Sonny Liston

I'm reading "The Devil and Sonny Liston", Nick Tosches' biography of the great heavyweight. This would be him knocking out Floyd Patterson to take the title of World Champ.



Liston, not Tosches.

I like a biography to run about 250 pages--after that my lips get tired--and Tosches weighs in at a clean 253. Liston, for the record, fought at about 200 most of his career. And I have to say, Tosches' book is good clean fun. Which is hard.

What's hard?
To admit anything by Nick Tosches is good.
Why's that?
Because I can't stand the guy.
Do you know him?
No. I mean, just based on reading his work.
How much have you read?
Actually just one other thing. That was enough.
What was it?
"In the Hand of Dante."
Oh yeah. That one sucked.
Made me angry.
Angry?
Yeah. I hate writers who go out of their way to seem like tough-guys. Few, outside of detective fiction--which, I suppose, gives you a license for that sort of thing--try harder than Tosches.
I bet the photo on the inside flap of his hardcovers is really lame.
Yeah. Probably wearing cowboy boots and a Members-Only jacket.
Sonny Liston, on the other hand, was a legitimately mean dude.
Yes he was.