Sport: Fight Talk

• Share

The scene: a recent press conference at the training camp of Heavyweight Challenger Charles ("Sonny") Liston, in New York's Catskill Mountains. Liston has not yet arrived; Trainer Willie Reddish and his assistant, Joe Polino. are talking with reporters and a London TV producer. Enter Liston, glowering.

Liston: Where that fifty bucks you owe me?

Polino: I dunno nuthin' about no fifty bucks.

Liston screws his heavy features into a frightening grimace. He swings a vicious right to Polino's jaw. The muscular assistant trainer staggers, spits out a mouthful of teeth, backs off and grabs a golf club to defend himself. Liston draws a gun. Bang! Bang! A red stain spreads slowly where Polino clutches his chest. Sportswriters flee in panic; one newsman from Baltimore cowers behind the fireplace. The TV producer faints dead away.

Knowing Sonny Listen's reputation for viciousness in the ring (33 victories, one loss, 23 knockouts) and his "bad boy" record outside it (19 arrests since 1950, on charges ranging from armed robbery to assaulting a police officer), his training camp visitors could be excused a certain amount of nervousness. But it was all only Liston's idea of a gag. Polino's lost "teeth" were actually white beans; the gun was a blank pistol, the blood ketchup−and the victims just Liston's playacting trainers. It is his sparring partners who are the victims of Liston's real malevolence.

"Don't Tell Me."" One after another last week, they climbed bravely into the outdoor ring at The Pines, the swank borscht-and-bagels resort where Liston was training for his Sept. 25 bout with World Champion Floyd Patterson. One after another, they were helped out. "In the morning, Willie Reddish asks who's got The Bear today," sighed "Slim" Jim Robinson, who has had difficulty lasting one round, "and I say, 'Don't tell me until after I've eaten. I want to enjoy my breakfast.' " Onetime Welterweight Champion Barney Ross watched Liston deck another sparring partner five times, wryly suggested that Trainer Reddish import zombies from darkest Africa. "Where else are you going to find training partners? He's the kind that knocks you on the chin and breaks your ankle. He'll knock out Patterson in five rounds."