Quote Originally Posted by Master View Post
Quote Originally Posted by brocktonblockbust View Post
Leotis Martin>

"I know Sonny owed a lotta money to some cats in Henderson, Nevada. He fought hard and was beating me, then suddenly from 3 rows behind the timekeeper someone yelled 'Sonny on the Money!", and then Liston left himself wide open for my KO punch. Just didn't seem right."
is this true or bill paxtom true?
Publicist Harold Conrad and others believed that Liston was deeply involved as a bill collector in a loan-sharking ring in Las Vegas. When he tried to muscle in for a bigger share of the action, Conrad surmised that his employers got him very drunk, took him home, and stuck him with a needle. (2) Professional gambler Lem Banker insists that Liston was murdered by drug dealers with whom he'd become involved. Banker said he was told by police that Liston had been seen at a house that would be the target of a drug raid. Banker said, "Sheriff [Ralph] Lamb told me, 'Tell your pal Sonny to stay away from the West Side because we're going to bust the drug dealers.'" Banker later learned that the police told Liston the same thing to his face. He apparently was at the dealers' house shortly before they got busted. Because of that, the dealers may have thought Sonny ratted on them and they shot him with a hot dose as retribution. (3) The mob promised Liston some money to throw the second Ali fight but they never paid him. As the years passed and Liston's financial situation worsened, he got angry and told the mob he'd go public with the story unless they gave him the money. That got him killed. (4) Liston was supposed to take a dive when he fought Chuck Wepner six months earlier, and killing him was payback for his failure to do so.[55]

Some believe the police covered up what happened. On January 1, Liston's wife called Johnny Tocco and said she hadn't heard from her husband in three days and was worried. A few years before he died, Johnny Tocco allegedly told his good friend, Tony Davi, that he went to Liston's house and found the door locked and his car in the driveway. Tocco called the police, and they broke into the house. Tocco said that the living room furniture was in disarray but the house did not yet smell of death. He said they found Sonny lying on his bed with a needle sticking out of his arm. Johnny left the house before the police did. "Johnny wasn't a braggart," Davi told Liston biographer Paul Gallender. "He told me in the strictest confidence, but it was like he wanted to get it off his chest." Gallender claims, "A lot of officers knew Sonny was dead before Geraldine returned home on January 5, but they chose to let him rot."[55]

Sonny Liston is interred in Paradise Memorial Gardens in Las Vegas, Nevada. His headstone bears the simple epitaph: "A Man."