Taking stock of sonny liston

Most likely as little as possible.

Although if they were also fixing the fights, I'm sure they make a lot of $$$ on the betting side of things as well.

I was reading a mafia book last night, and it also led me to the question of how would anyone's ATG list change it they knew for certain that Liston threw his fights against Ali, and that Marciano was mob controlled, which is what this book says was the case.

 

well that isn't a surprise.. up untill the late 60ties early 70ties a lot of fights/fighters where mob controlled. just like unions and casino's and the truckdrivers and the clothing industry and frank sinatra. etc etc etc.
but then again i think you are wrong on the idea of the liston/ali fight being fixed. mob controlled or not. nobody "gives" his worldchampionship away..

 

Yeah, it's very possible. It's part of the history.
But Ali is one of the greatest regardless of Liston. And Marciano was just one of many champions who were mob-controlled.

 

Liston was owned. regardless of what was officially his most of it unofficially belonged to the people or person who owned him. probably the same guy all along but so many front guys were thrown up to keep the heat off who actually had his contract.

I think people give the mafia too much credit. They are not as sophisticated as people think. gangsters want money without work. They cant declare the money earn so they make up bull**** fronts, be it second hand furniture salesman, professional gambler, night club owner or boxing manager. so sometimes they are legit managers, only you can bet somebody else does the work.

The way it works is they own people or territory’s. officially nobody can say so but since they actually do own people and rackets everyone involved must pay a tribute.

For instance, at one time to break into Madison square garden a fighters manager had to take on a "partner". some piece of dog **** who "belonged" to the man behind the scenes. This man "behind the scenes" just gets paid, he doesn’t do anything. there is nothing sophisticated about it.

The mob is basically a rust that once invited into a situation corrodes what ever racket it infests.

 

the mob ponced off the top of the fight game. everyone in it had to pay them, the mob did not control boxing in the holywood sense, they did not have to. If they unoficialy owned the champions and had a piece of all the managers in all the arenas they protected they did not have to fix anything.

maybe fights down the card were thrown, in fact there is lots of evidence that there was but actual title fights, why?

don king controled boxing with his option clauses. he didnt have to fix fights because he had options on whoever had his belts. the mob did the same thing with managers and arenas and fight towns. who the hell did they care if they always got a piece of who ever was on top?

 

ali's people did business. everyone did.

 

Well, some fighters will draw more revenue as the champion than others .... more profit for the mob (or cartel or individual) who control everything.
That's why the fights get fixed.

 

The fights get fixed the same for the same reason horse betting was fixed, because there's huge $$$ in betting on when a fighter is going to KO another fighter, whether or not the fight is going to go to the distance, there's all kinds of permutations and combinations to make this extremely lucrative.

It seems to me that if someone were to bet on Liston loosing to Ali in their first fight, they'd be some $$$ to be made on a bet like that.

 

If Ali was 8-1 to just beat Liston, then your talking double that, or more, for him to win inside the distance. Thats a lotta money to be won, and if the bookies in the USA are anything like the bookies in Ireland and the UK, we would have heard them crying over their huge losses. I have yet to read anything to back this up and make no mistake about it, the bookies can smell a rat from 1000 paces.

 

there are legit ways to keep a good earner winning, its called match making.

The more exposure, the bigger the fight, the less likely there is a fix. why bring all that heat? nothing is worse for business than a fixed fight. they cause far too much of a stink.

 

:good

 

And there's a fine line between shrewd "match making" and fixing the outcome. A line that is sometimes crossed.

We see the corruption and crookedness all the time in pro boxing. It's not really something that's up for dispute.

Because people are greedy.

 

You don't understand, the bookies are in on it, for the most part the bookies were all mobbed up, and the bookies that weren't mobbed up could have been forced to take the bet whether they wanted to or not, but in general, it's the guy on the street betting on the outcome of the fight, that's in the dark.

You have to understand, that bookmaking is illegal as is betting with one, it's not as if anyone is going to the cops with a complaint, and if they are, there's a damn good chance they'd pay dearly for ratting anyone out. They may even pay with their lives if they **** around with the wrong people. You have to realize if the mob is scary enough to scare someone like Liston, they can and did pretty much scare everyone around them, judges and police included.

 

I dont understand? Too right i dont understand. You trying to tell me the bookies are in on the fix?? To be in on something, in this case, means some sort of improprity on the bookies behalf. What would that be, apart from paying out on a 16/1 (or more) shot.

Im genuinely baffled by this and would appreciate your help in explaining it to me. Thanx:good