Prime Sonny Liston vs 1970's Muhammad Ali

I'll adress you points, but please bear with me as I don't like to multi quote.

Let's leave injuries out of it for the moment. We seem to have different views on what constitutes a serious injury. All I'll say is that it's not that uncommon to win with a shut eye or broken nose.
A broken jaw? Certainly that is different.

You may be putting words in my mouth. I've never suggested Liston quit at the first sign of adversity. I've never seen any decent fighter that did.
What I'm saying I'd that I just don't buy the shoulder injury.*
Therefore, I say he quit.

Fighters lose hope and get demoralised. They don't loss heart when they can hit the opoonent. Tua never lost heart against Ibeabuchi in a war, but he lost heart against Lewis because he was getting tagged, and couldn't effectively fight back.

That's what I think happened against Ali. I don't care what the scorecards said, Liston never looked like a winner and he wasn't winning that fight.
He had one good round - the 5th - due to Ali being blinded by a linament used by Liston's corner. Once Ali's eyes cleared, it was back to business.
And yes, Liston literally was following Ali like a puppy on a leash. I didn't use that phrase flippantly. He was hopeless at cutting off the ring.
In fact, he didn't even try to.

So, here we are. Liston is cut, lumped up, cannot find Ali and is bewildered by Ali's speed and movement. And Ali didn't dance the whole fight either. At times, he stood right in front of Liston and still Liston could do nothing. He backed up Liston on a couple of occasions. And it's only round 6. 9 more to go. It was going to be a long, unpleasant night for Liston.

I find it strange that you say he took a dive in the second fight, but won't entertain the idea he quit in the first fight.

*I'll post separately on this.

 

I must say, I think it's optimistic to make even the best version of Liston a favourite over any decent version of Ali. Liston's success is against mainly aggressive fighters that were either smaller than him (Folley and Patterson) or more limited (Valdes and Williams). In short, he was a big man for that era with more skill than anyone else with even comparable strength and power, which gave him a big advantage against anyone who fought him on the front foot.

But even in 1960 Liston looked quite ineffective when a one-armed Machen put on a solid defensive, survival display. And there are of course the fights with Ali.

So the evidence for Liston doing well against someone with the speed and boxing IQ of a 70's Ali is fairly thin, I'd say.

 

This shoulder injury story bothers me. There is so much inconsistency surrounding it.
I'll accept that he had a problem with it coming in.

This is an excerpt from a New York Times
articke not long after the fight.

'One doctor displayed a blownup photo of Liston's arm and shoulder. The doctor said there was a swelling that increased the circumference of the upper arm by 31/3 inches.'

Anyone seen photos of this horribly swollen arm?

'The eight doctors who examined Liston were all satisfied with his story, Klein said, that he threw a left hook in the first round, heard someting snap, and then lost control of his arm'

Liston claims this was a first round injury. Could have fooled me. He fights perfectly normally. No signs of even discomfort. Others say it happened in the 6th. His cornermen said it was an excuse.
So which is it?

The following is an excerpt from a Dr. Arturo Tozzi MD, PhD, AAF:

"No signs of arm swelling and numbing were detectable through a careful inspection of the single frames of the last, sixth round. Furthermore, no symptoms of shoulders’ weakness, instability, limited range of motion were noticed. The active
and passive range of shoulder joints motion was preserved. The internal and external rotations of the arms, together with flexion and extension of the elbows, did not seem to be impaired. During the sixth round, Sonny Liston raised the left
arm 22 times and the right one just 3 times. He carried the right arm at belt level throughout the whole round. In sum,
Liston moved the left arm in the ordinary way.

CONCLUSIONS
A rotator cuff tear is very common in sport activities characterized by repetitive lifting or overhead movements. As stated
above, the diagnosis of rotator cuff tear in shoulder is characterized by peculiar signs and symptoms. It should be noticed
that some rotator cuff tears are not painful, but may still result in arm weakness. At first, the pain may be mild and onlyo ccur when lifting the arm over the head. However, over time, the pain may become more noticeable. Shoulder pain andw eakness increases with the severity of rotator cuff tear. In this case, the most important symptom is a reduction in shoulder function. In case of a small rotator cuff tear, the patient can often still raise the arm with or without pain, while moderate tears are usually very painful and impair motility. Indeed, partial rotator cuff tear may present just with mild shoulder pain, clicking during shoulder elevation, and mild shoulder weakness lifting the hand above shoulder height, or reaching behind the back. In turn, full thickness rotator cuff tear will generally cause severe shoulder pain and inability to lift the elbow away from the body. In some cases, the rotator cuff tear is so severe that a significant number of painf ibres are also torn, which can make them less painful, but very weak.

When inspecting the movie frames of the Liston-Clay match, the typical signs and symptoms of a rotator cuff tear (i.e.,
pain when lifting and lowering arm or following specific movements, and weakness when lifting or rotating the arm)
were not noticed in Liston’s boxing activity. Furthermore, in the sixth round, Liston used mostly the left arm, e.g., the
one that was later said to be injured. If the boxer had the left-arm partially or totally injured, it would have used the right
one, in order to avoid the pain and to address the left shoulder’s impaired motility. This means that Liston’s left arm was not damaged enough to prevent him to fight."

Definitive answer?
No.
But he makes good points and this is not from someone in any way connected with Liston. It's an impartial observation from a medical expert.

There is too much inconsistency surrounding this.
Should I give Liston the benefit of the doubt?
Liston was not a man of impeccable character or honesty.
So no, why should I?

 

To my eyes, Machen's injury is much more evident than Liston's just looking at the film of the fights. He hardly used his injured arm.

Not saying he would have won otherwise, he would have to take more chances to do that even with two good arms, but Liston had a hard time catching him.

 

That's even worse. "my friend told his friend, who told his friend who told me". Their is absolutely NOTHING else to corroborate it. Also, the books credibility is hurt when it states Liston blinded both Williams and Machen when common sense and watching the film tells us that's not the case.

Yeah, that's not true at all. Liston also visibly hurt Ali in the 2nd by Ali's own admission, and may have hurt him at other points in the fight.

 

Liston was so ineffective, he won all but 2 rounds, dominated the bout, and rendered Machen useless.

 

He told a journalist, who put his name behind it, and he told the guy, Remnick, who wrote the book. We're not talking anonymous mob snitches here.

This is more substantiated than a fix in the rematch for example.

He probably felt it, of course, but at no pint was he hurt as in being anywhere close to going down, which is the way the term is mostly used. The majority of what Liston landed was in the 5th, the other rds he was mostly hitting air.

 

Machen's injured arm did go a long way in making him useless.

If you think you're watching a guy that could KO Ali of the Frazier or Foreman fights in that fight, you're surely looking at something else than I am. And outpointing that Ali over 15?! There's absolutely nothing Liston ever did to point to that.

 

On Sept 7 1960, Sonny Liston went 12 rounds with Eddie Machen, Sonny won by decision.

 

I agree that Sonny Liston overestimated Muhammad Ali, he was paying too much attention to Ali's performance against Doug Jones on March 13 1963 and the fight that Ali had against Henry Cooper on June 18 1963. Liston did not think Ali would be any trouble at all.

 

could've fooled me. The way that fight's been described here, I thought Machen would've won easily as Liston was supposedly ineffective. Unfortunately, actual film of the bout told another matter.

 

So very true.