Haha, I was getting ready to hate and make fun of Ali's spin, but the way he was talking was funny as hell and tongue in cheek. I think deep down he knew that Liston threw that fight.
ALL! :smoke Ali wasn't Italian, remember? Edit: A real cheatin' ******* was Dempsey in his fight with Willard..
I think it's moreso that Liston was tired of this crazy, loud-mouth, bigger, faster, and younger man who kept following him around and harassing him before their fights, and whom he knew he just couldn't beat. Add the political-religous-organized crime circumstances surrounding the fight, I think he just didn't want to fight Ali anymore. He knew there's wasn't a chance for him to get the title back from Ali, so why continue? I think Ali stunned him with a short, quick right that put Sonny down, and he took the opportunity to not get up.
Pre-fight death threats from the Muslims likely convinced Sonny to go down right quick. Study the mob scene in the ring after the fight was declared over. Liston wasn't hurt. Remember, Malcolm X had been assassinated by factions of same only 3 months before Liston-Ali II. Liston had to know that those folks could be serious.
I do think that the punch landed and that it was no mere tap. Some recent work with three dimensional visualisation software supports this.
The anchor punch was nonsense. I forget the guy's name who Ali claimed taught it to him but years later the same guy referred to it as the 'ankle' punch... The biggets piece of evidence that it was thrown IMO is that Ali stands above him after he goes down. If anyone thought Liston threw the fight then it was Ali.
Yeah, Ali's instant outrage and his aggressive beckoning Liston to get up is a bit of a giveaway that he felt the punch wasn't enough to cause Liston's reaction.
I think the punch caught him by surprise and maybe buckled him, but the whole rolling around on the floor thing was rubbish. He could easily have gotten right back up within a second or two, in my opinion, and Ali knew it too, hence his angry gesturing. I believe that Ali honestly beat him the first time around though.
That's pretty much my opinion. Liston may have had a great chin, but, he did go down from a similar punch, delivered by the light-hitting Marty Marshall. It's not inconceivable that a punch that connects high on the temple could have caused him to lose his balance for a moment.