Amateur Boxing Career
After he was released from prison on October 31, 1952, Liston had a brief amateur career that spanned less than a year. He won several amateur tournaments, including the Golden Gloves, which was his first. One of his opponents was Olympic Heavyweight Champion Ed Sanders in Chicago, whom he beat. This win put him into the national finals in March 1953, where he beat the respected New Yorker Julius Griffin, despite being dropped in round one.
Liston then entered the 1953 AAU event, but he lost in the quarter-finals to 17-year-old Jimmy Carter, whom he would later employ as a sparring partner. In the Kiel Auditorium in June 1953, Liston fought a boxer from a touring Western European side, Hermann Schreibauer, who only weeks earlier had won a bronze medal in the European Championships. Liston knocked him out 2:16 into round 1. At this time the head coach of the St. Louis Golden Gloves team Tony Anderson commented Liston was the strongest fighter he had ever seen.
Liston signed his professional contract in September 1953, only exclaiming during the signing, "Whatever you tell me to do, I'll do."
Read more about this topic: Sonny Liston
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