Why does everyone think Ali was the underdog in the Liston fight?

He was a 7-1 underdog in the fight.

 

Clay was an 8-1 underdog in their first fight in Miami in Feb.1964. Most sportswriters figured the fight wouldn't last a full round...

 

Appearances...

Liston was an excon, with a thuggish reputation and an ugly face and sour attitude, fitting the "Big Bad Black Man" narrative.

Ali back then was still looked like a cutie, a talented but still umproved pretender who was more image than substance with all his trashtalking and showboating.

Thus the overall opinion was that the "tough" Liston would easily demolish a "soft" Ali.

 

Out of the 46 sports writers covering the fight...3 picked Clay to win.

 

For good reason. You would not pick the kid who went down against Cooper & was visibly hurt to best Liston in his very next fight.

 

Plus, he'd had trouble with Doug Jones, a small heavyweight. If he couldn't prevent Jones from landing shots, what would Liston do to him?

 

There was a valid reason why Cassius Clay (Muhammad Ali ) was a 7-1 underdog the night of Feb 25 1964. Clay looked vulnerable in his last two fights, on March 13 1963, he won a hotly booed 10 round decision over Doug Jones in Madison Square Garden, then on June 18 1963, Clay was deposited on his rear end by Henry Cooper's left hook in round 4 before rising up to score a TKO 5 due to Henry's lacerated eyebrow. Many in the media figured if Clay had trouble with the above mentioned contenders, that Sonny Liston would destroy him.

 

Richard, you are quite correct. I might add, if I may, that the flip side of this is that Liston had kayoed all the top contenders except the very defensive-minded Eddie Machen over whom he had won a lopsided decision. As a result, after his two consecutive one-round knockouts of Floyd Patterson, Sonny was thought to be invincible and was well on his way to being recognized by many fans as the greatest heavyweight of all time.

 

Liston had an aura of invincibility about him at that time. (There was a great quote by sportswriter Jerry Izenberg of the Newark Star Ledger when he stated that he thought Liston would be HW champion for the next 100 years LOL!!) Ali was generally perceived in early 1964 as a fresh, mouthy kid who was going to get STOMPED facing someone as formidable as Liston!!

We all know what eventually transpired!

I HIGHLY recommend a book written by Paul Gallender titled: "The Real Story Behind the Ali Liston Fights." It's a great read and you really get a lot of inside info about that first fight that isn't commonly circulated. More or less Sonny thought he'd win by merely showing up and scaring Ali to death--his training was lackluster at best! If you watch film of that fight Liston does NOT stay balanced and throw short, crisp, powerful shots. He swings wildly--and part of that was because he had such a desire to literally DESTROY Ali in that fight that he lost his poise (or as his trainer put it--Liston got "plumb thick" in the head.) And he wasn't prepared for Ali's speed and skill--it caught him completely off-guard!

Ultimately Sonny's ego and overconfidence got him beat as much as anything in that first fight against Ali. The book goes into great detail about it--well worth picking up!!

 

He was young (just turned 22).

People thought he lost against Doug Jones (a light heavyweight) the year before.

In his last fight, he got floored by Cooper in the UK. Also, the rumor in the States (since they didn't see the fight) was floated he got saved by a split glove, and additional time was needed. (This proved later to be false when the films were available.)

People truly believed he was scared of Liston at the prefight physicals. They thought he was having a manic episode out of fear.

The dominant champion had much more experience (36 fights to Ali's 19).

Liston had beaten most of the top 10 - Patterson twice, Machen, Folley, Harris, Williams twice, Valdes, etc.

The last time most people in the US had seen Ali fight was early 1963, and he hadn't filled out physically yet. Over that year, he'd become more of a "grown up" physically.

Nobody had really seen all the work he'd put in between the Doug Jones fight in March 1963 and the Liston fight in February 1964.

Back then, there wasn't social media where you could follow a person pretty closely. If Ali wasn't on the 30-minute evening news broadcast with his shirt off (and he wasn't), nobody really saw him.

People were actually surprised how big Ali looked when he and Liston were standing face to face in the ring. In their minds, he was just a kind of scrawny, scared kid.

But he wasn't that at all.

 

Must have felt pretty good about themselves afterwards.

 

Thank You Sir, I will now take a bow. Ha Ha.