, "and I say, 'Don't tell me until after I've eaten. I want to enjoy my breakfast.' " Onetime Welterweight Champion Barney Ross watched Liston deck another sparring partner five times, wryly suggested that Trainer Reddish import zombies from darkest Africa. "Where else are you going to find training partners? He's the kind that knocks you on the chin and breaks your ankle. He'll knock out Patterson in five rounds."

Psychological warfare is as much a part of boxing as the diets of raw steak, and before every fight the camps are full of scary stories about the mayhem inflicted on sparring partners. The journeymen pugs hired as sparring mates are not paid to make the star look bad -even if they could. Yet those in Liston's camp seem to stand in genuine awe of the 30-year-old giant who may yet prove to be one of the most powerful fighters in history. In training since the first week in May, he has trimmed his 6-ft. 1-in. frame down to 220 Ibs. of bulging muscle, and he is one man who knows his own strength. Liston literally has knocked the stuffing out of a 45-lb. punching bag with one swipe of his right fist. He laughs disdainfully while Trainer Reddish slams a 12-lb. medicine ball into his stomach. In The Pines' steam room one day, Liston picked up a 50-lb. weight with his right hand, casually tossed it up over his head and caught it with his left. Gasped Polino: "If you had dropped it, it would have been all over."

Aside from the practical jokes he plays on reporters, Liston has little time for fun. His wife Geraldine lives in a separate cabin, sporadically attends his workouts.

Liston sleeps alone, eats alone, often sits alone brooding or watching TV. Says Liston: "I love to swim and dance, but the fight is getting close. I'm cutting out all the playing and getting down to business." For Liston, business starts at 4:30 a.m., when he gets up, slips into a hooded sweatsuit and pounds on Reddish's door.

"Head 'em up!" he yells. "Move 'em out! Let's go!" Before breakfast (two eggs, toast, tea), Liston hits the road for a fast-paced four-mile jaunt around a deserted golf course or over the cinders of an abandoned railroad track. "If your legs is good," he explains, "your wind is good."

Set to Music. Highlight of Liston's day is his public afternoon workout -as smoothly organized as a Broadway musical. The air is heavy with tension and dank with sweat; fans jam the 100-seat outdoor bleachers (at $1 a seat), and rock 'n' roll blares from a portable phonograph. Precisely at 2:30 p.m., Liston announces his arrival with an electrifying rat-a-tat on the lightweight "speed bag." He begins to shadowbox, sliding lithely about the ring, huge fists darting out at imaginary opponents. "Time!" calls a handler, and Liston begins to whale away in earnest at his sparring partners. "Time!" again, and Liston switches his attack to the heavy punching bag. Then he skips rope (to the tune of Night Train), winds up his workout with a dramatic, neck-wrenching headstand on a rubbing table.

Bigger and slower than Champion Patterson, Liston is working hard on speed, stamina and agility: he is well aware that he must catch Patterson before he can hit him. Once he gets within range, Liston is supremely confident of the result. At least he talks a great fight in advance. "I don't care when, where, or how we fight," he says. "I don't even care if Patterson's manager referees the fight. Just so long as he can count to ten."

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