Angelo Dundee’s take on Liston v Patterson and both Ali v liston fights

I think you expect too much from Sonny Liston.

Perhaps ....
He did a "bad dive" for whatever reason. He made it worse with his side-flop-off-the-knee. He wasn't receiving a count from the referee at all, which must have befuddled him further, so by default he got up. At this point he would possibly have been paranoid that everyone could see through him, and embarrassed. Anyway, he'd have no immediate plan B.

You suddenly expect him to work out how to do a convincing dive in the next few seconds and make everything right ?

 

^

This guy gets what actually went down.

The "side flop off the knee" was a key. Bad acting, but poor Sonny must have been wondering just what in the hell he had to do to finally get counted out.

 

If Sonny laid down he did it twice, because when Ali does finally go to a neutral corner he starts to get up and goes back down again.

 

Yeah, certainly not defending himself that well.

And I see nothing unconvincing with how he went down. Marciano went down from an awkward arm punch from Moore. But Moore didn't then stand over Rocky and scream at him.

 

Clearly a dive and nobody can convince me otherwise.
But Angelo was a fibber when it suited him to be one.

 

Exactly.

I haven't see any convincing 'innocent' explanation why he did that, because everyone can see it was bad acting.
And, as I said previously, it he was looking for a 'safe moment' to get up that was it, when Ali was actually on the other side of the ring.
It would have taken him a split second to stand up off his knee .... OR he could have stayed on his knee and kept his eyes on Ali/Walcott ... but he flopped again instead.
As if to show how "hurt" he was.

Combined with the apparent fact that ALI of all people wasn't convinced by the first knockdown, the whole thing looks like a case of a fighter taking a bad dive.

Thing is, if this was two 4-round undercard club-fighters, I think no one would even doubt that the guy taking the flop had gone in planning to lose.

 

That's good but Muhammad Ali was closest and he didn't look at all convinced.

 

True. I have seen less convincing football dives than this.

 

As soon as Walcott's back was turned, Ali was back in the center of the ring.
He should have been DQd... IMO...

 

The fairest thing would have been to rule it a NC due to Walcott's poor officiating.
I'd have loved to see Ali DQ'd but I think he was shocked himself about what was happening (though he used the same illegal tactics against Bonavena a few years later). Liston took a dive, Ali flipped out, Walcott lost control...it was a mess and should have been a NC. I have encountered virtually zero people over the years who believe Ali knocked him out. If Ali himself believed it he would not have yelled at Liston to get up...he'd have just been happy that the fight was over.

Dundee is an amusing and clever guy but, like lots of guys in the boxing game, was not above dishonesty.

 

I think Ali and Walcott were thrown for a loop because Liston went down a couple of rounds before he was supposed to have.
They had this one planned to not look like a fix and Liston broke script.

 

Sonny Liston trained hard and was in the best shape of his career for the 'original' scheduled rematch against Ali, weighing in a 208 lbs. Then the post dinner hernia Ali suffered killed Liston's second legitimate shot at the title and probably marked the beginning of the end for him.

Middle-class America at this period did not want someone like Liston to be boxing champion, his life was made a perpetual hell outside the ring no matter where he went by 95% of the cowardly boxing press, the political activists, and crooked pen pushers of holier-than-thou pretentions.

Ali's pre-match antics made an impressive smoke and mirrors show to distract Liston, but it never really affected him as he gave as good as he got with his own tricks that had Ali running scared. In-between this, the real fear both fighters had were the politics, religon and the mob pulling the strings.

In the 2nd fight, he simply exposed what a farce top level boxing really is back then by diving, but he never really ever got out of the woods.


Anh

P.S, Dundee talks bollox whenever it suits him, I would take his comments with a huge pinch of salt.

 

So what do you make of Liston falling sideways off his knee ?
Doesn't that suggest that Liston wanted to stay down and if you call the first knockdown a "flash knockdown" what do you call his flopping the second time ?