Muhammad Ali's phantom/anchor punch

Correct. It was a knockdown punch. Liston got up, remember?

 

This is the sort of toadying, sycophantic nonsense that brings out a countering opinion from well balanced fans, which in turn leads to posters like this to accuse anybody who presents a contrary views as Ali "haters".

 

Ali lands a very fast punch, Liston falls, pretty naturally. This is very hard to fake. Think about it, you've got a split second to decide, "yep, that was a solid shot. I could go down now".

Oh, and Liston does eventually get up to try and continue, which works against the fix theory.

 

Did he ever land the punch in any other fight with the same result?

 

Not at all. Liston had flopped around on the canvas too long to sustain any credibility.
The crowd was already screaming "fix".
I believe Liston had decided 'This one won't work. Nobody believes it. I'll have to try again a little later'.


At the time, everyone knew it was a fix. It wasn't until the Ali cult developed that his fans started claiming it was a legitimate fight.

 

Not that I'm aware of. He never made mention of it again.
He fought a lot of long, draining fights that don't make sense, if he had possessed such a punch.

 

Yes Cleveland Williams. Same kind of sharp punch not hard enough to hurt but too sharp to stay up. Just not enough time to react to. Williams got up as well.

Fleischer, Walcott and Ali between them (more than Liston) did more to ruin that fight. Sonny never got a count.

 

I've seen better acting in the WWF/WWE then the performance Liston gave that night in Maine back in 1965...

 

He wasn't going to get up until he got a count. Sonny looks rediculous staying down though and to be fair Liston looked like he lost a lot of interest in the fight after he was picked off earlier before the Kd.

I think Sonny knew he was beat going in. Like Walcott against Marciano, Patterson against Sonny we will never know if their hearts were really in these rematches. The Rematch clause period meant that fights were made that the loser might not necessarily have wanted.

Back then you had to beat the champ twice to get a title. The rematch was a kind of pension plan.

 

Zora Folley was stunned with the same type of punch. He also dropped Williams with a similar shot.

 

I will re phrase my earlier post in this thread.
Yes a 'punch' landed in the sense that one of Ali's gloves made contact with Liston !
You can't change the first reactions no matter how much people try / Liston rolled around like some WWF 'actor' rather than the involuntary body collapse of a genuinely knocked down/out fighter.
Ali shouted at him to get up,as he knew he'd gone over from a 'nothing' punch.
The 'anchor' punch nonsense was invented at a later moment / bit like a 'magic bullet' and just as crazy.
Many things about Ali and his legend are fantastic,but this nonsense is what it is.
Not everything Ali did should have to be legitimised into some kind of superhuman magic / all this does for me ,is detract from his legend slightly,rather than add to it.
Liston took a dive 100%. He just didn't fancy the job and all that went with fighting Ali /he was unable to cope mentally with all that came with Ali , plus he had been thoroughly dismantled in their first fight.
He trained hard initially for the rematch,but after it was postponed due to Ali having a hernia operation,Liston couldn't re-motivate himself.He simply didn't fancy the job ,he just didn't have the wit to make it look convincing !

 

This. The biggest clue in the legitimacy of the punch is Ali's immediate reaction,he stands over Liston gesturing for him to get up saying "get up ya bum" or similar.
That's one of the reasons that the count took so long,looking at Sonny on the floor it was a joke the way he tried to fake it.
Also the right hands Ali ko'd Williams and Folley with were nothing like "the phantom punch" they were chopping right hands delivered with much more power,it was a punch Ali occasionally produced throughout his career and it usually hurt people. The punch that he landed on Sonny he was going backwards and he more or less just placed it onto Liston,a punch like that knocking out Sonny Liston? Do me a favour and i'm Ali's biggest fan.

 

Really?

Hopkins stopped De La Hoya with a liver shot. Why didn't Hopkins just knock out everyone with a liver shot?

Mike McCallum knocked out Donald Curry with a sweeping left hook. Why didn't McCallum just knock out everyone with a sweeping left hook?

Roy Jones hit Virgil Hill with a right to the body and cracked his rib, why didn't Jones just do that to everyone?

George Foreman knocked out Michael Moorer with a simple jab-right combination. Why didn't he just knock out everyone with that combo?

I swear to God. Some of the questions people ask on this forum are f*cking ridiculous.

Ali's power, particularly in his first "career," is vastly underrated.

In Ali's last 21 fights before his exile, beginning with the Alex Miteff fight (one of the first ranked guys he faced), Ali stopped 18 of those 21 opponents. And one of those who went the distance - Terrell - was carried, because Ali wanted to punish him.

If you have 18 stoppage wins in 21 fights - and you're accused of torturing a guy in one of the distance fights because you obviously could've stopped him but didn't - YOU CAN HIT.

Whether Liston went down on purpose, or he was stunned, or whatever, is open to question. We all KNOW that. That's why the question has been debated for 50 years.

But anyone who asks anything resembling: "Why didn't Ali just knock out everyone with that punch?" should be barred from the discussion.

I swear.

C'mon.:roll:atsch

 

I think the knockdown was legitimate, Liston was reaching in with a jab and Ali caught him. What happened afterwards was clear acting on Liston's part, I don't think he took a dive for his or anybody else's financial gains though.

 

Warwick Hunt

Playing the "I'm an Ali fan" card to make your arguments (criticism) seem more valid is just childish.

Oh and, Ali rarely stood over his opponents after forcing them to the canvas, correct?