[CLIP] Cus D'Amato reacts to Ali-Liston 2 during Post-Fight Interviews "Not Listons Fault!"

The fact is the punch was real, it connected and knocked Liston down. Ali has knocked Cleveland Williams down with a punch far less forceful.

What is in question is that Liston may have stayed down purposely. That's my opinion!

 

What the second bout between Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston needed was a highly-regarded professional boxing referee who had been refereeing good number of other recent bouts. Jersey Joe Walcott was chosen as the referee of the bout partly due to the fact that he was a former world heavyweight champion, not because he displayed any previous competence as a referee or had refereed a number of recent bouts.

The second bout between Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry was refereed by Joe Louis, who, like Jersey Joe Walcott, definitely was not qualified to referee a major bout. During that Frazier-Quarry bout, Quarry obviously was in a helpless state and taking unnecessary punishment because Louis seemed to have a "deer in the headlights look" and didn't make a move to stop the bout for awhile.

- Chuck Johnston

 

It's certainly debatable whether the KD was real (Imo it's rather obvious it's not).

 

thats because Williams was way past his best and because he got shot by a cop

 

This is a good point. Ali’s behaviour was irrational. Liston was not obliged to do anything until he received a count. Walcott was not obliged to start his count until Ali was where he should have been! A time keeper cannot over rule the referee. Certainly not a magazine reporter. Liston was waiting for a count.

Walcott should have called a time out. Put Ali in a corner. The boxer is not supposed to push past the referee or break free from his restraint. I think he was at risk of having a point taken off. Ali did this to Mark Conn in the Bonavena fight too. He was a live wire. Excitable.

Liston was stopped on his feet, Sonny did not throw himself down as soon as Ali hit him when he did get up. If Sonny wanted to dump it he would have right there, but he was still standing when Walcott came back from listening to Nat fliescher.

 

"I hit him a couple of solid shots and he did not buckle. Sonny was the strongest man I ever fought and he was very tough. When I fought him I still could hit very hard."- Nino Valdez
He was only legitimately down once his career at the tale end of his career when he had the flu by a VERY hard puncher. Now you're trying to tell me the man had a glass jaw?!

 

Both the KD and KO can be argued either way.

 

Yep. Look at the punch Moore floored Rocky with. It wasn't a hard punch either, but an accurate and well timed counter that an off balance Rocky didn't expect. The difference was that he got up immediately.

 

I wouldn't regard Leotis Martin as a "VERY hard puncher" by heavyweight boxing standards.

 

Ring Top 100, certainly not a feather fist.

 

But Moore was not standing over Rocky then running around and around like a loon.

If Ali never did that we would know more about what Sonny wanted to do. We would have seen him receiving an actual official count that he could hear. We will never know for sure that Sonny was ready to get up straight away because Ali prevented that.