Muhammad Ali versus Sonny Liston
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The two Ali versus Liston fights were among the most anticipated, watched and controversial fights in boxing history. At the time of the first fight, in 1964, Liston was the world heavyweight champion, having dethroned Floyd Patterson by a knockout in the first round in 1962. With an impressive knockout record to that point, Liston was a fighter whom many other heavyweights were reluctant to meet in the ring. For example, Henry Cooper said that if Cassius Clay [Ali's name at the time] won, he was interested in a title fight, but if Liston won, he was not going to get in the ring with him.[citation needed] Often described as reclusive,[who?] Liston was not one to smile very much or talk to the press very frequently. Liston was known to Ali fans as an ugly bear. For Ali had called many of his opponents names that angered them. He had a criminal record. At age 18 he was arrested 3 times and was jailed to assulting a Louisville cop and unarming him.
Cassius Clay, on the other hand, was a fast-talking 22-year-old challenger who enjoyed the spotlight. He had won the light-heavyweight gold medal at the 1960 Rome Olympics and had great hand and foot speed — not to mention a limitless supply of confidence. Nevertheless, he had been dropped by journeyman Sonny Banks four years previous and by Henry Cooper in the fight leading up to the Liston match. Few observers and fans believed he could beat Liston. On a 1963 episode of the television series I've Got A Secret predictions were made concerning the fight. Panelist Bill Cullen predicted that Liston would win in the third round. Betsy Palmer predicted the first round and Panelist Henry Morgan predicted a Liston win in the second round. Host Garry Moore stated, "If [the fight] happens [liston will win] in the very early moments of round one, I have no reason to think this bout is not coming off I just think that if I were Cassius I would catch a cab and leave town". The final prediction was from actor Hal March who said, "Well I think the fight will end in the dressing room I think [Clay] is going to faint before he comes out".[who?] and he was made a seven to one betting underdog. He critizied the boxing world for not believing in his skills. But nevertheless he had won the title from Liston.
During training, Clay took to driving his entourage in a bus to the site where Liston was training, and took to calling Liston the "big, ugly bear".[citation needed] Liston grew increasingly irritated as Clay continued hurling insults and boasting that he would knock out Liston in eight rounds. Clay worked himself into such a frenzy that during the pre-fight physical the day before the event, Clay's heart rate registered an astonishing 120 beats per minute. Many observers took this to mean that Clay was either terrified or not in the proper shape, but they were proved wrong at the official weigh-in when his heart rate registered as normal.[citation needed]
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[edit] The first fight
| Records before February 25, 1964 | |
|---|---|
| Ali vs. Liston | |
| Cassius Clay | |
| Nickname | Louisville Lip |
| Record | 19-0 KO 5 |
| Hometown | Louisville, Kentucky |
| Recognition | None |
| versus | |
| Sonny Liston | |
| Nickname | The Big Bear |
| Record | 36-1 |
| Hometown | Sand Slough, Arkansas |
| Recognition | WBA/WBC Heavyweight Champion |
| Title(s) on the line | |
| WBA/WBC Heavyweight Champion | |
The night before the first fight, on February 24, 1964, Clay and Liston's sparring partners, Harvey Jones and Jesse Bowdry respectively, appeared on CBS' primetime television game show, I've Got a Secret, their sparring partner identities being their secrets. Each conveyed to the show's host, Garry Moore, their boxer's written message to America which was read on the air by Moore.[1] Clay's lyrical message, was a rhyming boast:
Clay comes out to meet Liston and Liston starts to retreat, if Liston goes back an inch farther he'll end up in a ringside seat. Clay swings with a left, clay swings with a right, just look at young Cassius carry the fight. Liston keeps backing but there's not enough room, it's a matter of time until Clay lowers the boom. Then Clay lands with a right, what a beautiful swing, and the punch raised the bear clear out of the ring. Liston still rising and the ref wears a frown, but he can't start counting until Sonny comes down. Now Liston disappears from view, the crowd is getting frantic and our radaring stations have picked him up somewhere over the Atlantic. Who on Earth thought, when they came to the fight, that they would witness the launching of a human satellite. Hence the crowd did not dream, when they laid down their money, that they would see a total eclipse of Sonny.
– Cassius Clay, As read on CBS' I've Got a Secret[1]
Sonny responsed much more tersely, also in written form and as also read by host Garry Moore:
Cassius, you're my million dollar baby, so please don't let anything happen to you before tomorrow night.
– Sonny Liston, As read on CBS' I've Got a Secret[1]
The following day, February 25, 1964, the first fight was held in Miami Beach, Florida, where Clay was residing at the time (his trainer, Angelo Dundee, operated a gym nearby). The fight began with Clay showing a lot of movement, using his fast and effective jab and quick flurries of combinations, making it difficult for Liston to score with his slower jab and heavy punches. In the third round, Clay opened up his attack and hit Liston with several combinations that caused a bruise under Liston's right eye and a cut under his left. During the fourth round, Clay coasted, keeping his distance. However, when he returned to his corner, he started complaining that there was something burning in his eyes and that he could not see.
