Editing Sonny Liston (section)

==Amateur career==
After Liston was released from prison on October 31, 1952, he had a brief amateur career that spanned less than a year. Liston captured the [[Chicago Golden Gloves]] Tournament of Champions on March 6, 1953, with a victory over 1952 [[Olympics|Olympic]] Heavyweight Champion [[Ed Sanders (boxer)|Ed Sanders]]. He then outpointed Julius Griffin, winner of the [[New York Golden Gloves|New York Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions]], to capture the [[Intercity Golden Gloves]] Championship on March 26 (representing Chicago). Liston was knocked down in the first round, but came back to control the next two rounds and had Griffin hanging on at the end.{{citation needed|date=February 2016}}

Liston competed in the 1953 [[United States National Boxing Championships|United States National Championships]] at [[Boston Garden]] and passed the preliminaries, stopping Lou Graff in the second round on April 13, but lost in the quarterfinals to 17-year-old [[Jim McCarter|Jimmy McCarter]] on April 15. He would later employ McCarter as a [[sparring partner]].<ref>{{cite journal|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6199110/Jacobs-Beach-by-Kevin-Mitchell-review.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/6199110/Jacobs-Beach-by-Kevin-Mitchell-review.html |archive-date=January 12, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|newspaper=The Telegraph|title=Jacob's Beach by Kevin Mitchell: review|date=September 20, 2009}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

On June 23, 1953, a team consisting of ten recent [[St. Louis]] Golden Gloves champions of all weight classes, with Liston on top as the heavyweight, was gathered to represent the United States in an International Golden Gloves (USA vs. West Europe) competition at [[Kiel Auditorium]] in St. Louis. Liston knocked out Hermann Schreibauer of [[West Germany]] at 2:16 of the first round. The previous month, Schreibauer had won a bronze medal in the [[1953 European Amateur Boxing Championships|European Championships]].{{citation needed|date=August 2022}} At this time, the head coach of the St. Louis Golden Gloves team, Tony Anderson, stated that Liston was the strongest fighter he had seen.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cdWp6foVPA4C&q=Tony+Anderson%2C+stated+that+Liston+was+the+strongest+fighter+he+had+ever+seen.&pg=PT34|title=Liston and Ali: The Ugly Bear and the Boy Who Would Be King|last=Mee|first=Bob|date=January 25, 2011|publisher=Mainstream Publishing|isbn=9781907195655|language=en}}</ref>