NY TIMES SETTLES ALI-LISTON II QUESTION
Posted: 18 Mar 2008, 14:48
I am happy to see that the NEW YORK TIMES (with the help of a woman writer for the VILLAGE VOICE) has settled with finality the question of the legitimacy of the second Ali-Liston "fight."
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Sonny Liston: He Never Knew What Hit Him
NY TIMES By ALLEN BARRA: May 21, 2000
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9669C8B63
AMERICANS love a conspiracy theory, whether it concerns the murder of a president or the defeat of a boxer. And so it is that Muhammad Ali, who easily dispatched Sonny Liston in the ring, may never beat him in the arena of popular mythology and public opinion. There, Liston may forever be bobbing and weaving, held up by the famous ''phantom punch'' that floored him in their heavyweight championship fight in 1965.
The myth of that punch in the second fight between the men not only refuses to die, it's making a comeback just in time for the 35th anniversary of the bout, May 25. Nick Tosches's new book, ''The Devil and Sonny Liston'' (Little, Brown) and a coming biographical movie starring Ving Raymes are reviving old theories that the Mob or the Black Muslims or someone besides Ali knocked out Liston.
It is hard to recall at this distance the hold these two fighters held over the popular imagination, even among those who had no interest in boxing. Among the fight crowd, no heavyweight since Joe Louis in his early 20's carried such an aura of invincibility as Liston. He stood 6 feet 1 inches and weighed about 215 pounds, big in an era of small heavyweights. But with his 15-inch fists, 17 1/2-inch neck and menacing scowl, he appeared bigger and more terrifying than the tape indicated.
Liston also had a well-deserved reputation for violence. He had learned to box in prison and had been an arm breaker for the St. Louis mob, which controlled his career. Blinkie Palermo, who controlled much of big-time boxing in the 1950's, was one of Liston's patrons, and a man with ties to ''Murder, Incorporated.''
Liston seemed to cow his opponents even before they stepped into the ring. Floyd Patterson, from whom Liston took the heavyweight belt, appeared almost paralyzed by fear. And Liston's punching power, particularly a paralyzing left hook to the body, was awesome. He could also take a punch, having once fought almost an entire fight with a broken jaw.
By contrast, in 1964, at the time of the first fight, Cassius Clay, as Ali was then known, was viewed by the boxing establishment as little more than a sideshow freak. Screaming ''I am so pretty!'' and spouting rhymes that predicted when he would knock out his opponents were not how tough guys were supposed to behave. Given his youth (22 at the time) and his unorthodox style, which included holding his hands at his sides and leaning away from punches, most boxing writers thought the only question was whether Liston would permanently injure or kill him. This was reflected in the odds at fight time, which were seven to one against Clay.
And then Clay won in what may have been boxing's most shocking upset.
To watch that fight on video today, however, is not to see an upset. Rather, one sees the fastest heavyweight in boxing history battering an overconfident, under-trained and probably over-the-hill champ (Liston's age was listed as anywhere from 29 to 31, but most people believe he was some years older than the latter figure). Liston was badly cut around both eyes (the left eye would require the attention of a plastic surgeon), and was unable to answer the bell for round seven, claiming an injury to his left shoulder. The skeptics initially scoffed, but Alexander Robbins of the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, one of seven physicians to examine Liston, declared, ''There's no doubt in my mind the fight should be stopped.'' In fact, Liston had torn his biceps.
FIFTEEN months later the men met again in Lewiston, Me., Clay now reborn as Muhammad Ali. As with the first fight, interest in the fight far transcended boxing's usual boundaries. This time however, the odds were just seven to five in favor of Liston.
Just past the first minute of the first round, Ali knocked Liston cold, with a punch that almost nobody saw, even those at ringside. Immediately, there were rumors of a fix -- that Liston had taken a dive. The famous sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, who hated Ali, called the fight a ''swindle of a charade.'' The New York Times ran an editorial predicting that ''a sport as sick as this one surely cannot survive much longer.''
