Sonny Liston was a grizzled vet with heavy pair of hands that had kayoed many prominent heavyweights of the time like Floyd Patterson, Cleveland Williams but Big George was coming off scary easy KO wins over Joe Frazier and Ken Norton who were themselves coming off biggest wins of their career at that point, both over the great Muhammad Ali. So I would say Foreman.
The fear before the first Clay-Liston fight was more out of awe of Liston's reputation and ignorance of Clay's talent and potentials as a youthful heavyweight contender.
The fear before the Ali-Foreman fight was also out of awe of Foreman's reputation and previous record versus Frazier and Norton who both had beaten Ali and concern about Ali's health and safety at that point as Ali seemed to be already slipping as he aged. In 1974, it had been ten years since Ali, then known as Clay first won the world championship over Liston and he was just on his fourth year coming back after being forced to semi-retirement in 1967 and at that point, Ali was already 32 years old,too old for the young, strong, non-respecting and impetuous Foreman. So much so that boxing pundits did not give him any chance despite a brilliant and dominant title reign in the 60s,
I say Foreman.
Foreman and heres why: the only 2 to beat Ali (Frazier and Norton) were demolished by George in combined 4 rounds so most assumed Foreman world punish and retire Ali. Plus Foreman was a gold medalist who until Ali never had trouble against anyone, combine that with his physical attributes and u got the most feared man in boxing
From what I saw on ESPN Sports Century, Sonny Liston was thought to be a Bag Man for The Mob. If you owed the Mob Money, they sent Sonny Liston to collect it. Fighters really were terrified of Sonny Liston both in The Boxing Ring and outside The Boxing Ring. Fighters were only afraid of George Forman inside The Boxing Ring.
Liston by far.
He had mob connections, he was a BIG POWERFUL MAN, with a LONG reach, one punch KO pop in either hand, and an iron jaw. He lived a life of mystery and tragedy. All of those things made him feared, way more feared than Ali facing Foreman.
Both were supposed to destroy AlI before the upset victories.
