Just finished watching a brilliant HBO documentary from 1995 on Sonny Liston. I would say the first fight is questionable as to whether it was a fix - although i lean more to the view that Sonny quit on his stool out of frustration and exhaustion. The second fight was a blatant fix.
imo Ali was outclassing Liston regardless. The first I believe wasn't The second I believe is an obvious dive.
I don't find the first any less suspect than the second tbh, and there's a lot of circumstantial evidence. But Liston looks like he wants to take Ali's head off a couple of times too, so who knows? IN the end, my guess is a secret like that is slightly to big too keep and that it would have proper emerged at some point. So I guess I wouldn't bet on both being fixed, but I really don't know.
Imo the first fight cant be a fix. The biggest evidence has to be the round, where Ali was blind. We dont know what caused that, maybe Liston's corner rubbed something on his glove or shoulder, but the fact, that Liston did go in there and really tried to KO Ali while he couldn't see, should be evidence enough that Liston tried to win in the first fight. The second fight is debatable. The punch that Ali throws definitely lands. Was it a legit knockdown? Probably yes. Was it enough to keep Liston down? I dont think so. Imo the first fight was not fixed in the second fight, Liston could've continued, but decided to stay down.
I agree. Watching that fight it’s hard to detect a dive especially given that it was a cut stoppage.
Liston underestimated Ali in the first fight. Liston took a dive in the second. Ali realized that and that's why he was yelling: "Get up chump, get up, nobody's gonna believe this !"
The first fight was legit. I think Liston was pretty blown away by Ali's speed and movement, and very aggravated. I know he really hurt his arm, but there's no question he was trying his best to knock the crap out of Ali. I guess we'll never know what exactly happened to make Liston throw the 2nd fight, but he did. The only thing that weirds me out is seeing how he looked ready to fight before Walcott discontinued it.
As has been explained in several posts over the years, Liston was never counted out in the second fight. He was up and ready to go when Nat Fleischer interfered with the duties of the referee and the official timekeeper, compounding the confusion in the already confused referee Joe Walcott's mind and causing him to stop the fight before he had even begun to count. Ali never went to a neutral corner as the rules required so Walcott was correct in not counting. His mistake was listening to the busybody Fleischer. Liston had every right to stay down until being counted out, which never happened. Even so, he was up and ready to go when Walcott erroneously stopped the fight without a count. Please, you newer members, search some of the previous threads about the second fight. I and others have posted more complete explanations than I have written now. I have no desire to waste my time going over it thoroughly again. There was no fix. The punch landed solidly. It shook Liston's neck and raised his foot off the ground. The punch hurt and confused him, but Ali's actions confused everybody else as well.
The first fight wasn't likely fired because Liston had burning substance on his gloves and a free round to knock Ali out. He wanted to quit, if not for Angelo Dundee. The second fight is likely a fix and Ali knew it. " Get up he yelled, nobody will believe this " Not many buildings wanted to host this event.
Really ? If featherfisted Ali can blow Liston's so called "granite chin" out like that, can't imagine what guys like Lewis, Bowe and Foreman would do to him
Don't think the first was fixed but the second didn't make sense ... Most likely Liston quit in the second as well ... The mob and other militant groups were associated with both fighters at the time ...