What really happened? The fight was covered both by closed circuit television and by a film camera. The broadcast tape provides no help; the cameras were placed in both fighters' corners, in such a way that the punching action was never clearly seen unless both men were broadside to one of the lenses. The film is only marginally better. It was shot from above the ring and from an angle that completely obscures Ali's right hand and the left side of Liston's jaw as the knockout punch was delivered. Both for what it does and doesn't reveal, this has become boxing's Zapruder film.
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED published a frame-by-frame analysis of the film in its June 7, 1965, issue, concluding that Liston was, in fact, knocked out. In the first panel of a four-shot sequence, Ali is seen pulling back to avoid a Liston jab; in the second, he is planting his weight on his left foot, while throwing a short right hand over Liston's left hand; in the third, the punch is just about to land; in the fourth, Sonny's head is snapped sideways the force of the blow, which actually lifts Liston's left foot -- the one his weight was on -- off the canvas, as can be seen by the shadow under Liston's foot.
Liston doubled the blow's impact by stepping directly into it, and Barbara Long, who covered the fight for The Village Voice and was seated behind Ali's corner, recalled that Liston had reacted, when hit, ''like a man on a bicycle hitting a low-lying branch.''
There is also circumstantial evidence that argues in favor of a knockout. No major crime figure was known to have made big money from betting on Clay in the first fight; and in the second fight, with the odds so close, it would have been impossible to make a killing betting on either man. Nor has any Black Muslim involvement, like a threat against Liston's life, ever been proven.
Jim Murray, perhaps the most respected sportswriter in the country at the time, never doubted what happened. ''What happened?'' he wrote in The Los Angeles Times. ''Well, I'll tell you what happened. Sonny Liston got the hell beat out of him is what happened. This time I was looking for it and I saw it: an old man groping his way into a speedy insolent reckless kid.''
Murray's shot seems right on target, but it's hard to knock out a myth.
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Certainly a relief to have all this settled by the NY TIMES.
___________________________________________________________
Sonny Liston: He Never Knew What Hit Him
NY TIMES By ALLEN BARRA: May 21, 2000
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.h ... A9669C8B63
AMERICANS love a conspiracy theory, whether it concerns the murder of a president or the defeat of a boxer. And so it is that Muhammad Ali, who easily dispatched Sonny Liston in the ring, may never beat him in the arena of popular mythology and public opinion. There, Liston may forever be bobbing and weaving, held up by the famous ''phantom punch'' that floored him in their heavyweight championship fight in 1965.
The myth of that punch in the second fight between the men not only refuses to die, it's making a comeback just in time for the 35th anniversary of the bout, May 25. Nick Tosches's new book, ''The Devil and Sonny Liston'' (Little, Brown) and a coming biographical movie starring Ving Raymes are reviving old theories that the Mob or the Black Muslims or someone besides Ali knocked out Liston.
It is hard to recall at this distance the hold these two fighters held over the popular imagination, even among those who had no interest in boxing. Among the fight crowd, no heavyweight since Joe Louis in his early 20's carried such an aura of invincibility as Liston. He stood 6 feet 1 inches and weighed about 215 pounds, big in an era of small heavyweights. But with his 15-inch fists, 17 1/2-inch neck and menacing scowl, he appeared bigger and more terrifying than the tape indicated.
Liston also had a well-deserved reputation for violence. He had learned to box in prison and had been an arm breaker for the St. Louis mob, which controlled his career. Blinkie Palermo, who controlled much of big-time boxing in the 1950's, was one of Liston's patrons, and a man with ties to ''Murder, Incorporated.''
Liston seemed to cow his opponents even before they stepped into the ring. Floyd Patterson, from whom Liston took the heavyweight belt, appeared almost paralyzed by fear. And Liston's punching power, particularly a paralyzing left hook to the body, was awesome. He could also take a punch, having once fought almost an entire fight with a broken jaw.
