BoxRec

Terry D wrote:

TheOneIsHere2008 wrote:

I think Liston may have feared Clay a little. His stock in trade was imitation and you cannot imitate a crazy man. So Clay let him think he was crazy. The political thing thrown into fight II probably sat even less well with Liston, who strikes me a person who is not interested in politics.

If it is true that Liston feared loonies and priests then Clay converting to a strange religion would have put the shits right up Liston.

Liston probably thought he was fighting a deranged high priest.

Something to consider...The fact that Ali feared Liston a bit does not preculde the possibility that Liston feared Ali a bit...IMHO, Liston was the most fearful looking boxer Ali fought,the scowl made him even more fearful than the young, pre Foreman grill, Foreman...

When Ali confronted him in the casino he wasn't moved...

I don't think Ali feared Liston by the time it came for them to fight. In his autobio Ali talks about feeling 'Awe and fear' when seeing Liston demolish foes in fights, but also that this subsided as he watched Liston train in the gym. The fear Patterson held saw him fall apart in the fights so any wear and tear on Liston would only tell in a longer, tougher bout, Ali saw this in the gym and the mroe he saw of Liston the less afraid he became. Unlike Patterson who was shielded from Liston by Cus.

Ali wanted Cus to train him...Ali was lucky Cus was busy with Patterson...I can't imagine Ali with the peekaboo style of Patterson and Tyson...

kikibalt wrote:

Thank you, my friend...

There are some iconic images, in order, from my memory that decreases with age:

1) Ali standing over a fallen Liston

2) Ali , Robinson, and Louis

3) Ali with Malcom X

4) The popular poster of Ali in red trunks in the late sixties/early seventies where he signs it Peace, Muhammad Ali...

5) Standing as Foreman is about to fall

6) Lighting the Olympic Torch


There are some awesome images in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7o30NHF ... re=related

and this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbCZc52r ... re=related

It might not make sense to my British friends but I have my own pantheon of sports heroes- Wille Mays, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Bill Russell...

My fiancee is from the Philippines.... ...She's a big fan of Pac Man ...He's a source of national pride... I gave her a lot of hints of what I want for my birthday and I think I'm getting an autographed photo of Ali standing over Liston...That photo is behind the desk in Barack Obama's Senate office....

Terry D wrote:The Machine:



Will always love his battles with Williams.

I know Ali rented a bus to drive through his neighborhood...Is that when Liston came out with a gun or was that when Ali confronted him in Vegas...

I am not as familiar with Liston's career as I should be...I know of him as the man who destroyed Floyd Patterson...Him and Marciano were fighting at the same time... Was he ever on the horizon for Marciano and how do you think he would have done?

This is for Terry D:

http://www.tysontalk.com/ftopic-975-0-d ... rasc-.html

Terry D wrote:

TheOneIsHere2008 wrote:

Terry D wrote:The Machine:



Will always love his battles with Williams.

I know Ali rented a bus to drive through his neighborhood...Is that when Liston came out with a gun or was that when Ali confronted him in Vegas...

I am not as familiar with Liston's career as I should be...I know of him as the man who destroyed Floyd Patterson...Him and Marciano were fighting at the same time... Was he ever on the horizon for Marciano and how do you think he would have done?

That was Ali's 'Beat Hunting' bus. Got a group and went to unsettle Sonny. The fact Sonny was said to come out in a rage must have made Clay feel that he could get to Sonny mentally. Even when Sonny growled at hmi it just bounced off.

Liston was a fighting machine during his contention.

How did a young kid think these things up?

You know he received a 78 on his I Q test...I think he shucked it...Before The Parkinson's Syndrome when he would speak frequently you could see he had a lot of native intelligence...

TheOneIsHere2008 wrote:
I am not as familiar with Liston's career as I should be...

LOL

TOIS2008
YouTube has some good Liston fights...and a few
'trading' sites also have a pretty comprehensive Liston
career DVD's.

Liston is definetly a man worth watching and learning
about.

Sugar Ray Robinson didn't learn about boxing from zoning out in front of a TV.

granberry wrote:

TheOneIsHere2008 wrote:
I am not as familiar with Liston's career as I should be...

I am a bitter man who sleeps at the Y and drinks pilfered whiskey out of a rolled up newspaper....Please indulge me. You gentlemen are my only contact with the outside world, beside my probation officer .

Hmmmm...And you decided to share this with me, why...Perhaps if you kept the required distance from schools, playgrounds, and the like your probation might be lifted.

