This makes perfect sense. I want to add, sometimes it seems those whom can calmly master fear do the seemingly impossible.
Cus knew Floyd was toast. D'Amato spent much energy fighting the IBC and their monopoly of the sport. It was a worthy cause and it took courage. With that said sometimes you become just like the the thing your fighting. Cus wanted that same control Carbo had.
Yeah on the one hand champions were generally more active and had the balls to fight the best back then. However, every era has its faults. For the 60's the political world and the underworld had tons of influence as you pointed out with the actual president being biased for one fighter. This happened again later in the 80's when Reagan was rooting for Cooney and there was an intense racial climate that was completely unfair to Holmes.
I don't mean to take issue with the gist of Cobra's main message in his posting, but reading it sets off one of my pet peeves -- about the usage of the word "belt" to describe a champion. Back when Liston reigned, people didn't say he "had the belt." They said he was the one and only world champion. The only belt was the one awarded by Ring Magazine to the world champion as a symbol of that singular achievement. It upsets me to use the diluted language from the present era to describe champions from eras in which world championships were mostly undisputed. Sonny Liston was "THE CHAMPION," not just another run-of-the-mill belt holder.
(Public service message) All you kids listen up. If your situation where you feel like you need to do this. Don't do it. There maybe something your doin that led to this. Learn from Uncle Sonny. PS Don't break his leg either. We don't encourage that.
Great performance by Ali, for sure. Very much is made out of Liston's mindset leading up to the fight, but not much is said about Ali struggling badly with lesser fighters in the two prior fights. To have that in recent memory and still perform the way he did is to a large what made him the great fighter he was. Too bad the rematch never came off as originally scheduled. A more mature and confident Ali would have beaten the snot out of him without as much doubts about Liston's preparation.
Lots is said about Liston's age and lack of preparation, less about how absurdly many power punches he's missing. He is expanding lots and lots of energy hitting only air. Just love this performance by Ali.
WOW Is it just me, or did Ali's jaw make a "clacking" sound upon impact? Check out Liston's legs as he throws that shot. There was so much behind it.
And Ali landed some pretty jaw-dropping combinations in this fight. Though not as heavy as Joe Louis at his best, Ali's combinations were faster.
Obviously fake - remember Liston and Foreman never landed any powerful flush punches on Ali Mark. Good to see you educating those guys.
I believe stonehands, put forward an excellent case that a prime Liston would’ve beaten Ali, even if I think Liston loses a somewhat close UD even at his best.