Sonny Liston -vs- Bill McMurray 3/16/68 (16mm transfer)

If you were a capable heavyweight boxer in the mid 1960s, who happened to be a tall, lean and fit 6’4”, you may have compared your likeness to then Heavyweight Champion Muhammad Ali. Perhaps, like the champion, you were light on your feet with a respectable jab, good counterpunching skills and worked well at long range. Having those tools, you may have watched, as many people did, how Ali the challenger controlled and defeated the previous reigning champion Sonny Liston. Despite Liston’s reputation as an unstoppable force, you likely noted how well and effective Ali used his advantages in height, speed and movement to overwhelm Liston. Frankly, it looked pretty easy. It may have occurred to you then, given the financial rewards and the opportunity for a match of your own, you may also be able to defeat the beast that had been Sonny Liston.

Such may have been the thoughts of heavyweight Bill “Fred” McMurray as he prepared to fight Sonny Liston on March 16, 1968. But whatever McMurray may have been thinking as the fight approached, Sonny Liston certainly had thoughts of his own. Among them perhaps, his freedom from certain obligations, and debts, that came with holding the Heavyweight Championship. And how the act of dispatching this particular pretender would be neither redemption nor revenge, but it would be sweet nonetheless.

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