Are you joking? If Holmes tripped over his shoelace, he'd make up some elaborate excuse for it. He had an excuse for literally every one of his subpar performances. Flu against Weaver, injured arm against Norton, etc. Very odd you take Holmes word that he has an injury when none was apparent, but Liston gets zero excuses when he was actually facing handicaps unlike Holmes, and at the minimum 6 years older.
Interesting. I’ve read that Liston claimed that the injury happened during the fight, but the bursitis was def. a pre-existing condition which likely lent itself to the later, clearly defined injury that was incurred during the fight - a torn tendon or similar.
C Given that Ali has the stylistic advantage and given that Liston was old, unprepared and injured, it does not qualify as such a big win as he implied.
This fight shows Ali holding ring centre, boxing off the jab and pivot, keeping Sonny chasing the head with the jab, which Ali slips both inside and outside. Ali is throwing the check hook, double jabs and right hands, hookercuts and showing excellent ring positioning, footwork, headmovement, parrying and forearm and elbow blocking shots and has an air of complete mastery despite facing what was perhaps the most intimidating HW force outside of the stone cold killer Louis that destroyed Schmeling and the prospect of having to deal with Rocco throwing 80+ power punches in the championship rounds if you weigh under 200 lbs to date. Sonny has success to the body and the fight was closer in pure round scoring than the overall perception of the fight, when you watch it first time and already know the outcome, but make no bones about it, this fight demonstrates an unorthodox fighter with plenty of orthodox skillset in his defence and offence, despite the regularly repeated incorrect mantra that Ali didn't have fundamentals.
Yeah the bursitis was confirmed in his autopsy. So I’m not sure why Pat insists Liston was lying about that. The shoulder was said to be injured in training but exacerbated in the fight. In the second fight with Patterson you can see a surgical scar on his left shoulder suggesting his shoulder problems go back even further than the Ali fights, and never really got 100% again.