Muhammad Ali versus Sonny Liston

The two Ali versus Liston fights for boxing's world heavyweight championship were among the most anticipated, watched and controversial fights in the sport's history.

Background

At the time of the first fight in 1964, Liston was the world heavyweight champion, having beaten Floyd Patterson by a first round knockout in September 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. Cooper's manager Jim Wicks said, "We don't even want to meet Liston walking down the same street."http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2006/01/29/soboxx29.xml&sSheet=/sport/2006/01/29/ixothspt.html] Liston was an ex-con with ties to organized crime whose ominous, glowering demeanor was so central to his image that Esquire Magazine caused a controversy by posing him in a Santa Claus hat for its December 1963 cover.

Cassius Clay, on the other hand, was a glib, 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 braggadocio and confidence.

Nevertheless, Clay had been knocked down by journeyman Sonny Banks in 1962 and by the hard-hitting Henry Cooper in 1963. Few observers and fans believed he could beat Liston. Furthermore, the brash Clay was not liked by most reporters. Lester Bromberg's forecast in the New York World-Telegram was typical. Bromberg predicted, "It will last almost the entire first round." The Los Angeles Times' Jim Murray observed, "The only thing at which Clay can beat Liston is reading the dictionary," adding that the faceoff between two unlikeable athletes would be "the most popular fight since Hitler and Stalin--180 million Americans rooting for a double knockout." [http://www.randomhouse.com/highschool/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375702297&view=excerpt Random House for High School Teachers | Catalog | King of the World by David Remnick ] ] The New York Times' regular boxing writer Joe Nichols declined to cover the fight, assuming it would be a mismatch. By fight time, Clay was a seven to one betting underdog.

The television series "I've Got A Secret" did multiple segments about the title fight. Panelists Bill Cullen, Henry Morgan and Betsy Palmer predicted that Liston would win in the third, second, and first rounds, respectively. Host Garry Moore was even more pessimistic about Clay's chances, estimating a Liston Knockout "in the very early moments of round one," adding, "if I were Cassius, I would catch a cab and leave town". Actor Hal March went a step further: "I think the fight will end in the dressing room. I think [Clay] is going to faint before he comes out."

The night before the first fight, on February 24, 1964, the show featured Clay and Liston's sparring partners as guests. Harvey Jones and Jesse Bowdry appearance on CBS' "I've Got a Secret", February 24, 1964. Rebroadcast on Game Show Network on March 24, 2008.] Harvey Jones brought with him a lengthy rhyming boast from Cassius Clay:Quotation|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

Jesse Bowdry brought a much terser written message from Sonny Liston:Quotation|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

The following week, "I've Got a Secret" brought on two sportswriters, whose secret was that they had been the only writers to correctly predict Clay's victory.

During training, Clay took to driving his entourage in a bus over to the site where Liston was training, and repeatedly called Liston the "big, ugly bear". Liston grew increasingly irritated as the motormouthed Clay continued hurling insults ("After the fight I'm gonna build myself a pretty home and use him as a bearskin rug. Liston even smells like a bear. I'm gonna give him to the local zoo after I whup him... if Sonny Liston whups me, I'll kiss his feet in the ring, crawl out of the ring on my knees, tell him he's the greatest, and catch the next jet out of the country."). Clay insisted to a skeptical press that he would knock out Liston in eight rounds.

Clay's outbursts continued at the pre-fight physical the day before the event. Clay worked himself into such a frenzy that his heartrate registered an astonishing 120 beats per minute. Many observers took this to mean that Clay was either terrified or not in the proper shape. However, Clay's heartrate was back to normal by the official weigh-in.

The first fight

Infobox Boxingmatch
fight date=February 25, 1964
Fight Name=Ali vs. Liston
fighter1=Cassius Clay
nickname1=Louisville Lip
record1=19-0 KO 5
hometown1=Louisville, Kentucky
recognition1=None
fighter2=Sonny Liston
nickname2=The Big Bear
record2=36-2
hometown2=Sand Slough, Arkansas
recognition2=WBA/WBC Heavyweight Champion
titles=WBA/WBC Heavyweight Champion

Liston's title defense against Clay was held on February 25, 1964, in Miami Beach, Florida. The fight began with Clay showing a lot of movement, using a fast, effective jab and quick flurries of combinations. This made it difficult for Liston to score with his slower armspeed and heavy punches. In the third round, Clay opened up his attack and hit Liston with several combinations, causing 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, Clay 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. 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. By the sixth his sight had cleared, and he resumed control of the fight, landing combinations of punches 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 all along. In a scene that has been rebroadcast countless times over the ensuing decades, Clay repeatedly yelled "I'm the greatest!" and "I shook up the world!" The day after the fight, Clay announced that he was changing his name to Muhammad Ali.

The second bout

Infobox Boxingmatch
fight date=May 25, 1965
Fight Name=Ali vs. Liston
fighter1=Muhammad Ali
nickname1=Louisville Lip
record1=20-0 KO 6
hometown1=Louisville, Kentucky
recognition1=WBA/WBC Heavyweight Champion
titles=WBC Heavyweight Champion
fighter2=Sonny Liston
nickname2=The Big Bear
record2=36-2
hometown2=Sand Slough, Arkansas
recognition2=WBA/WBC Heavyweight ChampionBecause of the unexpected ending of the first bout, boxing authorities ordered a rematch, this time with Liston as challenger. Originally scheduled for Boston, Massachusetts in November 1964, the fight was postponed six months when Ali needed emergency surgery for a strangulated hernia. However, since the promoters did not have a license in Massachusetts, the fight eventually was moved to a small auditorium in Lewiston, Maine, the state's second largest city. Due to the remote location (140 miles north of Boston), only 2,434 fans were present, setting the all-time record for the lowest attendance for a heavyweight championship fight.

The ending of the second fight remains one of the most controversial in boxing 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, appeared confused after Ali refused to reatreat to a neutral corner. Instead, Ali stood over his fallen opponent, gesturing and yelling at him to get up. The moment was captured by ringside photographer Neil Leifer, and has become one of the iconic images of sport. Ali then posed over him, with his fists in the air celebrating the knockdown.

While Walcott tried to sort out the situation, 20 seconds passed, and by then Liston had gotten to his feet and resumed boxing. Nat Fleischer, publisher of "The Ring", finally alerted 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," so named because most people at ringside did not see it. 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, ending the contest.) However, whether the blow was a genuine knockout punch remains inconclusive. [Andrew Vachss, [http://vachss.com/books/only_child.html "Only Child,"] p.89, Vintage, 2003. Vachss further explains the way such a fix would have been engineered in [http://twotrainsrunning.com "Two Trains Running,"] pp.160-165, 233, Pantheon, 2005.]

There were claims that Liston had bet against himself and "took a dive" because he owed money to the Mafia. Others believe that he feared for his safety from Nation of Islam extremists who supported Ali. The latter theory was supported by Mark Kram's book "Ghosts of Manila," which included an interview with Liston conducted years after the fight. Liston claimed to have intentionally lost because of his fear of retaliation from the Black Muslims. No independent substantiation of this claim has come to light.

References

Further reading

*"Black is Best: The Riddle of Cassius Clay," by Jack Olsen (1967).

External links