The Liston/Ali tragedy....

Notice very few people bring the 'No mas' fight up when they evaluate Leonard's career. While Ali's resume catches flak for Liston allegedly quitting.

 

I'm amazed at what a lot of people "attack" on this board. The "logic" astounds me.

I lean on Foreman's argument that Liston had a "Duran" moment. He was up against a very talented fighter that he (Liston) thought was legitimately crazy and after a lot of frustration he wanted no part of him at the end of the first fight, and early on in the 2nd.

I mean, seriously, look at the factors. The Nation of Islam was scary powerful to Liston. Liston just got through decimating the division on his rise to greatness at an advanced age (nothing gold can stay). Then you have "crazy" talented Ali, shouting his "poetry" and bouncing around. Hell, the commission that allowed the fight even mentioned that Ali was an unstable individual, when really Ali and his cohorts were "spinmasters" at putting things to their advantage. It was one of those moments when you get the other guy to see how much "unknown" he has to face. Liston wasn't 100% sure about what Ali was gonna do as much as he was convinced he (Ali) was crazy.

 

peak ali made many good fighters look farcical. maybe they all had bad off nights or there's another explanation. i'll let you experts go work it out.

 

Stonehands covers the matter in his article on Sonny Liston. I will try to pull up the link.

 

It's funny really. Either the man who easily destroyed Patterson in an impressive manner 6 months earlier all of a sudden was long past it, or he was just made to look ineffectual by the guy who did the same to Patterson, Terrell, Quarry, Foreman and others. Is it really that complicated?

 

liston had peaked and was having short fights. his fight with machen was basicly the last competative fight he'd had. some fighters lose the hunger. some fighters forget what it is like not to have it your own way. sometimes things just turn sour. you get sick of making people you dont like get rich.

outside the ring liston was shafted. he had more sleeping partners and phoney managers than even he knew. marciano retired to rid himself of his contracts- oficial and unoficial as much as anything else. im not saying liston was double crossing anyone. or that it is an excuse, I just think he felt like hed got what he wanted out of boxing already and kind of saw it for what it was. he certainly was not up for taking a beating on a fools erand.

 

i dont know what happened but there sure was something fishy about both fights. luckily ali done so much more after that it isnt really such a big factor in his ATR.

 

blah, blah.

and the number of people who saw these obvious facts at the time... that would be none.

sure, he was overconfident and not as prepared as he should have been, as Ali himself was many, many times in his career. but all the talk about the monster who destroyed patterson 6 months prior being a "shell" all of a sudden... that's just the same old tired BS

 

he was the same guy alright, but he never had alis number like he had patterson did he? How hard was it for liston to re-knock out a guy he already waisted? patterson was a great fighter but liston just had his number. listons easiest fights were patterson 1 and patterson II.

i think liston did give it a go the first time. second time he gave up, he knew ali had HIS number. he was doomed.

 

I would have bet on sonny, I acept I would have lost my house! hindsight is a wonderful thing. I just think with hindsight you can work it out.

whats your take? liston had a gun to his head?

 

I think Liston threw the first fight on his own. He wasn't getting any real money as champ. He could put his own money on Ali and cash in on the long odds.

If the mob fixed the first fight, you'd expect to see the odds against Ali drop sharply in the last few days before the fight. This didn't happen.

The evidence for Liston throwing the fight is visual. I've never seen a fighter look like he was trying to miss more than Liston did in that fight. (And no Patterson, Foreman, Terrel and Quarry did not look anywhere near that bad against Ali.) What other evidence would there be? It's not like Liston is going to type a memo about the fix for his files. The only other evidence would be if Liston admitted the fix or some third party said that Liston told him about it. It's not usually a good idea to talk about how you ripped off the mob.

The second Ali-Liston fight seems more like a straight up mob fix.

 

Sure. But Liston still looked very sharp. It was on ESPN Classic yesterday and Sonnny was damn impressive in both of them. He threw devastating combinations, varying the range superbly. Just like Tyson against Carl Williams, you could see that the timing, reflexes and technique was there.

 

For somebody trying to miss, he sure as hell threw a lot of leather in the 5th round. Its clear he was going for clay in that round so why the talk of a fix when this is evident

 

Ok. I just plain disagree. I think he visibly really tried to connect and actually did numerous times to the body when he had Ali blinded. Almost any other fighter would have succumbed to Liston's assault in that round. Watching it and trying to convince yourself or anyone else that Liston wanted to throw the fight is a ludicrous proposition.

It could be like the evidence about Liston intentionally blinded Ali. One of Liston's cornermen allegedely admitted to it. It's not strong evidence, but still the SINGLE strongest evidence of anything being fishy in any of the two fights. That should tell you something.

 

But that's just making excuses for Liston.
"Oh, Ali was really great, of course that's why Liston quit" ..... none of those others quit though, and actually Liston did better in the 6 rounds of the first match than a lot of those others were doing. Terrell and Patterson took real beatings from Ali, and didn't quit. Foreman was generally exhausted and KO'd, counted out as he tried to get up. Quarry was stopped but wanted to continue.

I wouldn't say Liston was "all of a sudden long past it", but he clearly showed a shocking lack of resolve and nowhere near the effort you'd expect from any man in a championship fight, nevermind a champion.