It has been theorized that a substance used to stop Liston's cuts from bleeding (possibly Monsel's Solution) may have caused the irritation, but this has never been confirmed. (Liston supporters believe that Clay's own corner, without his knowledge, introduced the substance as a non-loss way out of the fight if it became necessary.) In any case, Angelo Dundee rinsed Clay's eyes with a sponge and pushed him off his stool to begin the fifth round, telling him to stay away from Liston.
Clay managed to survive the fifth round and by the sixth had resumed control of the fight. During the sixth, Clay landed several effective combinations, seemingly at will. On his stool following the sixth round, Liston told his cornermen that he couldn't continue, complaining of a shoulder injury. He failed to answer the bell for the seventh round and Clay was declared the winner by technical knockout. Sensing that he had made history, Clay sprang to the center of the ring, did a victory jig and then quickly ran to the ropes to remind sportswriters that he had told them so, since many of them had written that Clay had no chance of beating the once-feared Sonny Liston. In a scene that has been rebroadcast countless times over the ensuing four decades, Clay yelled "I'm the greatest" and "I shook up the world!"
[edit] The second bout
| Records before May 25, 1965 | |
|---|---|
| Ali vs. Liston | |
| Muhammad Ali | |
| Nickname | Louisville Lip |
| Record | 20-0 KO 5 |
| Hometown | Louisville, Kentucky |
| Recognition | WBA/WBC Heavyweight Champion |
| versus | |
| Sonny Liston | |
| Nickname | The Big Bear |
| Record | 36-2 |
| Hometown | Sand Slough, Arkansas |
| Recognition | WBA/WBC Heavyweight Champion |
| Title(s) on the line | |
| WBC Heavyweight Champion | |
Because of the unexpected (if not controversial) ending of the first bout, boxing authorities ordered a second bout, this time with Cassius Clay (now Muhammad Ali) as the defending world champion and Liston as challenger. The bout was scheduled for November, 1964, but Ali needed emergency surgery for a strangulated hernia. The fight was postponed until the following May and rescheduled for a site in Boston, Massachusetts. However, since the promoters did not have a license in Massachusetts, the fight eventually was held in a small auditorium in Lewiston, Maine, the state's second largest city, on May 25, 1965. As a result of the remote location (140 miles north of Boston), only 2,434 fans were present, setting a [still] all-time record for the lowest attendance in a world championship fight.
This proved to be one of the most controversial fights in history. Midway through the first round, Liston fell to the canvas, in what many have argued was not a legitimate knockdown. Referee Jersey Joe Walcott, a former world heavyweight champion himself, seemed to be confused after he sent Ali to a neutral corner and the champion refused, instead standing over his fallen opponent and yelling at him to get up, then posing over him with his fists in the air celebrating the knockdown. Walcott took 20 seconds to figure out what to do, and by then Liston had gotten to his feet and resumed boxing. Nat Fleischer, publisher of The Ring, finally told Walcott that Liston had spent more than the requisite 10 seconds on the canvas, and Walcott stopped the fight — awarding Ali a first-round knockout (see Muhammad Ali).
The blow that ended the match became known as "the phantom punch" since most people at ringside did not see it. Many continue to claim that Liston had bet against himself and "took a dive" because he owed money to the mafia, and others believe that he feared for his safety from Nation of Islam extremists and just wanted to extricate himself from the entire situation. Slow motion replays show Ali connecting with a quick, chopping right to Liston's head as Liston was moving toward him, and show that Liston was unsteady when he finally got to his feet (Ali appeared to connect with four additional unanswered punches before Walcott belatedly declared the knockout and an end to the contest). However, it remains inconclusive to this day as to whether the blow was a legitimate knockout punch, so historians and analysts continue to argue the results of this rematch.[2] In his book Ghosts of Manila, Mark Kram included an interview he held with Liston years after the fight. In the interview, Liston claimed to have taken a dive because of his fear of retaliation from the Nation of Islam, the Black Muslim sect that was managing Ali's career. This statement has never been substantiated, however.
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Harvey Jones and Jesse Bowdry appearance on CBS' I've Got a Secret, February 24, 1964. Rebroadcast on Game Show Network and viewed March 24, 2008.
- ^ Andrew Vachss, Only Child, p.89, Vintage, 2003. Vachss further explains the way such a fix would have been engineered in Two Trains Running, pp.160-165, 233, Pantheon, 2005.
[edit] Further reading
- Black is Best: The Riddle of Cassius Clay, by Jack Olsen (1967).
[edit] External links
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