Robinson wrote:TOIS2008
YouTube has some good Liston fights...and a few
'trading' sites also have a pretty comprehensive Liston
career DVD's.

Liston is definetly a man worth watching and learning
about.

Thank you...I have said many times I am not a boxing historian but one does not have to be able to wax eloquentlly on The Peloponnesian War or The Hundred Year War to discuss the situation in Afghanistan and Viet Nam....

While I dont like the idea of Patterson being destroyed so easily
by Liston..you have to feel sorry for Sonny. As a champion he
was so under appreciated, he fought a long hard road to that title
and may very well have burnt himself out in that journey...

then when he beats the fast, dangerous Patterson inside of one
round...the public, media...everyone turns their backs on him...
dismisses him as a thug...a bully a petty criminal...well guess what
world...he is still our worlds heavyweight champion.

Imagine if he did not give the relatively un-tested media saavy
Clay a title fight...made him quest for it like he had to..took some
safe pay days against Internationals..

I really do not know how to view the Ali fights...the dominance of
Ali was impressive in number one..though Liston contray to legend
did have good moments...Ali did frustrate and do so well against
such a dangerous strong and powerful man.

The second fight....I just dont buy into the 'off balance' posture of
Liston, or the explosive instant power of Ali's 'anchor punch'...

TOIH2008 as a devout Ali fan you really should look at the careers
of his opponents...it would give you a greater appreciation of him
and the men he faced.

Kym

Robinson wrote:While I dont like the idea of Patterson being destroyed so easily
by Liston..you have to feel sorry for Sonny. As a champion he
was so under appreciated, he fought a long hard road to that title
and may very well have burnt himself out in that journey...

then when he beats the fast, dangerous Patterson inside of one
round...the public, media...everyone turns their backs on him...
dismisses him as a thug...a bully a petty criminal...well guess what
world...he is still our worlds heavyweight champion.

Imagine if he did not give the relatively un-tested media saavy
Clay a title fight...made him quest for it like he had to..took some
safe pay days against Internationals..

I really do not know how to view the Ali fights...the dominance of
Ali was impressive in number one..though Liston contray to legend
did have good moments...Ali did frustrate and do so well against
such a dangerous strong and powerful man.

The second fight....I just dont buy into the 'off balance' posture of
Liston, or the explosive instant power of Ali's 'anchor punch'...

TOIH2008 as a devout Ali fan you really should look at the careers
of his opponents...it would give you a greater appreciation of him
and the men he faced.

Kym

I have read a great deal about Muhammad Ali, his opponents, and other boxers...I have the added benefit to have actually lived during those heady days ...I am more than passingly familiar with Joe Frazier's hard scrabble life growing up in Beaufort *( I have actually been in Beaufort, more than once! How many people reading this thread can claim that?), Floyd Patterson's rise from reform school to mentorship under Cus D'Amato to beloved and respected champion, and the menacing Sonny Liston whose many brushes with the law are stuff of yore...

I am sure George Bush couldn't discuss with alacrity The Black Hawk War, The Dominican Ivasion. the Battle Of San Juan Hill yet he is the Commander In Chief of the most powerful armed forces the world has ever seen...Ditto for the men to aspire to the job...And I am sure Kevin Rudd couldn't tell you about The Durrani Empire yet he sends young Australian men and women to fight and perhaps die in the moutains of Afghanistan...

You didn't do it but granny did...Pulling the expert card when one is losing an argument is the last refuge of an intellectual coward...These threads are replete with instances where I specifically challenged granberry on key points and he could not or would not respond...Even other posters noted his refusal to engage...It's not the stuff that Granny doesn't know that troubles me...It's the stuff he does...Hell, the old coot still thinks I am collins....

I am still waiting for him to inform us how young Cassus Clay/Muhammad Ali "ran from Floyd Patterson" on his way to a twelve round knock out/technical knock out where he had Patterson on the canvass twice and won the lion's share of the rounds...

I have a better chance of securing a menage a trois with Halle Berry and Nicole Kidman than I do in receiving a satisfactory answer to my query...

Granny is going on and on, crying like a school girl ,over Muhammad Ali's verbal abuse of Joe Frazier...I have said Ali's behavior in that instance was shameful, ignorant, and regrettable...And that Ali has offered a fulsome apology....Granny refuses to acknowledge it and denie he made one...

All the obscurantist tactics in the world can not shild Granny from the truth..."He can run but he can't hide."


*If you ever get to visit the States, South Carolina is a beautiful state that is full of history...It's where the Civil War started....Ft. Sumter...You can access it by ferry...It also has Charleston with its beautiful antebellum architecture...Hilton Head is nice too...

