Revisiting Ali-Liston 1

I knew you were going to go there.

The fights and what i am trying to convey aren't quite aligned with that.

I am more looking at he could have dived at or around the time when he quit. He'd fought a handful of rounds and been legit stunned prior to the end. In the rematch some were still getting to their seats. The Fat Lady was still at home applying the make up let alone being driven to the stadium. A monstrosity like Liston who had been considered indestructible not that long prior done and dusted in 2 minutes flat by a guy whose power had been questioned? At least going a handful of rounds looked better.

I can't put another more forward as i believe what i put up in earlier posts says more than enough. Bojak is all over it.

There was another fight you believed was a fix against all opinion but i'm damned if i can remember what one it was now.

 

The 2nd fight was an obvious fix.
If all fixes were like that, we'd have little to worry about.

That doesn't narrow it down much.
I think lots of fights are fixed, I've becoming very cynical, i admit, and I am quite surprised how many long-time fans take everything at face value.

 

Exactly.

 

Personally, I don't see the big mystery at all. Clay had taunted and ridiculed Liston pre fight, and Liston had the opportunity to silence that big mouth with his fists once and for all. Instead he's in there with a completely different animal than what he expected, someone he can't put down even when he's blinded. In the 6th, Liston is tired and his reflexes blunted by fatigue and his shoulder bothering him, even though it's hard to say how badly. Clay doesn't seem to go for full throttle just to make his prediction come through.

So this punk that had ridiculed Liston, isn't only going to beat him but likely in the very round he had predicted. It's not far fetched at all to me that he'd rather quit than experience that. Especially with a shoulder that's bothering him. It's a much, much, much more likely explanation than that he threw away the richest prize in boxing through a dive, after throwing punches that very well could have ended the fight.

In the rematch, I think Liston's age and bad habits really were showing. He was noticeable slower and Ali had matured and was more confident after the first one. The difference in speed was almost ludicrous and this time Ali was really hitting him at will. He had landed two lead rights, one fairly light but another that probably shook Liston, and then put him down with a counter over the jab that probably didn't hurt Sonny but unbalanced him since he didn't see it coming. So Liston knew by then full well where it was heading and, true to form, rather quit than go through with it.

One factor that never really gets mentioned in all of this is the mental one. Liston was truly angered by Ali's antics and probably felt contempt for him at the same time since he didn't think he was a man of Liston's own calibre, just a fair weather loud mouth kid. So to be bested like that by him was just something he couldn't accept. Shades of No mas (at least in the first fight), with the difference that Liston had much less chance of winning the two times he quit and was carrying an injury the first time.

So I just don't see the mystery.

 

I think it is likely Liston threw both fights.
First one, he went 6 rounds to satisfy the arranged round bets. And they knew he had a rematch.
Second one, he knew Ali was a formidable fighter and that he couldn't win the title back from him anyway, so no chance he was going to take those licks again, so he went down inside a round.

I don't have concrete evidence in either case.
But Liston was no saint. He was also known to be a gambler. He was associating with Ash Resnick, a casino manager who was under FBI investigations on-and-off for his entire career for rackeetering.
I consider both fights highly suspect.

 

I completely agree with you on the first but have a different personal take on the second. The first is cut and dried for me.

 

i don't much reason to think that Liston actually cared much about Clay's antics or character at all.
Of course, he was probably angry that time Clay turned up at his house in the middle of the night or whatever. Who wouldn't be?
But I'm not sure Liston was really bothered by Clay's boasts or whatever, being called ugly or whatever. I think he probably found Clay quite amusing, a little bemusing, and okay to sell some tickets at the closed circuit theatres.
Mostly, he was just another guy to fight.
I don't think being called ugly bear would have bothered him at all. It didn't seem particularly serious on Clay's side either. i don't think there was any real bad blood. They were from two different worlds, different ages. I don't think Liston was made a real object of ridicule. It was all fun.

Also, Clay didn't clown or taunt Liston at all during the fight, there was no attempt to humiliate. Clay was focused. It was just a heavyweight boxing match. I don't see any evidence that there was a mental meltdown or a personalised humiliation of Sonny Liston. It seems a cop-out to give him that reason. He just boxed, shipped some punches, then quit.

 

He slapped Clay once, in a casino I think it was, because of Clay's taunting. And he was seriously angry when they turned up with the bus and woke him. Who wouldn't be.

And even besides all that it is humiliating to be KO'd in a predicted round. Certainly for someone who's been the baddest in the world even years before he became champ, and by someone everyone thought he would easily beat.

 

lol

 

He slapped Clay in the casino (Liston was possibly busy losing money on the craps table, which is possibly why he started throwing fights anyway. Who knows?) according to the story, and Clay ran away. Then again, maybe Liston slapped a lot of people. Clay was annoying but more for just being a childish nuisance than personally getting under Liston's skin, I think. I think the media and spectators of that time were laughing at Clay more than they were laughing with him at Liston. It was Clay who was being ridiculed more than Liston at the time. With hindsight it's easy to forget that.

I don't think any of that matters to what happened in the ring though. Boxing is a business. In the ring they go about the business.

Yes, but you are speculating that he quit because he thought he'd be KO'd in a predicted round. I have no idea if Liston even took any notice of Clay's predictions, nevermind whether he remembered during the fight. There's a lot of speculation going on. You're free to speculate. I am speculating too. But who can really say. I don't think Liston took anything like the beating, physically or mentally, that you seem to see. And that's why I don't give him a pass. He was a suspect character with a gambling habit and unsavoury associates and he lost two fights in a row in unsatisfactory circumstances, from what I can see.

Like I said a couple of pages back, there's no point arguing about whether the fight was fixed or not. It can't be resolved. I think you brought it up to ask about my scorecard, which I think I answered.

 

He did.

[url]https://boxrec.com/media/index.php/Sonny_Liston_vs._Cassius_Clay_(1st_meeting)[/url]

 

Of course I'm speculating, never said anything but. As are you of course.

For me it just seems clear that it's much more likely that he quit not to be humiliated by being KO'd as predicted by someone who had taunted him and he thought inferior (and the injury might have influenced the decision as well) than that he threw away the richest prize in sports by taking a dive after throwing shots that could have ended the fight with the opposite result.

In every other case this kind of reasoning - that when a fighter quits is because he doesn't think he can win, not because of a fix - is uncontroversial, but not in this case for some reason. That's all really. I've nothing to add to that.

 

I think lots of fights where they quit are controversial. Whenever a fighter quits unexpectedly (and this one was a surprise in real time) it raises questions and suspicion.

It's not just Liston, but obviously in an important fight, a champion with unsavoury connections, for heavyweight title, a challenger who went on to become the most famous legend in boxing, of course it will be given added attention. It's part of history.
There's no bias or special treatment. It's just the fight was suspicious at the time and remains so. Despite efforts to whitewash it completely.

 

That's how you fix a fight, you fight well below your ability and make it look convincing.