Here you go @Dark Lord Al I think this deserves a thread of its own.
When Ali was due to fight Liston he was a big underdog. Amongst other things he was seen as having a weak chin. He was dropped by small 190lb Sonny Banks and even smaller 180lb Cooper who nearly knocked him cold. He was then seen as being gifted a decision against Doug Jones who also hurt him.
What Ali had was movement and combination punching and it was too much for Liston to deal with as will Furys over Klitschko but at the time it was ridiculous to even suggest Ali would beat the monster Liston.
Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston I: 50 Years Later - Ring TV
Of 58 sportswriters polled before the fight, 55 picked Liston to win and the vast majority thought he'd end matters quickly. In retrospect it's difficult to believe Clay was such a profound underdog but at the time several compelling reasons fueled their opinions.
First, Liston was a textbook fighter with a complete arsenal of deadly punches while Clay broke every imaginable rule of boxing fundamentals. He kept his hands too low. He leaned away from punches instead of slipping them. He never punched to the body. He knew nothing about fighting in the trenches. His hook and uppercut – which he used rarely – were average at best.
Second, Clay had a questionable chin. He suffered a flash knockdown against Sonny Banks and was nearly knocked senseless by Henry Cooper in his most recent fight eight months earlier. The punch that floored Clay both times: The left hook. And what was Liston's best punch? The left hook.
Third, despite the 14 knockouts in his 19-0 record and the fact that he had stopped 10 of his last 11 opponents, Clay didn't appear to have the one-punch power to earn Liston's respect.
Finally, the experts thought the 22-year-old Clay was mentally unstable and lacked the maturity to be world heavyweight champion. Those criticisms seemingly were confirmed the morning of the fight when Clay instigated the most chaotic weigh-in ceremony the boxing world had ever seen.
Cassius Clay vs. Doug Jones - BoxRec
The Associated Press - March 14, 1963:
The spindly-legged New Yorker gave Cassius Clay quick notice that he had no intention of falling quickly. Early in the first round, he caught Cassius with a hard right to the jaw that shook the cocky one all over. Clay had just leaned his head back and Jones came through with a right. Jones also rocked Clay in the fourth and seventh rounds, and at times made the tall, handsome youngster look like a novice
