What is Sonny Liston's record?

50–4 in boxing. That is the aggregate stated in the English Wikipedia infobox; the results table on the same article lists 52 bouts individually.

Does a no contest change a record here?

No. A no contest is not a win, a loss or a draw, and it is never folded into one. It is counted and printed separately, so a 20–0 record with two no contests is shown as exactly that rather than as 22–0 or as 20–0 with the no contests dropped. The same applies to a bout overturned after the fact where the source records the change.

What happens when sources disagree about a fight?

This site publishes one source — the fighter's English Wikipedia article, read on the date printed under every table — and it does not silently reconcile that against anyone else's database. Where the article's own infobox total and its own results table disagree, both are shown and the page says which one each figure came from. Nothing is averaged, and no field is filled in from a second source to make a total balance.

Sonny Liston — record, reach and career in context

Boxing record

50–4

Sonny Liston has a reach of 84″ against a height of 73″ — a reach advantage of +15.1%, exceptional for heavyweight boxing and the 100th percentile of the 317 compared here.

WON ABOVE·LOST BELOW BAR = STOPPAGE·BROKEN BAR = SUBMISSION·TICK = DECISION 1953–1970

SOURCE·Sonny Liston — English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)·derived figures computed here·REVIEWED 2026-07-29

How this record is compiled

Measurements come from the fighter's English Wikipedia infobox; the bout list is parsed from the results table on the same article, read on 2026-07-29. Boxing tables are read by header name and MMA records by the fixed column order of the MMA record template — two different parsers, because reading MMA rows as a boxing table returns a fighter's boxing record in place of their real one.
A bout enters the ledger with whatever fields the source states: result, opponent, method, round, year. Any field the source leaves empty stays empty here. A date that cannot be established is left blank rather than inferred, and the bout is still counted.
A no contest is counted and printed as a no contest. It is never folded into the wins, the losses or the draws, and it never disappears to make a total balance.
Where the article's infobox total disagrees with its own results table, both figures are published and each is labelled with where it came from. Nothing is averaged and nothing is reconciled against a second database.
Percentiles rank this fighter among the 317 heavyweight boxing fighters in the dataset — the most specific group of at least 30 that this fighter belongs to.

reach advantage = (reach − height) ÷ height × 100

Sources, exclusions and known limits →

Bout record

Every bout the article's own results table lists, in order. A dash is a field the source leaves empty — it is not a zero and it is not a guess.

Bout-by-bout recordAUG 2026
Year	Result	Opponent	Method	Rd
1970	W	Chuck Wepner	KO/TKO	9
1969	L	Leotis Martin	KO/TKO	9
1969	W	Sonny Moore	KO/TKO	3
1969	W	George Johnson	KO/TKO	7
1969	W	Billy Joiner	Decision	10
1968	W	Amos Lincoln	KO/TKO	2
1968	W	Roger Rischer	KO/TKO	3
1968	W	Willis Earls	KO/TKO	2
1968	W	Sonny Moore	KO/TKO	3
1968	W	Henry Clark	KO/TKO	7
1968	W	Billy Joiner	KO/TKO	7
1968	W	Bill McMurray	KO/TKO	4
1967	W	Elmer Rush	KO/TKO	6
1967	W	Dave Bailey	KO/TKO	1
1966	W	Amos Johnson	KO/TKO	3
1966	W	Gerhard Zech	KO/TKO	7
1965	L	Muhammad Ali	KO/TKO	1
1964	L	Cassius Clay	KO/TKO	6
1963	W	Floyd Patterson	KO/TKO	1
1962	W	Floyd Patterson	KO/TKO	1
1961	W	Albert Westphal	KO/TKO	1
1961	W	Howard King	KO/TKO	3
1960	W	Eddie Machen	Decision	12
1960	W	Zora Folley	KO/TKO	3
1960	W	Roy Harris	KO/TKO	1
1960	W	Cleveland Williams	KO/TKO	2
1960	W	Howard King	KO/TKO	7
1959	W	Willi Besmanoff	KO/TKO	6
1959	W	Niño Valdés	KO/TKO	3
1959	W	Cleveland Williams	KO/TKO	3
1959	W	Mike DeJohn	KO/TKO	6
1958	W	Ernie Cab	KO/TKO	7
1958	W	Bert Whitehurst	Decision	10
1958	W	Frankie Daniels	KO/TKO	1
1958	W	Wayne Bethea	KO/TKO	1
1958	W	Julio Mederos	—	2
1958	W	Ben Wise	KO/TKO	4
1958	W	Billy Hunter	KO/TKO	2
1956	W	Marty Marshall	Decision	10
1955	W	Larry Watson	KO/TKO	4
1955	W	Johnny Gray	KO/TKO	6
1955	W	Calvin Butler	KO/TKO	2
1955	W	Emil Brtko	KO/TKO	5
1955	W	Marty Marshall	KO/TKO	6
1955	W	Neal Welch	Decision	8
1954	L	Marty Marshall	Decision	8
1954	W	Johnny Summerlin	Decision	8
1954	W	Stanley Howlett	Decision	6
1954	W	Martin Lee	KO/TKO	6
1953	W	Bennie Thomas	—	6
1953	W	Ponce de Leon	—	4
1953	W	Don Smith	—	1

