The Phantom Punch

Liston got up and they resumed fighting. If you are taking a dive why would you get up and start fighting again? I don't think Liston was hurt but the knockdown was ligit.

 

An Oscar? Liston's acting was worse than Omar Sherif as Che Guevara.

 

It was a legit knockdown. Liston didn't get up until Ali went to the corner, the fight should have been allowed to continue, Walcott made a real balls of the whole thing

 

I think it could be viewed as a legit knockdown, flash knockdowns tend to come from punches like that, however enough to keep sonny on the floor that time and act like he had been hurt, no chance

 

Agreed.

 

leaning too much over his front foot and a rigth cross lands on your temple. bad balance + timing + weired angle punch = a weired circumstance of events. walcott should of sent ali to a corner and counted...but fro some reason talks to the journalists...great reffing

 

bad balance + timing + weird angle punch + desire/need to fall down = a fiasco.


Sonny was very possibly spooked by pre-fight death threats. Malcolm X had been assassinated only a few months before by the same crowd.

R.I.P. Sonny.

 

I don't think it was on the up and up. Liston really is doing a bad acting job flopping around on the floor. Aside from Liston, Ali has how many first round knockouts ?

 

True, but ali had underrated power, and in When We Were Kings, it clearly shows ali clocking liston

 

First round, flash knockdowns aren't that uncommon.

But the proposed fight was a circus which ended up in Lewiston, Maine after being denied in several other cities that "smelled' something bout the fight. Then throw in the Malcom X assassination, Ali's hernia surgery, and Liston's invincibility aura being gone, further confused the issue.

Liston hadn't taken a "tuneup" fight, and Ali had matured and gotten even stronger.

I believe that this fight was shown live on ABC Wide World of Sports.

Ali stood over Liston initially and said "Get up you bum!", then finally went to a neutral corner.

And old Nat Fleischer of Ring Mag. is yelling at Jersey Joe that Liston had been down for 10 seconds and to stop the fight.

 

WTF? Liston's acting job on the floor was horrid........ It was so fake........ Christ, Liston acted like he got hit by a bus....... Liston went into the tank.... That fight with Ali up in Maine sucked tube steak deep down......
:twisted::rofl:shock:

MR.BILL:deal

 

How many of you have seen the punch that Martin had to hit Sonny with to KO him? One of the hardest shots I have ever seen land.

Liston was NOT a man who went down easily, whether his jaw was broken early in his career, whether his face was being busted up by Williams or whether Martin was really teeing off on him later in his career.

I honestly think, as usual (Occam's Razor) the simplest answer is the correct one with the second Ali/Liston fight.

Liston was more then likely afraid of psyhchotic muslims killing him or something else during the fight. You're aware of how Malcom X went out, yes? How there were anti-Liston talks among extreme Muslims before the fight? How they were a very feared group at the time.

There's a reason the fight had a record low attendance. People were afraid.

Liston probably said "**** it, I'd like to live another day. I've been in this game long enough, accomplished enough and I'm not sticking around here tonight to more then likely lose and be embarassed, again, or to be killed". Liston was no Jack Johnson in that regard. He was not fearless, or quite that defiant.

Liston was right, regardless. He would end up dead under unusual circumstances but it wouldn't be that night.

 

Everything went wrong in that fight. Jersey Joe Walcott's refereeing, Ali's antics, Liston refusing to get up, Fleischer interfering with the referee's count...

I've always been somewhat convinced by Liston's explanation. He said he was caught cold and blamed the referee for not making Ali go to a neutral corner, counting him out without actually issuing him a count.

The whole thing was a mess.

In the end Liston was up on his feet having beaten the count which was never issued. It would have been interesting to see how the fight would have continued.

Perhaps Liston would have dived or perhaps the fight would've went rounds.

 

It was only about thirty seconds into the fight. Joe Calzaghe has a decent chin and got knocked down in the first round against Hopkins and Jones, neither considered huge punchers at that point in their careers. Clottey has a granite chin and Cotto knocked him down with a jab in the first round of their fight. Cotto later hit him with bombs and didn't knock him down. Sometimes people get caught cold before they get into their routine. It's not like Sonny was the only one.