Liston vs Ali 2, Did Ali try to buy Liston recovery time?

No, very much the opposite.

A simple script had been planned, where Liston would go down in the first round, and get counted out.

It was presumed that Ali would simply walk to his corner, and accept the gift, because why wouldn't he?

I presume that what happened, was that Ali had built himself up mentally for a long fight, and when victory was delivered to him so easily, he kind of lost the plot.

This then forced a bit of improvisation from others, in order to rescue teh simple script.

 

Looks to me that Ali’s response was completely off the cuff & motivated only by contempt, so I’d guess no.

 

Yeah....
Something that always struck me about was that Ali's looked really upset.
Maybe Ali was aware of the deal, maybe not ... but in any case his anger at Liston seemed real enough.

A hyphotesis is Ali "knew" that Liston was going to gift him the fight, but in a credible way, with Liston taking his time, exchanging some punches and going through the motions for a few rounds.

However Liston's shameless quitting literally blew the whistle and risked the fix being exposed and damaging Ali's reputation ...therefore Ali's anger.

Another possibility is Ali was legit and fighting for real, but when Liston shamelessly dived Ali realized there would be suspicions of fixing and his reputation would be damaged, therefore his anger to Liston.

 

No imo Ali was just caught up in the kd, he wanted him to get up so he could prove that he was better than Liston.
He wanted to beat the crap out of sonny basically.

 

After landing the "Phantom" punch...Liston goes down...and Ali later says he's yelling at Sonny saying-"Get up...Get up...Nobody's gonna believe this...get up!"...Both of their "fights" were suspicious....Miami in '64...and Maine in '65

 

I don’t think there was any nefarious script and I don’t think that was a phantom punch, it rippled Liston’s neck muscles, which took some doing, it was so quick and sharp. I think it registered with Sonny that he didn’t have anything for Ali that night and he just quit, very clumsily, because like all bullies he didn’t want to get embarrassed or humiliated. The end.

And IMO, the residual crap about this that still percolates after nearly 60 years stems from three things: Neil Leifer’s photo, the belief among oldtimers that in a “fair fight” Liston should have had no trouble with Ali, and dislike and disrespect for Ali.

I have more respect for Liston than a lot of people here even though he quit that night, I have him in my top 10, but Ali was a superior fighter to him, just like he was superior to someone else who’s in my top 10 who actually is beloved here and people like to “coulda, shoulda, woulda” speculate that if X, Y or Z had or hadn’t happened, he’d have shut that loudmouth up permanently, Joe Frazier.

 

Exactly! Ali had heard the rumors of Sonny taking a dive and he knew this was it and how it was going to look to everyone..and he was right

 

Liston didn't cheat. Both Ali and Dundee have admitted this themselves. I don't know why this myth won't die.

Perhaps he wasn't fighting confidently in the 6th, because he had a worsening injury?

 

I'm really not sure why people think the first fight was fixed. Sonny fought his ass off, was outboxed & outslicked, and quit (likely from injury and/or exhaustion). It happens to even the best of 'em, i.e. Duran.

 

Ali came out at the bell in the rematch and landed a sharp overhand right, followed by a quick one two. He then landed a couple more right hands and a nice little check hook in the minute or so prior to the "phantom punch". He meant business and would have been difficult for any iteration of Liston to beat.

As for the final blow, Ali dropped Williams and Folley with similar counter right hands while drifiting backward. The shot landed well enough, and in the right position to produce a KD. If Liston decided that he wanted to quit after that, that's on him. If anything, that makes the win even more impressive, imo.

 

Agreed. There is a stink about too many fights in Ali’s career.