Ali vs Liston 2 something irks me.

I've watched the punch a hundred times - i can see both points of view.

Yeah it's no biggie as we will never know for sure. It's one of boxings great mysteries.

 

Good sequence to highlight Liston's defence. He had a really good one.

Those weren't exactly slow, telegraphed punches, but don't know if even one landed clean.

 

DIVE

 

Liston trained his hardest for the ill-fated Boston fight. It was challenging for him; he had an old body. When Ali's hernia forced a six-month postponement, all the fight went out of Liston. He went into that fight not thinking about winning.

 

If true (and I think it has been exaggerated — some describe him as being in the prime shape of his life, hearing about the postponement then crawling into a bottle and not crawling out until it was time to go to the ring), it’s an indictment of Liston’s mental fortitude.

One of the Patterson fights was postponed, too. He managed to stay focused.

It’s a fact of boxing and a fact of life that things don’t always come off on schedule as planned. Any fighter knows this and should build it into their DNA to roll with those kind of punches that life brings … shrug, take a week off, then get back to training and refocus.

I like how Roy Jones Jr put it: God puts obstacles in our way to make sure we really want what we say we want.

If Sonny had really wanted it, he would have overcome the obstacle of the fight not coming off on the originally planned date. Obviously, he didn’t want it enough.

 

So, I watched the final sequence in slow motion, because I'm a nerd like that.

Ali threw six punches before Walcott intervened. Liston did manage to slip the initial one two, got tagged with a jab but slipped the next right hand that followed, but managed to slip the next couple of left hook/uppercuts. Ali did look to have Liston lined up for a right hand having backed him toward the corner. But...I dunno, John. The fact that Lison was exhibiting such good defense kind of leads me to believe that things might have been on the level. Ali's rights were coming in hot in that closing sequence, and if Sonny was looking for a soft spot to fall he could have rolled enough with one of them and taken a knee or something.

Like you say, we'll never know for sure, but I'm now firmly in the zult is legit camp.

 

Absolutely, they were blistering.

 

Yeah we've chatted about this one before Drew. You know i respect your opinion as much as anyone's in here. He rolled about the canvas, at one point stretched his gloves above his head on the canvas laying flat on his back.....10 seconds after hitting his feet he's dodging and slipping the fastest barrage one will ever see at heavyweight.

In the 7 or so seconds of Ali's last single flurry Liston does not throw one single punch tho he's slipping and sliding with delightful efficiency. What's the best way to have a ref stop a fight after you've just been knocked down? Don't throw punches back when you rise. Liston didn't look remotely interested in throwing a punch back. Think about it. Liston slips but doesn't throw back, the ref stops the fight......Liston's still stopped in one round while not taking real damage.

 

I think Liston degraded a lot between the first and second fight and Ali was even more confident. You can almost see the point in the fight Liston realises he cant do much with Ali. The first fight took him by surprise like the rest of us. The second time round he knew he wasnt going to get anywhere. Ali,s movement was too good. In a moment of weakness he looked for a way out....before snapping out of it. By that time it was too late.

 

That was definitely NOT a phantom punch!

The fight was on the level in my opinon.

 

There are punches that are so fast that you barely see them, or they don't look like much. I think Ali was just that fast.

 

Years ago Ring magazine printed all the film frames of the KO. They explained the frames showing Liston coming in and Ali planting and coming forward with a full punch trying to say it was a hard punch. Over the years I ve read a lot of things about the fights outcome and rewatched it. Ali pulled the punch back quick instead of following thru. It looked like a Bruce Lee Kung Fu punch which sorry folks are phoney baloney.
No if I had to bet the house it’s that it was a dive. Many stories about the Black Muslims threatening Liston if he didn’t dive. An author of book on Liston said Liston answered a question he asked about it that ‘yeah I had to get out of there’. Ali loved to use the right cross over the opponents left. He KOd Folley Foremen and Lyle with it. He was so fast he would strike with all his weight behind it and even then it was always an accumulation of right crosses not one. Liston was a bull watch the Cat Williams fights he took punches way more powerful than anything Ali could throw and barely flinched.

 

Liston knew he had met his match. The first fight proved that conclusively. Still, he trained hard for the rematch knowing that was his only chance. The postponement came at the end of training, only days before the fight was scheduled to happen. To say Liston lacked mental fortitude is, I think, a pretty obvious statement. Whatever fortitude he had he used up training for the fight in Boston. What effect acute alcoholism combined with old age has on a fighter's dedication seems equally obvious to me. Throw in the fact that almost nobody in the boxing world wanted him to hold the title ever again, that even if he regained it it wouldn't be lucrative, and I can see why he didn't feel motivated anymore. Ali was too good and nobody knew it better than Liston himself. I can almost hear the voice in his head saying, "F*** this shi*t, I just wanna get my money. F*** all those people."

 

Agree Ali was great but the one thing he lacked was 1 punch knockout power certainly against a brute like Liston would be unlikely. Liston rolling around on the canvas really looked phoney too. Why did Ali stand over him not go to his neutral corner and yell Get up and fight, sucker! Nobody will believe this!"