Liston v Ali: legitimate or not?

"For the rematch, Liston trained like a demon every day, seven days a week. He was fiercely determined to get his title back. He pushed himself to the absolute limit of his physical abilities every day. He neither smoked nor drank while in training, a rarity for him. Come fight time, Liston was in the best shape of his entire career. His reflexes were perfectly honed and ready to spring like a steel trap. Liston felt that he was so close to regaining his title and self-respect that he could almost taste the glory. Then disaster struck.

During the last week of training camp for the rematch, the newly named Muhammad Ali collapsed in the gym with a ruptured hernia. He was rushed to the hospital where emergency surgery was performed to repair the hernia. The fight was postponed for six months. With the delay of the match, Liston became very depressed and began to drink and smoke in copious amounts. He never trained for the rematch again. He had given up on himself."

 

I've always believed the second fight was bent based on Ali's reaction to Liston going down from a tap.Anybody who's ever boxed knows when they've landed a KO punch and Ali knew he hadnt.

 

I voted #1,

I definitely think the first fight was legit with Liston deciding that he couldn't go much further and quitting before the worst happened.

The second is harder to judge, but I think Sonny realized that all that happened over the last 15 months was that he had gotten 15 months older and Ali more mature and better. I think there was a flash knockdown and Liston decided it was better not to beat the count.

Is this a legit fight? I think so. I think there are guys on almost every great fighters' records who probably did the same.

 

Liston nearly got identically decked by a right hand in their first bout, delivered just as Steve Ellis had just finished describing as, "Another jarring right hand that time...," 22 seconds into round three. Start at 1:45:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvzw9xSuEHY

I'm not sure why that sequence is always ignored when discussing Lewiston. It was already proved in Miami Beach that Ali could do that to Liston. Sonny always told his wife Gerry that the KD in Maine was indeed legitimate, but not sufficient to keep him down for a full count.

High definition frame by frame scrutiny proves that Larry Merchant, Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres were right, and Jimmy Cannon wrong about the KD in Lewiston. Ali's placement is perfect, and Sonny's head jerks sharply from left to right upon impact just as flashbulbs go off.

Photographers never saw the award winning punches they recorded on film. They kept themselves trained on the feet of the combatants. When they saw those feet being positioned for a hard punch, they clicked the shutter, capturing the image of that punch landing an instant later, and hoped they were in the proper position at ringside to capture it well. That's how classic images like Robinson's face distorting hook on Gavilan were recorded.

Multiple flashes are seen going off in Lewiston before Liston touches down, right before, during, and after that right connects. It was from their observation of Ali's legs that those still photographers knew a bomb was being unloaded.

What is not seen in the close up below, is that Sonny's left leg was also off the floor at that instant, so Ali's right connected with Liston standing only on his back foot. Ali's follow-up hook also had bad intentions behind it, but his target fell too quickly for planting that left.

At Miami Beach, he'd just taken two hard rights and was on the defensive, not punching, so when he was buckled, he managed to stay upright and retreat to a neutral corner.

The KD in Maine did not take place when Sonny was on defense. He'd just unloaded a jab which Ali slipped and countered with that right. No, it wasn't a planned knockdown. It happened too fast, and completely without warning. The more I look at that knockdown punch, the more impressed I am with the power and placement which whip-lashed Liston's head so sharply.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prxnGjKjxoo


Now, what happened afterwards is that Jersey Joe Walcott lost control, and performed as badly as the referee as Joe Louis in Frazier-JQ would. Ali did not honor the neutral corner rule, Sonny never got a count, and Liston was right not to get up with a manic Ali standing, jumping up and down, and running around him like that. (Put yourself in his situation. How did he know Ali wasn't going to stomp on his head, hands or body when he was rolling over to get up?)

JJW initially did the right thing, dusting Sonny's gloves off, then allowing action to resume after Liston returned to his feet 15 seconds after going down. The timekeeper and ringside counter of the knockdown duration is not the third man in the ring. The referee's individual count might be exactly the stopwatch ten seconds Zack Clayton picked up on Foreman from the ringside counter, only eight seconds, maybe the 12 seconds Lew Eskin allowed Blue Lewis in Ireland against Ali seven years later during round five, but in this case, Sonny never received any count at all from JJW, nor should he have.

