Plausible Reasons for Sonny Liston's Tank Job

Then we disagree. I'd not point to any technical leaps, but he was more concentrated and down to business. In the rematch he hardly let's Cooper touch him. His ring generalship is substantially improved I'd say. He's always where he should be and does what he should do. That's not always the case in the first fight.

 

Ali didn't lose any speed before the lay-off. Look at him against Williams. He hasn't slowed down one bit.

It's a bit hard to point to improvements in Ali's technique during the 60's, since he varied quite a lot depending on opponent. But against Folley I think he showed a maturity in both ring generalship and technique that he didn't show pre '65.

 

Think we agree here.

Sometime I have to really try to get to the bottom on how I view Ali.

As a man, it's pretty simple: he was very flawed and very great in the way I like people to be. But as a boxer it's a different thing... I normally like the technically correct ones. The ones like McCallum, that get by on graft and skill. Similary, when it comes to football Xavi is higher in my esteem than Messi (who's the better player) will ever be. But for Ali... I get annoyed by his moves at the same time that I love them.

After all these years, he's still a puzzle to me. And I suppose that's why I can't truly move beyond my boyhood admiration of him...

 

I see him getting hit with jabs, and with body punches, getting flustered, pushed to the ropes, having to resort to clinching and wrestling. He dances around a lot, but he often dances himself back into the ropes.
I mean, Cooper's not scoring with a hell of a lot but he's scoring with as much as he's receiving. Until he gets cut.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uXDVeR862o[/ame]

 

True. You could almost see him growing in maturity throughout the first Liston fight.

 

Never knew this. Cheers mate. I remember seeing Sonny in that film with The Monkees.

 

I agree.
And Ali's elusiveness gets exaggerated. He actually took his fair share of punches in his prime, against some fairly ordinary opponents. The only real punchers he fought were Liston and Williams though, and we know they were slow, or washed-up, or both. Terrell was slow too, and a creampuff peck-and-hold guy. Folley was years past his prime.

When you get beyond the hype, and watch the fights with open eyes, Ali's "hands can't hit what your eyes can't see" line doesn't ring true. Those guys hit him. They crowded him to the ropes often enough too.

His real strength was his speed of punch, that put the opponent on the defensive quite quickly when he started throwing those really fast punches they couldn't anticipate.

 

I think this is a good answer and there was still good money to be made with Ali winning by 1st rd KO, the only other 1st rd KO Ali had was over a middleweight who was KO'd by another middleweight in his next fight in the 1st rd.

Also the Dundee brothers, Chris Dundee were connected ...I think the 1st fight Liston was exposed and we later see Ali having success against the Big slow Bully type...Quarry also handled this type well, the Big Slow Mean Puncher....

I guess Sonny figured it was better to make it quick and make the most of his loss...memory can be a ***** in a rematch