Ali vs Liston II 60 year anniversary

Ok. Those are rumours. It still doesn't counter my argument.

 

The rumors proved to be true though, as Liston wallowed on the canvas like a drunk at 3am proved .

 

Moving from the platform of a legit KD, which I think it was, all be the punch only warranting a flash KD or little more than that, I think Liston’s actions thereafter are all too often divorced from Ali’s own actions.

Meaning, we have to afford Liston having reacted to Ali’s shenanigans in some measure.

Per the timer of the vid linked below, I quickly marked a few key points in time and what was going on at those instances in time: -

Liston hits the deck at 11:50

Despite his obvious obligation and Walcott’s instructions to do so, Ali simply will not retreat to a neutral corner.

Ali backs off a little bit for a moment but then is back hovering right over Liston as at 11:56.

Ali walks away again at 11:57 (notably already raising his arms in victory, with Liston only down for 7 secs at that point in time) and in that same moment Liston begins to rise.

At 11:59 Liston, supporting himself by one arm hasn’t quite lifted off the deck.

At 12:00 - 12:01, Ali zooms back into the picture, arms raised, buzzing by Sonny and Liston let’s himself fall back down pretty much at the same time or at least at the moment he would’ve spied Ali running in yet again.

At 12:05, with Walcott by his side and with some semblance of distance between he and Ali - though Ali still not properly retreated at all, Liston finally arises.

So, imo, Ali primarily caused the mayhem, flagrantly breaching the rules multiple times in doing so.

What did appear fake was Liston falling back down after propping himself to arise - I agree that it was fake - but it was in the context of Ali zooming back into Liston’s proximity - Liston letting himself fall back down to avoid being hit on the way back up.

Noteworthy imo is that, for all his screaming for Liston to arise, Ali did everything to deter Liston (or anyone else) from arising due to Ali’s refusal to properly retreat.

Equally notable is that if Ali was so fearful of a fix being perceived, he appeared to lose that concern when he already began celebrating, raising his arms as at 11:57 - when Liston hadn’t even been on the deck for whole 10 seconds at any rate.

Some years later, Ali did something similar following the first KD of Bonavena.

Ali simply refused to retreat, going so far as to slap down the referee’s restraining arm in his efforts to get back at Ringo asap.

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I believe Liston got caught and went down stunned. He put his arms out to brace his fall. Basically a flash knockdown.

Ali went crazy running around and Walcott was extremely incompetent handling the situation.

Sonny not knowing what to do tried to milk the situation and roll around so as to not get up too early.

The fight continued and then was called off.

If Sonny truly wanted truly wanted to take a dive why bother getting up at all?
But there is an air of stench around the bout because rumors of a fix before the fight were rampant. The location of the fight was strange and Walcott had mob ties. Whole thing was a mess.

 

Liston went into the fight a slight favorite despite having lost the first encounter. If gamblers wanted to fix the second fight, how could they clean up when the odds were so close? Well, they could bet that Ali would win by KO in round one. Nobody, and I mean nobody, thought that would happen. I'm not saying that's how it was set up. But I suggest that's an alternative to the more plausible story that Liston knew he would lose anyway, so why endure a beating? I remember Geraldine Liston actually explained it that way long after Sonny's death.

I was 17 and watched the "fight" in a New Jersey movie theater. Not surprisingly the crowd in the theater was angry and disgusted at having been cheated. So was the entire world of writers and fans and the powerful people in boxing. That's why Liston's name was removed from the Ring ratings and he didn't fight again in the US for nearly three years.

 

People who weren’t there so obliviously overlook the effect a guy quitting has on boxing in general and the perception of them. Liston pumpers tend to ignore this when rating him, while those at the time regarded him as a quitter (on his stool the first time with no obvious injury — he was throwing his left hand just fine the round before, then suddenly his shoulder is too injured to continue? — and again with the odd ending of the rematch where he rolled around on the canvas in a transparently fake manner).

Same with Duran vs Leonard in the rematch.

This fight is evidence that Sonny was already so toxic that they couldn’t find a proper venue for a rematch due to him quitting the first time (giving up the biggest prize in sport at the time) and there’s zero way the public would have bought a third match between Leonard and Duran after he just quit mid-round without any particular reason that could be seen other than he was frustrated and Ray clowned him the round before.

If a band is known for quitting concerts and walking away after one song, I’m not buying a ticket. No venue will want to book them. Same for a quitter. It’s the most shameful thing a fighter can do. Revisionists can try to overlook it, but at the time Sonny was persona non grata and it was all his own making. He basically got himself banished.

 

Yes! It was unforgivable what he did. And he did it twice. In the first fight, at least he tried to win before quitting. The second fight revealed his naked cowardice and lack of honor. It was as if he was telling the whole world, "You're all suckers." He had expended his effort training for the Boston bout that was canceled because of Ali's hernia surgery. That fight, had it happened, might have been exciting because he had really whipped himself into shape. But he looked soft in Lewiston. He was known to be a lush. He'd probably been hitting the vodka hard and knew he couldn't win, so why take a beating for a losing cause?