Sonny Liston: Baddest man ever.

Yeah, right. I guess that's why Liston was swinging with HARD punches that missed Ali's chin by an inch. Remember that at this point, Ali was seen as having a weak jaw: Banks, a light hitter, knocked him down, 180lbs mediocre Cooper knocked him down badly. Everyone thought Liston would murder him with the first punch that connected. Do you really think Liston would risk 6 rounds of attempts of landing hard punches to make it look 'real'?

And if it was a fix, why would he quit in between rounds? Surely that's a huge risk to take if they bet their house on TKO6 or TKO7.

And why would they try to blind Ali if they were fixed to lose anyway?


If you want to see a fix, see the second fight.

 

ESPN Classic special on the two Liston-Clay fights ( Miami Beach, Fl 1964 and Lewinston, Maine, 1965) with Brian Kenny, Bert Sugar and Jerry Izenberg, broke it down without a shadow of a doubt - Sonny couldn't land a jab on Clay in Miami until the fourth round and just was successful at pounding on him in the fifth due to that Monsel solution and Clay's momentary blindness... And as Liston was reaching with the left lead and Clay evading it with subtle head movement and smoothly on his toes, the "Louisiana Lip" was pounding back on the Bear with two fisted attacks, fast, hard shots, and as soon as the end of the first, the second but specially the third... Liston would say to Joe Louis that he had a shoulder injury and Clay would say that Liston stole a lil bit of his greatness for not coming out in the seventh and get stopped in the eight like he predicted, LOL... The second fight was not fixed, there are tapes that show Clay landing a short twisting right arm punch and there is no doubt that Sonny was hurt n wobbling, just that Jersey Joe Walcott lost the count and later Sonny would tell Izenberg that the count keeper costed him the fight.

 

i don't think the 1st fight was fixed at all.a labouring liston simply could hardly land a blow on ali,although he did land 2 or 3 big shots which ali took really well.i think by that stage of his career sonny was simply on the slide.
the 2nd fight i think for whatever reason liston lay down.all the nonsense about the phantom punch was just that,nonsense.if ali could produce a punch like that against a granite jawed fighter like liston,why didn't he do it throughout his career against other opponents? also to me the proof is in ali's reaction when sonny goes down.he immediately gestures to liston to get up and shouts "get up ya bum".

 

I would like to think that the first fight wasn't fixed but i have heard too much bull**** about the people involved controlling Sonnys every move around that time..I would like to think that the mob wanted Sonny to win the first and then lose the rematch shockingly , offering the mob a larger return cash wise....... I like to think Clay pulled off a hreat win.. i hope that was the case......