As I said I lived in that era, in America, and was a voracious reader...I didn't need Tom Hauser, Jack Newfield, Joyce Carol Oates or Norman Mailer to tell me Muhammad Ali was cool anymore than I needed Taylor Branch to tell me that Martin Luther King was a great civil rights leader...

Did you guys read "Facing Ali"...It 's a book about/and with interviews of Ali'smost memorable not so memorable fights...One can not walk away from the book without being moved by how fondly he is remembered by most of his former adversaries...

It has great anecdotes...Before the Ali fight Chuck Wepner brought his wife a sexy negligee and told her she would be sleeping with the champ...She asked him if she would be sleeping with Ali.... Wepner went on to say that Ali wanted him to call him the n-word to build up the gate...Wepner said "Champ, I can't do that...I have many black friends"....When Ali slipped or was knocked down in the ninth round . Wepner said to his manager, Al Braverman-"I think we got him now"-Braverman said 'you better turn around-he just got up and he looked pissed"

Or how Jean Piere Coopman said while he didn't take a dive he didn't get up after one knockdown because he thought it was pointless to continue the punishment...

Great, great read....


Back to Granny- Yeah, his homophobic remarks belong to another century....Being gay certainly didn't prevent Emile Griffith from putting a hurtin on people... I am ashamed that I got caught up in it but his cooing over athletic young men with muscular, hairless backs was a target I unfortunately could not ignore...

Terry D wrote:Wasn't Coopman the last fight in which he predicted a round? This time by writing it on the inside of his glove, which was auctioned after the fight?

Heard the tale about Wepner's wife. He was a bit of a ladies man by all accounts.

Bugner really liked Ali but he didn't seem to like the fight game nor respect other European fighters...He detested Cooper...I'd have to go back and see why...When the "old" Ali goes to visit Karl Mildenberger he pretends to make a pass at his wife...

Too bad Sonny is gone....He would have made a great interview....His death was tragic and pointless...

It's a great book...Unfortunately, Joe was still bitter...The author, Stephen Brunt, is relatively light skinned like Ali...Frazier tells him Ali was light skinned like you...That's not Ali's fault or the author's fault...That's the legacy of slavery...Who cares? The goal is to make color obsolete anyway...


I don't remember him predicting a round v Coopman... See, some of this stuff I remember because I lived through it...The last time I remember him predicting a round was after he had his jaw broke by Norton...In an article in Sports Illustrated he said he would stop Norton in 4, Frazier in 6 and Foreman in 13....He was not particularly close...Gawd, if there wan an internet then I would have been a truant...I would have spent my days jabbering about Ali...As it was I did it with most of my friends...We were pretty much divided...There were some who loved Ali and some who loved Smokin Joe and Big George though he really wasn't known by it then... As a ten year old I bet sixteen dollars that I didn't really have with some of my friends that Ali would beat Big George...

TheOneIsHere2008 wrote:

kikibalt wrote:

Thank you, my friend...

There are some iconic images, in order, from my memory that decreases with age:

1) Ali standing over a fallen Liston

2) Ali , Robinson, and Louis

3) Ali with Malcom X

4) The popular poster of Ali in red trunks in the late sixties/early seventies where he signs it Peace, Muhammad Ali...

5) Standing as Foreman is about to fall

6) Lighting the Olympic Torch


There are some awesome images in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7o30NHF ... re=related

and this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbCZc52r ... re=related

It might not make sense to my British friends but I have my own pantheon of sports heroes- Wille Mays, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, and Bill Russell...

My fiancee is from the Philippines.... ...She's a big fan of Pac Man ...He's a source of national pride... I gave her a lot of hints of what I want for my birthday and I think I'm getting an autographed photo of Ali standing over Liston...That photo is behind the desk in Barack Obama's Senate office....

Thanks for these. My favourite is the photo by Neil Leifer of when Clay KO'd Williams in 65 in Houston. I asked Neil how much a print was but baulked at the price ($1250). I found an autographed version of it (Ali, not Leifer) but it was sold before I could get it.

Spent the last two years trying to find the bloody thing to no avail. I may just settle for the G.O.A.T. book when I go to Caeser's next week. No idea how I'll get it shipped over.

Terry D wrote:

TheOneIsHere2008 wrote:

Terry D wrote:Wasn't Coopman the last fight in which he predicted a round? This time by writing it on the inside of his glove, which was auctioned after the fight?

Heard the tale about Wepner's wife. He was a bit of a ladies man by all accounts.

