'Why I Took A Dive' by Sonny Liston

Yes they would.

The problem, is that you can't 'fix it' to make it go perfect after the fight is over.

In a conversation with Eddie Pollino years later, talking about the fight, it did not go
the way it what scripted out.

Cassius Clay was supposed to go down very late in the 4th Round, and then get up and start blinking.

After the round ended, he was supposed to go back to his corner complaining of something in his eyes.

Chris Dundee came up with that idea. Then, Angelo Dundee would complain to the Referee Barney Felix
about a foreign substance, who then would call a 'Time-Out', to have Clay checked out by the Ringside
Physician Dr. Alexander Robbins and Miami Boxing Commission Chairman Edward Lassman.

The plan, to give Cassius Clay some time (30 to 40 seconds) extra to clear his head from the
'supposed' 4th Round Knockdown.

The Referee, Ringside Physician, and Commission representative would find no foreign substance,
and call for the fight to continue.

But Clay did not do what he was supposed to do, which made the 'few who knew' very nervous about what
was going on.
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Then after the fight, (which Cassius Clay would win), the Sonny Liston camp would complain bitterly
that Clay got extra time to recover beween the 4th and 5th Rounds.

 

R/T,

This, according to Attorney Gordon Byron Davidson.

During a meeting in August 1964, after finding out that Sonny Liston was banned
from fighting in Las Vegas, and there was no place to stage the rematch.

Cassius Clay; "Why do I have to fight Sonny Liston again. Lets just go out and get
somebody else, like Chuvalo or Floyd Patterson, or Henry Copper again'.

Gordon Byron Davidson; 'Cassius we have a deal, we have to fight Liston again before
anybody else'.

Cassius Clay; 'I'm the Champion, and I fight who I want to'.

Gordon Byron Davidson; 'No Cassius, we have to give Liston the rematch, that's the deal
we agreed to'.

Cassius Clay; What are they going to do if I fight somebody else, I'm the Champion'.

Gordon Byron Davidson; 'There will be big trouble if you don't go through with the
rematch. Big trouble, as in, you'll never fight again'.

Cassius Clay; 'What are they going to do, stop me from fighting'.

Gordon Byron Davidson; 'No, they'll just kill you'.

 

Turpin,

When you break it down, it's pretty obvious 'what the smart move was'.

Everything was 'in-place' for the 'first fight'.

The comfortable surroundings of Miami Beach for Cassius Clay.

A weak boxing commission.

This 'sham' would have never been able to 'pulled off' in New York or Las Vegas.

Even the 'fight's sponsor', VFW Post #3559 was a 'front'.

Jerry Nason, a sportswriter for the Boston Globe had so much 'dirt' on the back room
dealings, that his life was threatened in Miami Beach by mob underlings.

His article 'Chicanery in Miami Beach' was squashed by the Boston Globe, when his
family in Boston found a bomb under their car, on Friday, February 21, 1964 -
4-days before the Tuesday - February 25th bout.

The article was never released, and Jerry Nason was forced to leave Miami Beach on Friday Night (February 21st),
when he was picked up outside a Miami Beach restaraunt on Convention Center Drive, handed a pre-paid Eastern Airlines
airline ticket, an envelope with $3000, and forceably driven to the Miami International Airport, and told to get on the plane and leave.