Ali's Controversial "Phantom Punch" Explained - Brilliant Exchanges

I totally agree that Sonny Liston was intimidated by the fact that well dressed Muslims were sitting at ringside. and according to those that worked with Liston, had firearms hidden in their clothing, Sonny also received death threats prior to the 1965 rematch. But many said also that Liston was in peak condition for the ill fated Nov 16 1964 rematch in Boston, but Muhammad Ali was stricken with Hernia on the night of Friday, Nov 13 1964, and needed emergency Hernia surgery. None the less, in this rematch in Lewiston, Maine, Ali did land a jarring right hand to the jaw of Liston who was moving in, the confusion appeared to be the fault of referee Jersey Joe Walcott, who lost control of the situation, letting Ali run all over the ring, to taunt a fallen Sonny Liston. Many followers of Liston claimed that Sonny was spouting off that the fight was fixed before the rematch with Ali, fix was in as the gate increased. Sonny did say that also after his arrest in my hometown for assaulting two men that attempted to rob him, after a poker game in a area that was known as South Park Las Vegas, a rough area in town, Sonny did boast this information to a former police officer that had arrested Sonny for the assault in 1969, prior to his bout against Leotis Martin, I have previously posted this before. Many experts believe that leaking this information led to the demise of Sonny in Las Vegas.

 

We will never get the answer to this, but I'm convinced by the knockdown but not how he stayed down (rolling around etc). That looked utterly fake, clearly to Ali as well.

For the first two minutes he looked to be trying though. Adapted to going exclusively to Ali's body after wildly missing the headshots for the first minute. But he kept missing anyway and was getting hit with that lead right way too easily, so when he was knocked down he probably just thought "I have no chance here, so might as well cut this short".

 

There s being a ton of threads and a thousand theory s, probably be still going 50 years from now!

 

I’m Ali’s biggest fan, and I’ll never be convinced that Liston couldn’t have got up from that blow.

 

Ali hit him and Liston went down and intentionally stayed down

It wasn't powerful enough to knock him out or to even send him to the canvas

 

The famous picture of Ali standing over Liston screaming at him,,you know what he was saying? Ali said, get up! ain't nobody gonna believe this sh#t. Jimmy Lennon at ringside said that punch couldn't bust a grape.. Couple that with Sonny doing the worst acting job in history and you'd have to be blind not to see this was a dive.

 

Sonny Liston walked through one of the hardest punchers in heavyweight history,,Cleveland Williams ,,,with a broken nose!!! and this flick of a shot one punch ko'ed Sonny Liston? Come on man!

 

This is right. Liston wouldn’t have been up and fighting again if he had taken a dive.

 

The swag man for the ko...right answer...I don't believe that it was even a kd.

 

Those college boys in the crowd afterwards had it right with the "BULLSHlT".."BULLSHlT".."BULLSHlT".. chant.

 

Just watch it with your own eyes, you don't need to explain it or have it explained for you. The punch is incredibly clear.

 

The punch knocking him down is one thing. Liston was coming forward and got hit with a short punch. Flash knockdowns happen all the time, being off-balance or whatever.

But Liston flailing all over the canvas when Ali was celebrating? That’s type of acting that would make Tommy Wiseau look like good in comparison. For whatever reason, a fix for money, being scared of assassination, quitting out of frustration....Liston was putting on some act, and it was not believable

 

Ali’s “anchor punch” is basically a version of a pull counter, and it works off of a fighter leaning back to either feint, or to slip a punch and counter using speed and body weight snapping forward like a spring from the leaning position. The hand is usually held down, to generate more power.

In the case of Sonny Liston, the pull counter was so effective because as Ali snapped forward, Sonny stepped into it which massively disoriented sonny, Most fighters do not step into a pull counter, though it happened at least one other time in Ali’s career, to tough contender Alex Miteff who stepped forward as Ali was countering with a short pull right, and was knocked out straight away.

 

Exactly how i see it. You could almost see the moment liston starts to realise he,s no match for this version of ali.

Ali had got better and liston had regressed by the time of the rematch. Ali then puts him over legitimately and liston takes it as an oppertunity as an out.

 

Some of you did not bother to watch the video or you're being hard headed and don't understand basic physics and counters in boxing.

-The punch landed. You can see Liston's head snap and the ripples going through his body. That is not debatable.

-it was not a lucky/random shot, Ali was aiming to counter Liston's lunging powerful jabs. He was a master of the pull counter right hand. He has scored multiple pull counter right hand knockdowns. Also not debatable.

