A bronze plaque in the Garden of Peace, just south of the children's section at Paradise Memorial Gardens, reads: "CHARLES 'SONNY' LISTON, 1932-1970, A MAN." 

A man who had frequent tangles with the law. A man whose hands were so big, he couldn't wear normal boxing gloves. A man who intimidated opponents with his angry glower and flattened them with his fists. A man who was never called "a credit to his race." A man Ali described as "a big, ugly bear." A man who, as biographer Nick Tosches put it, "had more pasts than most people had socks."

In The Devil and Sonny Liston he exposes Sonny's dark side while rendering him oddly compelling.