By the way, for the first time, I've just listened to the toll of that knockdown seconds counter on the videotapes in Maine. According to the youtube timer, that toll of ten was completed in only eight seconds.

Going to the farthest neutral corner after scoring a KD and remaining there until the knockdown count concluded was the protocol. In this case, the farthest neutral corner was the one opposite the corner Liston was down near. It's about the only location in the ring I don't recall Ali being at when Sonny was on the floor. When Liston got up, Ali was approaching from Sonny's corner.

Resumption of action was proper, although an astute and experienced referee might have warned or even penalized Ali for his behavior during the knockdown before allowing the match to proceed. Instead, he ends his career as a referee by walking away from the participants to a screaming Nat Fleischer, who with no official authority at all, tells him to stop the fight because Liston was down for the count according to ringside timekeeping.

Do I blame Nat Fleischer? The referee should have treated him like any other fan and ignored him. Do I blame Sonny Liston? No. The knockdown was legitimate, he never received a count, should not have received a count, and was right not to get up with a manic kid running around and stomping up and down. Do I blame Ali for how he behaved after the knockdown? He'd only have himself to blame for any penalty, or losing his advantage by giving Liston all the time he needed to recover fully and continue on as before that punch landed. (As it was, the brief action after Sonny got up showed he had not fully recovered as he retreated into his own corner before seven punches from Ali which he was alert enough to slip and duck.)

Only one person was outwardly responsible for the outcome of that match, and that person was Jersey Joe Walcott, nobody else. He was in charge, then subordinated and abdicated his official authority and judgement to a ringside fan. Sonny did not dive according to any script.

Fix? If anybody was crooked during that opening round, it was the counter of the knockdown seconds with that rapid toll. Maybe Fleischer was somehow involved with a plan for a fast ringside count.


Enough of that. Let's assume action continued as it momentarily resumed with JJW correctly ignoring Fleischer and the knockdown seconds official at ringside. Sonny was retreating into his corner before that seven punch assault, but none of them were connecting, and Liston wasn't trapped in the neutral corner at Miami Beach for long after getting wobbled in the third round before he warded out his assailant with a double jab. There's nearly a minute left in the round, but he's defending himself effectively as he retreats, and with a former HW Champion as a referee not likely to skittishly stop the action prematurely. He's not bleeding, not exhausted, and I think he gets through the opening round.

Coming minutes after round one would show it doesn't matter. Sonny does not have the speed to catch him, while Ali has proved in two consecutive title fights that he does have the power to hurt Liston. Best case fantasy scenario for Sonny is to somehow survive the championship distance in what could well be a shutout loss on the cards. More likely, he does get taken out or quit out of frustration as he gasses. Looking at Whitehurst II and Machen (with Eddie's right hand obviously injured), no version of Liston has a chance with the version of Ali he stepped in the ring with twice. The only hope Sonny ever would have had was if Ali suddenly crumbled with his hernia attack during their originally scheduled rematch.

 

Perfect and I fully agree.

 

Liston went into the first fight with a bad shoulder.
He thought Clay would be finished in two rounds.
He was wrong and the shoulder became unusable. He had to quit.

The second fight was a fake- pure and simple.

 

Come on, BE.

You really believe he's dead ? :-(

Dude got in some pooop with the Sicilians and had to lie low, for a while so he 'died.'

You probably believe in that Global warming stuff, and the moon landing and sh!t.

Sonny keeps a low profile these days , but credible reports had him in the seventh row at Stiverne-Wilder.

( Sonny was the big blonde lady in the blue dress. )

 

Can't say for sure but I'd be 99 % sure that the first was legit.

And around 90 % sure that the second was also legit.

 

I agree with all of this post.

My impression of what happened when he went down is exactly what Liston said afterwards. He was waiting for a count but wasn't getting up until Ali was restrained.

Ali, Fleischer and Walcott between them had even more to do with creating the farce that this fight has become than Sonny ever did. It was embarrassing.

 

Legitimate? 2 was mishandled, not fixed.