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Sonny Liston vs Clay/Ali first fight, Liston's injury?

Posted: 15 May 2009, 16:14
by streak
Now, a lot has been said about how this fight was fixed, Liston threw it, however, I have my doubts. I watched the fight not so long ago, and the first thing that struck me was how close the fight was. The fight was stopped in the 7th, Liston claiming an arm injury, which many felt, and still feel was false. Messing around on the Internet (bored at work) I managed to find the following document
http://www.africanafrican.com/negroarti ... part03.pdf

FBI files on Liston, and newspaper articles, makes some interesting reading there. From that, I'd say the first fight was probably not a fix as many claim...

Your thoughts, and apologies in advance if this has already been done, or I am stating something obvious!

Re: Sonny Liston vs Clay/Ali first fight, Liston's injury?

Posted: 16 May 2009, 19:06
by BoxBuzz
That was a great blast from the past! Not sure I learned a lot since I never for a moment thought that either fight was fixed...(though Liston did make an interesting perhaps self serving decision the second time around). It's just a great bunch of info and highly entertaining! Thanks.

Re: Sonny Liston vs Clay/Ali first fight, Liston's injury?

Posted: 16 May 2009, 19:18
by dempseyfire
Liston had a legitimate injury . . .it is annoying that somehow history became re-written so that Liston suddenly made the injury up to quit from his 'beating' . . .it was exactly similar to Vitali's retirement in the Byrd fight. A quit job, but a quit job due to a legitimate injury.

Re: Sonny Liston vs Clay/Ali first fight, Liston's injury?

Posted: 19 May 2009, 03:25
by zojo
There was a piece here a long time ago where people were discussing the chances of Sonny quitting becuase he was embarrassed rather than injured.

One replied: "You try swinging a punch over and over again with all of your force and simply hitting air and see if you don't get injured"

I thought that was a good point.