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

Chok,
I've said the same thing for years, but I was wrong. There was a count.

The knockdown time keeper begins a count when a boxer goes down. He did so in Liston's case.
It was Walcott's job to signal him to stop the count when Ali refused to go to a neutral corner.
Walcott failed to do it.
Technically, Liston was counted out.

 

You sir, are a master of understatement.

 

I agree he was buying time. Why bother to attempt to get back up if he was in on this fix the conspiracy theorists harp on about.

Are we now saying that Liston planned to go down roll onto his back, roll the other way, get onto his right knee, then go over again?

I just don't see Liston as having that much finesse. He appears to me to be more the Buster Douglas type who went down and more or less counted himself out in the Holyfield fight, all the time thinking, screw this I'm going fishing.

 

We don't know exactly why he did it but it's kind of irrelevant, because either way it looked like a phony act.

Opinions on whether the first fall was phony are more divided. But a lot of spectators thought it was fake, and Ali's immediate reaction towards Liston, and the fact that he asked a member of his entourage "Did I hit him ? Did I hit him ?" and his comments "I was telling the bum to get up and fight!" all suggest that Ali wasn't convinced at all.

Not everything can be put on Walcott's actions.

 

Marciano (who was at ringside) thought the fight was fixed and would not shut up about it.

 

50:24 listen to Dundee and then George Chuvalo's ringside take on it :

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This whole documentary is well worth watching for anyone who hasn't seen it before. :good

 

I don't think anyone is saying that. Who knows what his plan was ? I'm pretty sure everything he did points towards him generally planning to lose though, looking for a way out.

Maybe he was trying/expecting to get a legitimate count.
It doesn't matter if he stayed down or got up.
Some fighters have thrown fights by going down, getting up, going down, getting up.
And that's only among the fixes we know about. Some guys have almost certainly thrown fights and they have passed in history as legit because they were done well fixes.
But Sonny Liston did not do his act well at all. It's blatantly phony.

 

So did Gene Tunney.
Tunney lobbied to have the purses withheld. He called it a "disgrace".

Dempsey said he didn't go to the fight because he "had a feeling" it would be fixed.

 

I think 90% of the mess can be put on Ali's actions.
Had he gone to e neutral corner (as he knew he was supposed to), Liston would either have been counted out or he would have gotten up and the fight would have resumed.

I still don't see a reason to not have disqualified Ali for flagrantly and repeatedly ignoring the referee's instructions.

I have yet to have anyone explain why this shouldn't have been done.

 

Yeah, it's ridiculous that he got away with that. He should have at least been threatened with a DQ.
The Bonavena fight was actually worse. Ali seemed to bully or intimdate those referees with his personality.
I don't know why he had to get so over-excited. I guess he was genuinely like that, and he borrowed a lot of his act from professional wrestling.

 

Except the fact that the punch barely even landed... Ali's own reaction tells us he didn't even know if he hit Sonny Liston... let alone hard. He clearly believed Sonny was diving and didn't like it. Didn't like that it was being done or being done bad... either one really. Ali of all people would know if a punch landed hard enough to cause a KO... and he clearly believed that punch didn't. Then we see Sonny get to one knee... with time to get up and people away... and he suddently flops back down again? Why? He wasn't the least bit wobbly when he got up... Yet there, he was so out of it and dazed he couldn't even sit up on one knee? Please. There was money to be made on the fight... and the person won who would've made someone the most money. Sometimes if it quacks like a duck.. walks like a duck... it's a mother fing duck

 

How would boxing history have changed if Liston had been awarded that fight due to a DQ?
That might make a good thread.
Liston would not have given a rematch. They both had been sanctioned by the WBA for the first rematch.
Ali would have waited in the wings for a long time.

 

JJW maybe knew a thing or two about rematches with quick endings.