Was Liston-Clay a fix? I don't think so

Yeah, the 5th round doesn't prove anything either way.
On the one hand, he charged into Clay and threw more punches.
On the other hand, he failed to land any full-bodied head shots on a blinded opponent, and missed some by wider margins than he had when Clay had been fully sighted !

People sometimes seem to think that all "fixed" boxing action should look obviously fixed. I actually think most fights are quite ambiguous, I'm not saying most fights are fixed but apart from the real violent "wars" which are 99.9% certainly REAL fights it's not necessarily easy to tell one way or the other.
And quit jobs should always be scrutinized.

 

Yes, and in fact he was always staying in the fight until the 6th round where he just gave up fighting, and the 6th round was the slowest of the whole fight. Liston then quit completely.

The fact that Liston came back at the only point in the fight, 3rd round, when Clay actually hurt him actually shows that he wasn't being "outclassed" as some suggest as reason for him to quit.
I think Liston was in on a fix, but Clay wasn't. They underestimated Clay, and Liston had to defend himself quite hard at times to keep the fight going for the minimum required rounds.
I don't actually think Liston was good enough on that night to have beaten young Clay even if the fight was on the level, but I don't believe this fight was on the level.

 

He would beheaded a Floyd Patterson with a punch like this though:

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkC298csUvA[/ame]

2:55

Rather risky of Liston to be throwing those kind of haymakers if he had accepted to take a dive for the mob, who we know didn't take well to double-crossing them.

Sonny Liston from fight 1 to fight 2 must have been the biggest downfall of an actor ever as the first fight was an Oscar-worthy effort by all accounts, while no observer was convinced by his flopping and rolling around during the rematch.

 

Looking at the 6th round. Listons arms looked like heavy clubs.
Sonny couldn't snap his punches.
He even had a hard time keeping them up.
It appears that Sonny was to 'musclebound'.
Sonny just kept walking forward, he did not even attempt to bend under Ali's straight arm.

 

They weren't meant to miss. The left hook doesn't look safe, at all. In fact it's among the most vicious I've ever seen Liston throw, and we know he could throw a mean left hook.

 

Maybe they knew the result was in the bag.

 

To me, that suggests the partial-blinding of Clay was surely accidental & unrelated to Liston's plan.

I agree.

 

The funny thing about the so-called blinding.
Funny how the camera was there to get all the commotion in Clay's corner, between the
4th and 5th round.
LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!!

 

The whole promotional dealings of the first Liston-Clay fight in Miami are a very interesting web of intrigue.

Bill McDonald of Miami was the promoter, he bought the rights to promote for $625,000 from a group called Intercontinental Promotions Inc, which was actually (nominally at least) headed by Liston himself, and had his adviser Jack Nilon and Nilon's brothers as firm members, and a few other stockholders.
But McDonald only brought the rights to the "live gate", and had no part of the TV money.
McDonald actually made a huge loss on the fight when only 8000 people turned out to watch it.

Liston apparently was on 40% of the TV money, and Clay on 22.5%. They were also on 40% and 22.5% of the $625,000 Mcdonald had paid out to own rights to the gate.
The remaining 37.5% was kept by Intercontinental Promotions Inc. that was apparently headed by Liston and the Nilons. (But it was probably a front for shadowy figures !)

This is where it gets interesting .... Intercontinental Promotions Inc., also bought a share of Clay and options on his future fights. This means Sonny Liston, as president of Intercontinental, owned a piece of Cassius Clay. Apparently.

On top of all this, Bill McDonald, millionaire tycoon, sporting man and "promoter" of the fight (who was bound to make a loss), had Chris Dundee handling the promotion for him.
Chris Dundee was Miami's top promoter through the 50s and early 60s, and was connected to Carbo and the mafia, who pretty much ran all big-time boxing in America, and had given Dundee license to put on fights in Florida.
Chris Dundee's brother was Angelo Dundee, manager and trainer of Cassius Clay.
Angelo ran his gym and had the best fighters in Miami because he was Chris's brother, and Chris had Miami because he'd been given the ok by mob figures.

Assuming Liston's 40%, and Intercontinental's 37.5% were actually mostly owned by invisible mob figures, and Clay's 22% was partially owned or "loaned" by Intercontinental too, the mafia seemed to have the fight pretty much sewn up, especially when it becomes apparent that they had Dundee covering McDonald in the event that McDonald actually made a profit on the "live gate" at that they had Dundee's brother in Clay's corner.

That's just what we know, or can surmise, from what is out in the public domain.

The fact that the mob owned and manipulated the entire sports betting industry in America at the time, it's clear they couldn't lose, and would have even profitted more from Clay winning than Liston.

 

Thanks for posting this, the whole fight appears very corrupt to mob influence, who were obviously out to make the largest financial gain possible.

 

Most of the info I got from pre-fight articles. Other stuff came out afterwards and there was a brief investigation but nothing about a fix could be proved, but that's why they call it ORGANIZED crime.

 

Unforgiven,
Great stuff.
That brings a 'new light' to the Liston-Clay mystery.

Follow the Money.

 

Great post indeed,and i do mean that. But apart from Liston supposedly having 'futures' on Clay, which is dubious at best, the rest of the onfo tells me that whoever was making money did so regardless of the outcome, so i fail to see where a fix comes into this, unless im missing something obvious

 

Exactly !

Of course, corruption and conflicts of interests can be found in a lot of big bouts. Professional boxing is often "rigged" in some way or other.

I think by 1964 people were so sick of the gangsters in boxing issue, and boxing had been taken off of regular TV after the Griffith-Paret fight, and now Clay had become involved in the black muslims, and they were happy to see the back of Liston.

But Ali did bring interest back to boxing over the next 2 or 3 years, and I'd guess that interest made a lot of money for a lot of groups, including some of the mob characters and the old guard of boxing. Ali was good for boxing, and brought in back to life.