11 of these opponents have their own page here.

SOURCE·Sonny Liston — English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)·derived figures computed here·REVIEWED 2026-07-29

Reach in context

Reach advantage

+15.1%

84″ reach on a 73″ frame

lowestmedianhighest

Compared against 317 heavyweight boxing fighters. Median 3.99%.

-2.8%heavyweight boxing reach advantage12%

Measurements
Reach	84″ (213.4 cm)	94th pct
Height	73″ (185.4 cm)	27th pct
Stance	Orthodox
Division	Heavyweight Boxing
Most active decade	1960s — 26 of 52 dated bouts
Country	United States

Record

Boxing record

50–4

54 bouts on record

Finish rate

78%

of wins ended inside the distance — heavyweight boxing median 68%, 74th percentile

By knockout 78%
By decision 22%

The career, bout by bout

52 recorded bouts from 1953 to 1970. Every incumbent shows this as a table you have to read; here it is as a shape you can see.

winlossdraw / NC1953–1970

Career span

18y

1953–1970

Longest unbeaten run

30

without a loss — draws do not break it

Busiest year

1958

7 bouts

Recorded bouts

52

52 with a date

Closest in build

heavyweight boxing fighters with the nearest reach advantage.

Standing questions

What this record does and does not say

What is Sonny Liston's record?: 50–4 in boxing. That is the aggregate stated in the English Wikipedia infobox; the results table on the same article lists 52 bouts individually.
Does a no contest change a record here?: No. A no contest is not a win, a loss or a draw, and it is never folded into one. It is counted and printed separately, so a 20–0 record with two no contests is shown as exactly that rather than as 22–0 or as 20–0 with the no contests dropped. The same applies to a bout overturned after the fact where the source records the change.
What happens when sources disagree about a fight?: This site publishes one source — the fighter's English Wikipedia article, read on the date printed under every table — and it does not silently reconcile that against anyone else's database. Where the article's own infobox total and its own results table disagree, both are shown and the page says which one each figure came from. Nothing is averaged, and no field is filled in from a second source to make a total balance.

Cross-references

Heavyweight boxing

The 605 heavyweight boxing fighters this record is ranked against, and the distribution Liston sits inside.

605 FIGHTERS 1960s boxing

26 of these bouts fall in the 1960s. This is what the rest of that decade's records look like.

72 FIGHTERS Floyd Patterson vs Sonny Liston

A bout both records confirm — set out side by side, with every opponent the two men have in common.

1962 Longest unbeaten runs

Sonny Liston went 30 without a loss. This is where that sits against every run on the site.

LEADERBOARD