By contrast, in 1964, at the time of the first fight, Cassius Clay, as Ali was then known, was viewed by the boxing establishment as little more than a sideshow freak. Screaming ''I am so pretty!'' and spouting rhymes that predicted when he would knock out his opponents were not how tough guys were supposed to behave. Given his youth (22 at the time) and his unorthodox style, which included holding his hands at his sides and leaning away from punches, most boxing writers thought the only question was whether Liston would permanently injure or kill him. This was reflected in the odds at fight time, which were seven to one against Clay.
And then Clay won in what may have been boxing's most shocking upset.
To watch that fight on video today, however, is not to see an upset. Rather, one sees the fastest heavyweight in boxing history battering an overconfident, under-trained and probably over-the-hill champ (Liston's age was listed as anywhere from 29 to 31, but most people believe he was some years older than the latter figure). Liston was badly cut around both eyes (the left eye would require the attention of a plastic surgeon), and was unable to answer the bell for round seven, claiming an injury to his left shoulder. The skeptics initially scoffed, but Alexander Robbins of the Miami Beach Boxing Commission, one of seven physicians to examine Liston, declared, ''There's no doubt in my mind the fight should be stopped.'' In fact, Liston had torn his biceps.
FIFTEEN months later the men met again in Lewiston, Me., Clay now reborn as Muhammad Ali. As with the first fight, interest in the fight far transcended boxing's usual boundaries. This time however, the odds were just seven to five in favor of Liston.
Just past the first minute of the first round, Ali knocked Liston cold, with a punch that almost nobody saw, even those at ringside. Immediately, there were rumors of a fix -- that Liston had taken a dive. The famous sportswriter Jimmy Cannon, who hated Ali, called the fight a ''swindle of a charade.'' The New York Times ran an editorial predicting that ''a sport as sick as this one surely cannot survive much longer.''
What really happened? The fight was covered both by closed circuit television and by a film camera. The broadcast tape provides no help; the cameras were placed in both fighters' corners, in such a way that the punching action was never clearly seen unless both men were broadside to one of the lenses. The film is only marginally better. It was shot from above the ring and from an angle that completely obscures Ali's right hand and the left side of Liston's jaw as the knockout punch was delivered. Both for what it does and doesn't reveal, this has become boxing's Zapruder film.
SPORTS ILLUSTRATED published a frame-by-frame analysis of the film in its June 7, 1965, issue, concluding that Liston was, in fact, knocked out. In the first panel of a four-shot sequence, Ali is seen pulling back to avoid a Liston jab; in the second, he is planting his weight on his left foot, while throwing a short right hand over Liston's left hand; in the third, the punch is just about to land; in the fourth, Sonny's head is snapped sideways the force of the blow, which actually lifts Liston's left foot -- the one his weight was on -- off the canvas, as can be seen by the shadow under Liston's foot.
Liston doubled the blow's impact by stepping directly into it, and Barbara Long, who covered the fight for The Village Voice and was seated behind Ali's corner, recalled that Liston had reacted, when hit, ''like a man on a bicycle hitting a low-lying branch.''
There is also circumstantial evidence that argues in favor of a knockout. No major crime figure was known to have made big money from betting on Clay in the first fight; and in the second fight, with the odds so close, it would have been impossible to make a killing betting on either man. Nor has any Black Muslim involvement, like a threat against Liston's life, ever been proven.
Jim Murray, perhaps the most respected sportswriter in the country at the time, never doubted what happened. ''What happened?'' he wrote in The Los Angeles Times. ''Well, I'll tell you what happened. Sonny Liston got the hell beat out of him is what happened. This time I was looking for it and I saw it: an old man groping his way into a speedy insolent reckless kid.''
Murray's shot seems right on target, but it's hard to knock out a myth.
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Certainly a relief to have all this settled by the NY TIMES.
