Would Sonny Liston rule the HW division now?

Just seen this post Chris. I'm going to start with the end and get to the bones of it later today or tomorrow - you've invited me to rewatch the fight and i'm going to do just that. I want to say a couple of things about this first:

We've spoken about this fight at great length before, although I can't find that thread...perhaps it was so long ago that it happened before the crash.



In this thread, i'm careful to say to you that i'm not insisting upon a dive having taken place. In the short post you've responded to, I did not say this. That's because you and I have a history with this fight and I assumed you had remembered. You haven't, which is nobody's fault. To be clear: I don't insist that Liston took a dive against Ali in the first fight.

Ali-Liston is the most infamous fight in HW history. Second most infamous is Liston-Clay. Throughout the forties and fifties, many fights were fixed, possibly as many as 20%, though the figure is likely to be less. Most of these fights were fixed by Palermo and Carbo. Palermo and Carbo managed Sonny Liston. The second fight between these two was probably a fix (yes, it could have been a genuine KD, yes, it could have been a quit job, yes, Sonny could have misjudged the count; the odds favour a fix). Given only these facts I think it is valid to explore the idea that the first fight was a fixed fight.

In fact, there is an excess of circumstantial evidence. If the fight was not on film, it would have been deemed a fix, unquestionably. But there is film. I've spent a great deal of time exploring ideas, none of which I insist upon that support the notion of a fixed fight based upon that film. The things that i've found interesting i'll outline once i've watched the fight, and the McMurray fight (which I find an interesting foil) again. That will be the post that interests you.

As for this one, if you skip the rest of it, please explain why any of the above makes me "just as biased on Liston's part [as Widow is on Klitscko's]"?

I would say the single biggest difference is that I am willing to back whatever I say, regardless of what you might think about my "factual incorrect" post, on the forum. There are perhaps 15 points unanswered in this very thread on Widow's part left over from my last post to him. On a personal note, you should know that.

It's not meant to be unpleasent for anyone.