Angelo Dundee’s take on Liston v Patterson and both Ali v liston fights

I think both fights with Liston were highly dubious; the second was laughable.

 

I think he's a bit hard on Liston and I don't think Sonny was really hurt in the rematch.

But those crying fix and dive conveniently forget that Sonny got to his feet before being counted out. Pretty incompetent dive, no?

Only really makes sense if one believes that Nat Fleisher was in on it as well and that the plan was that the he would persuade Walcott to call a KO even though he never counted Liston out. Wouldn't it be a better plan that the one taking a dive to just stays down until he is counted out?

The theory behind this being a dive has the usual flaw of conspiracy theories - it only critically examines the official version and then launches an alternative theory without any critical examination of that one at all.

 

With the exception of the fixed fight/fights....obviously he wont admit to that...Dundee is right about liston and knew he was a shot fighter awho hadn't really beata good sized fighter who could box...easy pickings regardless what the odds say,logic says something else if one were to look how Liston was tailor made for Ali then.

 

Let's do an Ockham's razor ("the simplest explanation is usually the correct one") on the rematch, shall we:

Sonny got hit when off balance and went down without being really hurt. Ali stands above him hollering, so he rolls around instead of getting up immediately, waiting for Walcott to get Ali away (which also was Liston's own explanation of events), but he still gets up before he's counted out. If not for Walcott's inexperience and incompetence in following Fleisher's "orders the fight would continue. Actually Liston is defending himself well against Ali's onslaught before Walcott rushes in and stops the fight.

Or is this more convincing:

Sonny wants to take a dive as quickly as possible, so he goes down as soon as Ali throws a punch that connects even though there's nothing on it. But for some reason he doesn't stay down for the count, and when he gets up and Ali attacks him with much harder punches he slips and ducks them instead of letting one connect and going down again.

 

I think Ali, Fleischer and Walcott contributed more to the confusion and unsatisfactory end result of this fight than Liston.

Sonny never got a count!


With no warm up fight, having already had a beating the last time, together with the added inactivity caused by the cancellation Sonny was having to take part in something without the best possible motivation.

Sonny was at a huge disadvantage.

 

That really sums it up.

He was off balance and went down from a soft punch that caught him unexpectedly. Hardly a first in boxing history.

Then all of a sudden he has someone who he thinks is crazy standing above him and hollering and a ref that doesn't really intervene. And when it seems safe to get up and he does so the same ref tells him he was counted out even though the count never reached ten.

Sure, it wasn't a legit KO, but through no fault of Liston's. Ali and, especially, Walcott are the ones to blame.

 

It's the most obvious conclusion.

 

I think the first fight was legit, Sonny was busted up couldn't get near to Ali, and there was medical evidence post fight that he's injured his shoulder.
The second fight for whatever reason Sonny lay down.
Whether he simply didn't fancy it or the fix was in who knows, but if it was Ali clearly wasn't in on it.
He's the most surprised and disgusted person n there when Sonny goes down. He stands over Liston gesturing for him to get up yelling "get up ya bum"
Ali and Walcott clearly didn't have a clue what was going on.

 

Liston deserved a count. He did not get one!

The fight should have continued regardless of the time Sonny spent on the canvas because Ali did not go to a neutral corner. SOnny Was willing to continue and only this would have brought about the satisfactory conclusion a championship fight deserves. Only Nat, Ali and Walcott can be blamed for this not happening rather than Sonny.

Liston was within his right to play act on the floor until Ali was under control so he could observe the count.

In the moments when the fight restarted after the knockdown and before Walcott stopped it Sonny could have thrown himself down at the earliest moment ...but he did not. In all likelihood Sonny would appear poor in this fight and have been stopped later on but Ali, Nat and Walcott prevented us finding out.

 

I agree regarding Ali, Nat and Walcott and Walcott in particular was like a rabbit caught in the headlights he didn't know what to do.
However where were the boxing officials? How come Nat Fleischer decided this?
The fight should have been restarted but none of this explains why Sonny went down in the first place.
I don't buy phantom punches, off balance etc. His acting on the floor while trying to appear hurt was pathetic!

 

The fight was a joke, between Liston's bad acting job, Ali refusing to go to a neutral corner and running around the ring like a maniac, Liston never being counted out despite being down a good 20 seconds, and then the fight being stopped when both men had actually resumed fighting, on the say so of Nat Fleischer, a ringsider with no authority to get involved. Walcott really botched it. The fight should have been an NC.

 

Dundee was a notorious bull ****ter

 

But Walcott didn't count !
Liston stayed down, amid howls and boos and Ali's apparent disgust, and no 'referee count' was forthcoming.

Perhaps, if he dived, he thought his dive was not being accepted as a knockdown.
That would explain why he did the laughable act of getting to his knee and rolling over again, then just gave up the act and got up.

 

Why did Ali act like that ?
His body language suggested disgust and disbelief at Liston falling to the canvas, he beckoned and shouted at Liston to get up and fight.
In the post-fight TV interview he wasn't at all sure what punch he'd thrown when asked, and shouted at his entourage "Don't say nothing ! Don't say nothing !" (meaning 'don't say anything').

There's even a bit after the fight, just before the official result announcement, where Ali is seen mouthing to one of his muslim entourage "Did I hit him ?", "Did I hit him ?".

Ali was the first person to question the knockdown.

 

Except if you study the footage you will see Liston had the best opportunity to get up 'safely' (with Ali being over the other side of the ring at the moment) when he was on his knee, just before he did his "second collapse" act.