It's a great book...Unfortunately, Joe was still bitter...The author, Stephen Brunt, is relatively light skinned like Ali...Frazier tells him Ali was light skinned like you...That's not Ali's fault or the author's fault...That's the legacy of slavery...Who cares? The goal is to make color obsolete anyway...


I don't remember him predicting a round v Coopman... See, some of this stuff I remember because I lived through it...The last time I remember him predicting a round was after he had his jaw broke by Norton...In an article in Sports Illustrated he said he would stop Norton in 4, Frazier in 6 and Foreman in 13....He was not particularly close...Gawd, if there wan an internet then I would have been a truant...I would have spent my days jabbering about Ali...As it was I did it with most of my friends...We were pretty much divided...There were some who loved Ali and some who loved Smokin Joe and Big George though he really wasn't known by it then... As a ten year old I bet sixteen dollars that I didn't really have with some of my friends that Ali would beat Big George...

I think the Coopman fight, or one of those lesser ones, he predicted a 5th round win and prevailed, cannot recall the Coopman result off the top of my head. The manner of prediction was not verbal, he wrote it in his glove and passed it on after the fight.

Most likely a myth but you never know. I was born in 1979 so no chance for me to get into the pre-fight Ali atmosphere, although I pissed myself slightly the first time I got their first fight on tape.

I shall go back and read the Coopman interview...Did you read David Remick's "King Of The World" or Budd Schulberg's "Loser And Still Champion" which was written in the aftermath of Ali's loss to Frazier?

My youth was filled with Ali, Dr. King, The Beatles, The Stones, The Viet Nam War, and Muhammad Ali...

Terry D wrote:'King of the World' was shit. I'll get grief for this but Hauser is the daddy. Verbal history and bio at the same time. Still the best Ali read.

You should read Schulberg's book as it was written in 1971 before the "Ali Industry" that granberry waxes so eqloquently about really took off...

Terry D wrote:

TheOneIsHere2008 wrote:

Terry D wrote:Wasn't Coopman the last fight in which he predicted a round? This time by writing it on the inside of his glove, which was auctioned after the fight?

Heard the tale about Wepner's wife. He was a bit of a ladies man by all accounts.

It's a great book...Unfortunately, Joe was still bitter...The author, Stephen Brunt, is relatively light skinned like Ali...Frazier tells him Ali was light skinned like you...That's not Ali's fault or the author's fault...That's the legacy of slavery...Who cares? The goal is to make color obsolete anyway...


I don't remember him predicting a round v Coopman... See, some of this stuff I remember because I lived through it...The last time I remember him predicting a round was after he had his jaw broke by Norton...In an article in Sports Illustrated he said he would stop Norton in 4, Frazier in 6 and Foreman in 13....He was not particularly close...Gawd, if there wan an internet then I would have been a truant...I would have spent my days jabbering about Ali...As it was I did it with most of my friends...We were pretty much divided...There were some who loved Ali and some who loved Smokin Joe and Big George though he really wasn't known by it then... As a ten year old I bet sixteen dollars that I didn't really have with some of my friends that Ali would beat Big George...

I think the Coopman fight, or one of those lesser ones, he predicted a 5th round win and prevailed, cannot recall the Coopman result off the top of my head. The manner of prediction was not verbal, he wrote it in his glove and passed it on after the fight.

Most likely a myth but you never know. I was born in 1979 so no chance for me to get into the pre-fight Ali atmosphere, although I pissed myself slightly the first time I got their first fight on tape.

It was the Richard Dunn fight, I remember reading that Mickey Duff had asked for the gloves for a benefit night for Chris Finnegan, and Ali had written 'Ali wins' in one glove and 'KO round 5' in the other.

Terry D wrote:Cheers, that's the one. Could not be bothered checking records. Pretty bold move for the old man.

Indeed, but if he could do it to anybody in that period it would have been poor old Dunn. Though it was fun while it lasted.

Flump wrote:

Terry D wrote:Cheers, that's the one. Could not be bothered checking records. Pretty bold move for the old man.

Indeed, but if he could do it to anybody in that period it would have been poor old Dunn. Though it was fun while it lasted.

The Dunn fight come after the Young fight where Ali weighed 230 pounds and was ridiculously out of shape...He called his lieing on the ropes and wiggling his butt the "rolling fanny" move...

Dunn was the last fella Ali knocked out...That's when he unveiled his bolo punch or "wind up" punch that he said Kid Gavillan taught him...I still to this day can't see how a boxer can hit with it... I saw three boxers hit with it, Dunn, Duran, and the third I won't mention out of defrence to my friend Terry D...