"The final days of Liston’s life" -- New article

I've never understood the theory that Liston took a dive for a "share" of Ali's purses.

Liston was making a million dollars a fight when he was champion. Sonny's purse was $1.3 million for the first Ali fight. It was one of the highest purses in boxing history to that point.

And he's giving that up for what again? A share of someone else's purses?

Also, Ali was a very unpopular champ and his purses started to shrink. By the time he had his license revoked, his purses were well under a million per fight, and he was giving half to his manager before taxes.

Before giving half to his manager, Ali made $150,000 to defend against Chuvalo. Ali made $300,000 against Mildenberger. He made $250,000 and a percentage against London. Ali made $230,000 and got a percentage of the closed circuit for Cleveland Williams. Ali made $410,000 for Zora Folley.

None of those purses is close to $1.3 million a fight.

Taking a dive and giving up a million dollars a fight to take A SHARE of the purse of an unpopular champ who was make a fraction of what you were makes no sense at all.

Liston made 10 TIMES ($1.3 million) defending the title than Ali made ($150,000) defending against Chuvalo ... and what would Liston get, a couple thousand of that $150,000?)

I don't buy it.

 

good job......great article.

 

Neither bout was fixed. Conspiracy theories are for the uneducated.

 

Interesting article ,thanks for posting it.

 

So no conspiracy theory ever has any credibility and we should just trust you on that ?

It's clearly you who is uneducated

 

Sonny was well out of the boxing picture when he died. I doubt his death related to anything to do directly with boxing.

 

Conspiracy theorists are the most credulous people on god’s green earth, provided that a ridiculous idea is presented as a conspiracy theory.

That aside, even paranoids have enemies, and conspiracy theories sometimes turn out to be true!

This might well be such a case!

 

Any idea what Liston was netting off of those fights? $1.3 million/fight is great money on the top line, but without knowing how much got cut off of that by the time it got to Sonny, we're only getting half the picture.

 

Good read!

 

I don't really believe he was murder, but I read the linked article and ordered the book -- should be interesting, and I may end up persuaded.

What I saw involved some leaps. For instance, there's a report that he met with "an undercover narcotics agent" and seems to immediately assume this was a federal agent and claims there are only 10 federal narco agents and it wasn't one of them -- but (a) if it's an undercover agent, even the other agents may not have known of this person or his identity; (b) who says it's a federal agent (also one sheriff's office cop says it wasn't him, but again, identities of UC's are kept very secure for their safety and to keep them from being discovered and having to drop out since they would no longer be effective, so it's more likely than not that any given cop wouldn't know the name of every (or maybe any) OC; (c) I assume there's also a police department (apart from the feds and the sheriff's department) and they would also have agents working undercover, in all probability.

 

No way liston took a dive in either Ali fight. If someone had come to him with that proposal he would have to them to shove it. I believe first fight he went in over confidence and under trained so by the sixth he was blown out and tired. Second fight I believe was caught by a freak punch that truly hurt and stunned him. Then came the caos of the bad judging by Walcott and Ali jumping all over the place. But definitely no dive

 

I dont think the first fight was at all fixed.
But the second ? Look at how he acts AFTER hitting the canvass, forget the so called Anchor punch,you could debate that until your dying day and prove nothing one way or another.Just study his movements from going down, that is not natural or involuntary movement caused by the reaction to a blow,look at when he props himself up on one arm then rolls back over, it's just bad acting.In a lifetime watching boxing his actions resemble nothing remotely like those of a man knocked down from a legitimate punch.

 

But ask why a guy who had to fight for everything in his life would throw it all away by diving in the first round? By all accounts he had trained hard for the rematch. Why chuck it away it the first round like that. His leg actually comes up off the floor when the punch connects. Something that's involuntary. So I believe he was shook up by it and still dazed when he rose

 

Yes, ive thought all those things. I just dont believe his actions on the canvass look like a real knockdown. We all have to make up our own mind. You cant change the actual moment ,you can debate it forever, but you cant change it and Ali shouting at him to get up , he knew that punch wouldnt have a guy like Liston rolling around, Ali Knew.
Afterwards he bought into the hype, because that's what happens.