His career was to some degree always controlled by mobsters, but by 1958 he had become the special project of the leading gangsters in the boxing business. There were layers to his management, with each stratum more secretive and powerful than the one below. On paper, Joseph “Pep” Barone was his manager, but he was merely a front man for Philadelphia gangster Frank “Blinky” Palermo, who in turn took orders from Frankie Carbo. And with such influential friends behind him, Liston’s career bounded forward. Suddenly he was able to get fights with leading contenders, and by spring 1960 he was the top-ranked fighter in the division.28
His problem, however, was that he had become a focal point for critics who assailed the sport. From the late 1940s to the early 1960s, two men from two organizations had control of prizefighting. The first was initially a legal corporation organized in 1949. Controlled by James Dougan Norris, a Chicago businessman, the International Boxing Club (IBC) soon acquired a stranglehold on the promotion of major fights in the United States. Within a few years, it was a monopolistic octopus of the first order, and in 1957, a federal court ruled it so and ordered it broken up. Two years later, it was disbanded.29
But like Liston’s managers of record and undercover managers, James Norris was little more than a front man for Frankie Carbo, whose power was virtually absolute, his dictates tantamount to royal commands. Virtually every major boxing manager and promoter worked to some degree with Carbo—his henchmen gave them no choice—and many fighters owed their careers to him, as Sonny Liston did.
Carbo’s influence began to wane in the late 1950s, when he was arrested for federal income tax violations and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. But Liston’s career continued to flourish. Sportswriters debated whether Patterson should give him a title shot and whether he was a reformed man or still a back-alley thug, but none questioned that he was the most fearsome, most qualified contender in the division. Even President John F. Kennedy offered an opinion. In January 1962, at a White House meeting with Patterson, he suggested that Floyd not risk his crown against Liston.30
Patterson, however, was an honorable man who believed in redemption and second chances. Liston’s life, he thought, was not so different from his. Both had bad beginnings and had moved into petty crime, only Floyd had received help and Sonny had not. A devout Catholic, Patterson believed, “There but for the grace of God, go I.” Liston had committed crimes, gone to prison, paid his debt, and was now a fellow professional. No matter what Patterson’s manager, Cus D’Amato; sportswriters; the NAACP; or the president of the United States thought, Liston had earned a chance to fight for the heavyweight title.31
Patterson fought Liston on September 25, 1962, under the lights at Comiskey Park in Chicago. It may have been the most talked-and written-about fight since the 1938 rematch between Joe Louis and Max Schmeling. It was covered by some two hundred sportswriters and a distinguished collection of novelists and essayists. Less than half a year after the death of Benny “the Kid” Paret, they seemed to have come to write boxing’s obituary. Norman Mailer had been sent by Esquire, James Baldwin by Nugget, and A. J. Liebling by The New Yorker. They were joined by Gay Talese, Nelson Algren, Budd Schulberg, Gerald Kersh, and a busload of others. Surveying the array of talent, Liebling judged that it was like one of “those highly intellectual pour-parlers on a Mediterranean island” and suspected that “placed before typewriters, the accumulated novelists could have produced a copy of the Paris Review in forty-two minutes.”32
Yet the great struggle to determine which black man would represent the aching hopes and smoldering resentments of black Americans was not much of a contest at all. Instead of staying away from Liston, Patterson advanced toward him, trying to slip under what he thought was a slow jab and get close enough to land hooks to Sonny’s body and face. But Sonny banged away with several hard hooks, then he pushed a left to the head that sent Patterson sprawling onto the ropes. As Floyd bounced awkwardly off the ropes, Liston hit him with a left, a grazing right, and a devastating left hook that half lifted him off the ground.
Patterson dropped to the canvas like a man who had slipped on ice, landing clumsily and rolling onto his back. Immediately, he maneuvered to his side, managing to elevate his torso slightly. There he hesitated, shaking his head a few times in an attempt to regain his senses. Finally, he struggled to his feet. But it was too late. Referee Frank Sikora had counted him out at two minutes ten seconds of the first round. Summarizing the match, Gilbert Rogin reconfigured a Churchillian phrase, writing, “Never have so many paid so much to see so little.”33