Ali's Phantom Punch

Basically Joe Walcott *****ed it up. It wasn't his job to listen to anyone else. It was his job to get Ali to a neutral corner, and then count.

 

we will never know the truth , but lets be honest here , that fight was very very suspicious lol . liston was a washed up fighter by this time but still controlled by the mob and was still able to make them one last lucrative payday by taking a fall . why gamble on the unlikely outcome of liston landing a freak haymaker and knocking ali out when they could make so much more on the certainty of a dive . all though the footage we see is not the best , the punch looks like it would barely knock over a 12 year old , it was a short check hook with very little power to it , he got to one knee and when he realised the refs count was still not done he fell back to the floor again , the whole scenario is pretty laughable to be honest and if it was to happen in this day and age the whole world would be screaming FIX from the roof tops .

the only robbery that night was from the las vegas bookies as the mob cleaned them out .

 

Ali should have been Disqualified.
It took Walcott 17 seconds to install Ali in a neutral corner. As soon as Walcott's back was turned, Ali was back in the middle of the ring.

 

If you watch Liston closely you see two curious things.....

One ....his legs appear to spasm as he lay on his back after the knockdown.

Two....after the fight was stopped and people are milling about the ring Listion does a stutter step as if still hurt from the Ko blow.

Also Listons trainers years later stated that after the bout in their dressing room no one was around and Sonny asked for smelling salts. They said Sonny never asked for smelling salts before.

 

Ha ha this story just wont go away. Imo liston looked shot. Ali looked better in the second fight. Liston knew what was coming and decided he would get out of there at the first convenient time. Saying that it was a wierd punch. We ve all seen punches having effects like that and sometimes its the ones you dont expect. I think most importantly the answer is in the betting. Could you even bet on a first round ko back then. Was there even any largeable sums put on an ali ko. Ali had the style for a formidable but aging liston in the first fight and a shot liston knew what was coming in that second fight imo.

 

Liston trained like an animal for the second fight. Was in incredible condition. Then Ali had to have a hernia operation which delayed the bout. From most accounts this delay hurt Liston and he went into the second bout stale. This bout was investigated for months after and nothing was found to indicate that it was fixed. At ringside many including Patterson, Damato,Torres saw a KO punch.

 

Yes,indeed Liston would have been stopped at some point during that bout,anyhow. It's long been established that the count had been *****ed up,so I don't know why such a big thing still gets made of this.

 

No doubt the same conspiracy theorists who hollered "Fix" would claim that the moon landing was faked.

 

The biggest clue to the authenticity of the punch to me comes from Ali himself.
He immediately stands of Liston and gestures for him to get up shouting "get up ya bum"

 

This,

plus Walcott's amateurish handling of the count. I would say these two factors might justify some folks believing the fix was in.

 

I've seen better acting in the WWF/WWE...

 

Yeah, Ali was totally unconvinced.
He looked downright p!ssed off with Liston for going down from the punch.
That says it all.

 

It is clear that an irregular betting pattern had emerged, long before the fight. That is why none of the big venues would touch it. Also a knockout early in the first round, is the lowest risk way, to throw a fight. I am suspicious, to say the least!

 

Clear fix.