The other thing that surprised me was that, before reading the book, I had always been of the view that the Mafia was an unmitigated negative force in Liston's life, and that things might have been a whole lot different (read: whole lot better), had Liston's path never crossed that of the mob. And yet, in reasing this book, I got the sense that they actually did more positive thingsfor him than negative and actually allowed him to rise through the ranks and get a shot at the title. Of course, whether this is accurate obviously depends in part on whether the mob forced him to throw one or both of the Ali fights. Anyway, it was a very good book and one which I recommend.
