Ali v Liston

[Master]

Bank holiday watching Patterson v Liston v Ali which was interesting.

In the second Patterson v Liston fight, Floyd was only a cruiser weight against Liston's 15+ stone wight. Ali also came into the ring and acknowledged Patterson but walked away before he should have gone to Liston and was playing up to the crowd. Even after the fight Ali was saying he would beat the ugly bear and that the fight was a disgrace.

I like the way they introduced fighters to come into the ring like Louis, Rocky and the great Sugar Ray Robinson, who looked the coolest man on the planet. Even Ali bowed down to him

During Ali v Liston, the 3rd was awesome, Clay backing up and stunning Liston causing a welt under Sonny's eye. He also came back in the round and gave it his all, slowing down Ali, who took big body shots.

In the 5th Ali could not see and it was all Listons round as Ali was surviving, Liston could not land the bombs to finish Ali.

[Cressa121]

I've always wondered what would have happened had Ali and Liston had their rematch in late '64 when it was originally scheduled. By all accounts Liston trained harder than he had in years for that rematch only for Ali to need a hernia operation in the weeks leading up. It got rescheduled for the May and Liston couldn't motivate himself to train that hard for a 2nd time, particularly at his age. I still think Ali would have won, but I don't think it'd have gone down the way it did when they actually had their rematch

[Master]

Yes heard the same thing, Ali really must have pushed his training to get a hernia.

Foreman was cut and had his fight delayed with Ali, that may have helped Ali get in better condition in Zaire.

[marbleheadmaui]

Nice post. I too think they oughtta bring champions who are in the building into the ring before the main event. I'd also like to see fighters glove up in the ring after the actual oppoenent has examined the wraps. Those two things could happen at the same time.

There continues to be talk about the first fight being fixed. I've watched that fight a dozen times and I just don't see it. Liston was all marked up and he was throwing bombs while Ali was blind. He was just in there with an athlete from another planet.

Poor Floyd. He couldda fought Sonny a hundred times and never made it out of the third round.

[generalbulldog]

Ali and Liston was when the modern 200+ pound HW era started and Floyd was the last HW champ to be under 200 pounds. In other words this was just the changing of the guard. Or should I say HW?

[greynotsoold]

Floyd was the second, or maybe third, worst hW champ of all time, ahead of only Johannsson for sure. Maybe he was better than Marvin Hart (lost to Burns), but I don't know much about him.

[marbleheadmaui]

Ali and Liston was when the modern 200+ pound HW era started and Floyd was the last HW champ to be under 200 pounds. In other words this was just the changing of the guard. Or should I say HW?

He wasn't just short, his reach was only like 70 inches.