-a fighter running into a shot they don't see coming is often more likely to cause a knock down than a big hayemaker that you do see coming. That is precisely what happened to Liston. Bringing up examples like him enduring blows from Williams is irrelevant. Boxing has literally hundreds of examples of a power puncher failing to drop boxer B but lighter hitting boxer C is able to drop boxer B. Yet sometimes even the most hard core boxing fans can't wrap their minds around it. Here's my suggestion: try having an actual boxing match.

-as pointed out in the video, Ali has dropped or knocked out multiple iron chinned and rugged opponents. He was the only man to stop Foreman and Bonavena. One of only 2 to stop Fraizer. He Also stopped rugged tough guys like Lyle and Quarry. It actually isn't far fetched at all. We Also know that force=mass x speed. Ali had insane hand speed and if we combine that with the aforementioned fact it was a crispy counter Liston didn't count on or anticipate, the math and logic checks out.

-therefore, unless some indisputable evidence arrives to suggest otherwise, the most logical conclusion is that Ali scored a legitimate 1st round knockdown and it could have been a KO punch. This is not debatable.


Now to address the more grey area stuff.


-if Liston was going to take a dive why the hell did he keep flopping everywhere? Why not just stay down, why the hell did he get back up and continue fighting Ali when Walcott signaled them? I have yet to hear a logical explanation for either of these questions.

-the idea that the black Muslims would have killed Liston if he won or didn't allow Ali to best him is possible, but not likely. The FBI was keeping tabs on them and sticking to them like glue. It would have been extremely suspicious if Liston turned up dead and it doesn't seem like it would take long for them to figure out the black Muslims were behind it. At the same time, the black Muslims weren't ignorant of the fact they were being watched. Malcolm X publicly revealed on many occasions how he was follower, had his phone tapped, etc. I believe Elijah Muhammad mentioned being followed and harassed as well. It would have been very risky to attack such a high profile boxer who already had his hands full with the scornful eye of the public, the disdain of the boxing community, and having a long history of being monitored and having run ins with the police. Therefore, I don't think it was the black Muslims who did him im or threatened Liston and indirectly influenced the outcome.

-could it have been the mob? Possibly, but again why did Liston get up instead of staying down? Why did Liston whip himself into great shape before Ali suffered a hernia and the fight had to be postponed? Why would a mob controlled fighter who is instructed to take a dive bother doing intense training with reporters noting that they are looking amazing in camp? It doesn't make any logical sense. I don't buy that Liston was trying to throw people off to the fact he planned to dive because he was annoyed with Ali's injury and the postponement. When he learned about it, he said "that sonnavabich!".

-now i do admit that there are TONS of suspicious details that suggest Liston chose to stay down for whatever reason. Maybe he realized during the fight he just wasn't going to win and simply said screw it. Maybe he bet against himself and made a fortune. Who knows. We do know Foreman was very close to Liston and je mentioned in the "facing Ali" documentary that after winning the title Liston told him "I'm just in it for the do-re-mi [for the money]". Liston had become less and less motivated with long periods of inactivity and a lack of training that cost him the title in the 1st fight in the 1st place. Liston never seemed to recover from this downward slope and, after realizing white America hated him for his brutish image and past and the black community wasn't too pleased either, he became depressed and drank a lot.

So with that being said, I think the explanation could be far less complicated than people think. Put all the sensation, the politics, Ali's larger than life personality, Walcott's incompetence and Fleischer's completely unprofessional meddling aside. It's fun to speculate and delve into this "mysterious conspiracy", but maybe Liston just didn't give a f*** anymore. I wouldn't blame him, his life was incredibly depressing. He worked his ass off for a goal and didn't get props when he won and people were happy to see him lose. He was getting paid a huge sume of money win or lose, so why get nailed in the face and embarrassed once again? Certainly not the most honorable way for a guy to lose, but what part of Liston's life ever involved "honor"? You may as well be speaking Chinese using such sentimentality with a guy who had an abusive dad who worked him like a slave. A guy who lived in a segregated country that hated him for his skin color and was despised even by other black people. It is no shocker at all that a guy like that with no resume or legitimate employment prospects, no education or literacy, would choose to hang out with his former inmates after winning the title and seeing tumbleweeds after returning to his home town. It is no surprise he hung out with prostitutes, gamblers, and criminals. They weren't Saints, but at least they weren't fake.

Sometimes the truth is a lot less complicated than we want it to be.