I think he did get dropped, there is a slow vid where the punch clearly connects, however he could have gotten up. You could see him thinking get up? **** it.... and roll over.
He perhaps could have gotten up, but he went down on the end of a legitimate shot. The slow-motion all but confirms this. For what it's worth, Liston was never going to beat Ali. He probably knew this and decided to bow out early.
i dont think he took a dive..he got up and kept fighting the fight was stopped by a ring side observer not a real official it was like the Dempsey Tunney episode where the guy didnt go to the neutral corner
I agree. As early as it was, it just looked like Ali was going to box circles around him. Liston took the easy way out, so in some respects, it was a dive, but I'm not sure I buy into it being planned from the outset.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_PREmeZ0A8[/ame] Liston's reaction is fake as hell [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prxnGjKjxoo[/ame] But the punch did land and drop him
I don't know, the punch was something you just don't train for, Ali was as quick as a flash and the power was enough to drop him. If he did not want to get up and fight on, it's still a KO. Maybe he was smart and knew he was in for a tough night with a loss regardless of his efforts, who knows? It just looks like a peach of a shot while he was off guard. Almost appears that Ali could not have possibly had the power in his position to land such a blow. I can see why it's questioned.
Liston himself confirmed he could have continued. It was an acting job for sure but whether he did it because he knew he was going to lose once he was in the ring or if he had some outside reason, no one really knows.
It never was a Phantom punch as the media then suggested. I think a lot of people was saying he took a dive because there were rumors that he was associated w/ the mob and the punch was not really that devastating.
Couldn't copyand paste this, pretty good page on this fight. http://www.boxing-memorabilia.com/bioliston2.htm